Kathy Kacer | |
---|---|
Born | 6 September 1954 |
Occupation | Writer and illustrator |
Nationality | Canadian |
Genre | Fiction and nonfiction children's books |
Subject | The Holocaust |
Notable works | Hiding Edith (2006) |
Kathy Kacer (born 6 September 1954) [1] is a Canadian author of fiction and non-fiction for children about The Holocaust, and has written one adult fiction book (Restitution). She has won several awards and her books have been translated into a variety of languages (e.g. Die Kinder aus Theresienstadt ( ISBN 9783473542536), German translation of Clara's War and ちいさな命がくれた勇気 ( ISBN 9784072491072), Japanese translation of The Underground Reporters). As well as writing, she speaks to children about the Holocaust, and to educators about teaching sensitive issues to young children. [1] [2]
Both Kacer's Jewish parents, Gabriela (née Offenberg) and Arthur Kacer, [3] were Holocaust survivors, [4] her father having been in a concentration camp and her mother living in hiding. Kacer was born in Toronto, where she still lives, and is married to a lawyer, Ian Epstein. They have two children, Broadway talent Gabi Epstein and actor and singer Jake Epstein. Kacer has a master's degree in psychology and worked with troubled teenagers before becoming a full-time writer in 1998.
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the German authorities within the new General Government territory of occupied Poland. At its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), with an average of 9.2 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations. From the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during Großaktion Warschau under the guise of "resettlement in the East" over the course of the summer. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of starvation and related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the ghetto.
Otto Heinrich Frank was a German businessman who later became a resident of the Netherlands and Switzerland. He was the father of Anne and Margot Frank and husband of Edith Frank, and was the sole member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He inherited Anne's manuscripts after her death, arranged for the publication of her diary as "Het Achterhuis" in 1947, and oversaw its adaptation to both theater and film.
Carol Matas is a Canadian writer. She has had more than forty-three books for young people published over several decades, including science fiction, fantasy, historical, contemporary, realistic fiction, historical fiction and foods science. Her novels often reflect a Jewish perspective, and her best-known are set during the Holocaust. Her books have been highly honored, including having been shortlisted for the Governor General's Awards twice.
Irena Stanisława Sendler (née Krzyżanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerreJolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews.
Annelies MarieFrank was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary in which she documented life in hiding under Nazi persecution. She is a celebrated diarist who described everyday life from her family hiding place in an Amsterdam attic. One of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
Donna Jo Napoli is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, as well as a linguist. She currently is a professor at Swarthmore College teaching Linguistics in all different forms .She has also taught linguistics at Smith College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Pennsylvania,
Jacob Lee Epstein is a Canadian actor and singer. He played Craig Manning, a musician with bipolar disorder, on Degrassi: The Next Generation. He also played Will in the First National Tour of American Idiot, and originated the role of Gerry Goffin in the Broadway production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto. Situated in the city of Łódź, and originally intended as a preliminary step upon a more extensive plan of creating the Judenfrei province of Warthegau, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, manufacturing war supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the Wehrmacht. The number of people incarcerated in it was increased further by the Jews deported from Nazi-controlled territories.
Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, and her older sister Margot. After the family were discovered in hiding in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were shot at the Ninth Fort. About 500 Jews escaped from work details and directly from the ghetto, and joined Jewish & Soviet partisan forces in the distant forests of southeast Lithuania and Belarus.
Rut "Rutka" Laskier was a Jewish Polish diarist who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling the three months of her life during the Holocaust in Poland. She was murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at the age of fourteen. Her manuscript, authenticated by Holocaust scholars and survivors, was published in the Polish language in early 2006. English and Hebrew translations were released the following year. It has been compared to the diary of Anne Frank.
Once is a 2005 children's novel by Australian author Morris Gleitzman. It is about a Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland and is on a quest to find his book-keeper parents after he sees Nazis burning the books from a Catholic orphanage in which had stayed at for 3 years and 8 months. He finds a girl, who is unconscious, called Zelda in a burning house with her dead parents—he takes her with him and protects her from confronting her parents' death by telling her stories. Although Once is a work of fiction, Gleitzman was inspired by the story of Janusz Korczak, the events of World War II, and Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.
Second Story Press is a book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its titles include the international bestseller Hana's Suitcase, about Hana Brady, which has been published in over forty countries around the world. The company is concerned with feminism, focusing on books featuring strong female characters and exploring themes of social justice, human rights, and ability issues.
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi Germany-organized Holocaust in Poland. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, Jews were rescued from the Holocaust by Polish people, at risk to their lives and the lives of their families. According to Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons identified as rescuing Jews during the Holocaust. By January 2022, 7,232 people in Poland have been recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations.
Brenda Chapman is a Canadian writer of mystery novels. Her Jennifer Bannon mysteries are for ages ten and up. She has also published several short stories and murder mysteries. Her Stonechild and Rouleau Mystery Series feature the damaged, brilliant detective Kala Stonechild and workaholic staff sergeant Jacques Rouleau.
The Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards were a Canadian program of literary awards, managed, produced and presented annually by the Koffler Centre of the Arts to works judged to be the year's best works of literature by Jewish Canadian writers or on Jewish cultural and historical topics.
Hiding Edith is a 2008 non-fiction children's book written by Kathy Kacer and published by Second Story Press. A French translation was published by Flammarion as Le Secret d'Edith.
The question of how much Germans knew about the Holocaust while it was ongoing continues to be debated by historians. With regard to Nazi Germany, some historians argue that it was an open secret amongst the population, whilst others highlight a possibility that the German population were genuinely unaware of the Final Solution. Peter Longerich argues that the Holocaust was an "open secret" by early 1943, but some authors place it even earlier. However, after the war, many Germans claimed that they were ignorant of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, often using the stereotypical phrase "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst".
Molly Applebaum is a Polish-Canadian Holocaust survivor and diarist. Scholars describe how her diary addressed aspects of surviving the Holocaust that usually went unaddressed.
Rachel Feldhay Brenner was a Polish-born college professor, writer, and scholar of Jewish literature. She was president of the Association for Israel Studies from 2007 to 2009.