I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree: A Memoir Of A Schindler's List Survivor (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Title: I Will Plant You a Lilac TreeAuthor: Laura HillmanStudent: Deziree Bryant I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is about the life of a young girl, Hannelore, and her family. Hannelore’s family consisted of Hannelore, her mother and father, and her brothers, Wolfgang and Selly. The book took place during the time of the persecution of the Jews by Hitler and the German soldiers. Hannelore Wolf is a young girl who was living a hard life. The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis had separated Hannelore from her family. She had to endure harsh weather conditions, having no food to eat, nothing to drink, beatings and the possibility of death. In fact, Hannelore suffered the loss and death of her family members. Although horrible things happened in her life, Hannelore was a young person with strong will power. She was determined not to give up. Hannelore learned how to take care of herself and how to protect herself. She was constantly moved from one concentration camp to another concentration camp. Each new camp was worse than the previous one. At each new camp, the living conditions were worse and the German soldiers were meaner. Even with that, Hannelore never gave up and kept struggling to live. The book was very emotional and it made me want to cry. In addition, it was difficult to read about what Hannelore was going through in the labor camps. Besides these horrid moments in the book, i did, however, have some parts of the book that i liked. I liked how through the hard times even when Hannelore felt like giving up, she still did not. She showed that she was a person with a lot of inner strength. I also admired how Hannelore really strived to help others. Although she knew that the German soldiers would discipline her for trying to help others, she still did. Hannelore was a person of good morals and went out of her way to help others. For example, one of the girls in the train car wouldn’t carry a pail with some type of liquid, even though she had been commanded to do so by one of the German soldiers. Afraid of the girl being punished for not carrying the pail, Hannelore took the pail and carried it. Although the stench of the pail was unbearable, Hannelore still carried the pail. There were several things in the book that I did not like. I did not like how the German soldiers only served the Jewish prisoners bread and milk. The portion of food given was not able to sustain most of the Jewish prisoner’s hunger. In addition, I didn’t like how the German soldiers wouldn’t let Hannelore take care of her older brother, Selly, who had been placed in the infirmary for severe damage to his lungs and broken bones. (The next day, Hanelore’s brother was pronounced dead.) The saddest thing about the book is the fact that it is a true story, which is the thing I really did not like. I did not like the fact that something like this had actually happened to people. Overall, I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is a book that I would recommend to older kids. Laura Hillman really knew how to use descriptive words and showed the character’s actions clearly, so that the reader could get a good picture of the story. It was very easy to imagine how Hannelore and the other characters suffered. The book was a diary about Hannelore’s young life, but it also provided information about what life was like for the Jewish people and what they had to go through under the control of the Nazis. Although the book had a sad effect, I felt it was an important and worthwhile book to read.
I come to understand about the author Laura Hillman , that she is a very strong women who likes to stand up for her rights. Hannelore and her 2 brothers , mother and father lived in Weimar Poland but then got deported to Lublin Poland. The conditions in these ghettos were not good. They were unsanitary, unsafe , unwelcoming and diseases filled the place. Hannelore the protagonist and narrator is a young girl around 14 years old who is Jewish and is sent to a holocaust camp along with her two younger brothers and mother. Another main character in this book is Dick Hillman , he is a very good friend of Hannelore , they both work in the same camp. The plot of this book is Hannelore is sent to a Jewish holocaust camp which there she has to work all day with no breaks and very little food along the way she meets friends who try to help her escape but one day her whole life begins to change when she meets a very important man. After Hannelore gets deported and is working her job as burying dead bodies and is suffering and gets no food or water. "I can't prove to you that there is a God , I just know. All this suffering has to have a reason". This means all this work has to lead to something good and God has something instore for me . This is sad because unlike Hannelore , God didn't have something instore for others. Hitler made the Jews think that they were going to get freedom after they worked. I come to understand that WW2 and the Holocaust was an awful time in history and killing innocent people for no reason in wrong and everyone should read this book so they understand how wrong this was and it should never happen again .
What do You think about I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree: A Memoir Of A Schindler's List Survivor (2005)?
First, a disclaimer of sorts: I always hesitate to critique Holocaust memoirs. Who am I to judge or asses the manner of writing such a thing? That the author was brave and strong enough to write it at all says so much - why quibble over details of style or method?That being said, as a reader I am also entitled to an opinion. And I didn't include the above as a prelude for a hack job on this book. My used copy indicates that a library somewhere classified it as YA, with which I disagree - although perhaps that is due to the very young age at which I read the things in my school library which were classified by those letters. This is not a book for young children. I felt that Mrs. Hillman did much more telling us than making us feel, but there is no doubt in my mind that that is due in no small part to the nature of her experience. This is not a book for someone looking for new details about being a Schindler list survivor. Mrs. Hillman and her husband were late additions to the list and at least within this book she never fully understands why they were added. She spent little time under Schindler's protection, but was one of the 300 women he managed to get out of Auschwitz and brought to the relative safety of his Brinnlitz factory camp. That being said, she does not seem to have ever felt safe at Brinnlitz (of course given what she had already been through that isn't surprising at all, but part of it must also be attributed to her lack of previous experience with Schindler.)A quick read, and a worthwhile one for anyone who reads Holocaust memoirs.
—Deena
I found this book in the teen section of my local library, and while it may well be directed towards them, I think adults should read it as well. Hannelore Wolff, was at her school in Berlin during the spring of 1942, when she received a letter from her mother telling her her papa was dead, and that her mother and brothers were being deported east. Her mother advised her to stay where she was and to take care of herself. Hannelore made the decision that she would go home and be deported with her family.She survives life in 8 different labor and concentration camps, met and fell in love with a Polish POW named Dick Hillman. Their only hope of survival was that a man named Oskar Schindler, had a plan to take 1100 Jews to work in his new factory in Czechoslovakia. Hannelore and Dick both ended up on that list, but getting to the factory wasn't easy. At one point, Hannelore found herself at Auschwitz, in a line headed toward the crematorium, but with a quick decision on her part, she saved herself.
—Debbie
Laura Hillman‘s I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a Schindler’s List Survivor is one of those unforgettable first-hand account of the Second World War.The memoir begins with the period when the writer was still in boarding school in Berlin. She writes, Since Hitler had come to power, it was dangerous for Jews to walk on public streets.Few days later, she received the news of her father’s death, to be followed by her family’s deportation to the concentration camps. In spite of the danger in the camps, Laura “Hannelore” Wolff writes to the Nazis and expressed her intent to be deported with her family. Together, they had to endure the persection by the Nazis.In this memoir, Laura vividly told of her personal experiences of the holocaust and all the terrors that she and her family had to go through. It was emotional and heartbreaking. Apart from being a story of suffering and persecution, I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is also a tale of hope and triumph. Amidst their darkest days, she found love in Polish POW Dick Hillman. Their love endured when Oskar Schindler began saving eleven hundred Jews who were to be taken to safety in his new factory in Czechoslovakia.But survival was never easy. In the end, Laura found herself alone outside the gates of Auschwitz.The lilacs became the symbol that will always remind her of the love she found in one of history’s most brutal times. It holds the promise that love, like lilacs in bloom, shall triumph in the end.http://flipthrough.wordpress.com/2010...
—Em
