If I Should Die Before I Wake (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
Hilary Burke, 16, is an angry girl. She is angry at her mother for not being there for her while she was a child. And she is angry at her father for dying when she was 5. Hilary blames his death on his Jewish boss, believing that he skimped on construction material causing the building her father worked in to collapse. So she is angry at all Jews and has focused it on her Jewish neighbors including their son, Simon Schulmann, for being part of a happy, close family. To deal with all this anger, Hilary joins a group of Neo-Nazis called the Great Warriors. But then, irony of ironies, Hilary is almost fatally injured in a motorcycle crash with her Neo-Nazi boyfriend, Brad, and ends up in a Jewish hospital. Now, unable to speak or move, she is at the mercy of her own mind, and the only thing she can see is the face of an older woman looking at her.Suddenly, in the midst of her angry internal anti-Semitic tirade, Hilary feels herself spinning backwards. When she stops spinning, she finds herself in Nazi-occupied Poland, where her name is Chana Bergman and she is somehow in possession of all of this girl’s memories. She is on her way to school with a best friend, when the two are stopped by Nazis and Hilary/Chana is forced to spend the day washing steps with her own brand new woolen tights. On her way home, she finds her beloved father has been suspended from a tree with his coat by a group of laughing Nazis. It is his punishment for not shoveling a pile of dirt fast enough. Hilary/Chana picks up the shovel and does the job, hoping the Nazis will let her father go, but in the end, they just shoot him to death anyway. Hilary’s memories continue to swing between the past and present. In the present, Hilary continues her hateful rhetoric about Jews, in the past, as Chana, she is on the receiving end of this same hateful rhetoric from the Nazis. And each time she is in the present, she continues to only see the face of the elderly woman looking at her.Slowly, Chana becomes the dominant memory for Hilary. Living at home with her are her grandparents, Bubbe and Zayde, her mother, older brother Jakub, sister Anya, 6, and the baby Nadzia. Rumor has reached the family that the Nazis are rounding up Jews and the family is preparing the give up Nadzia to a non-Jewish family that will protect her. Shortly after Nadzia is gone, the family is rounded up and moved into one room in the Lodz Ghetto. The horrors of the ghetto are sometimes described by Chana in very graphic detail, as are the struggles of the family to stay alive. Sadly, Zadye eventually dies, then Chana’s mother and sister are rounded up for deportation and we never hear about them again. Jakub, who has gotten involved in smuggling people out of the ghetto, eventually helps Chana and Bubbe escape, but Chana is recognized by an old schoolmate, who thinks that turning her in will get her better treatment. Chana and Bubbe are interrogated by the Nazis trying to find out who they got their illegal papers from, but neither one breaks. Eventually, they both end up in Auschwitz. Yes, you do find out who the older woman is that Hilary keeps seeing and the story does have a bit of a surprise ending, which has already been ‘spoiled’ online, but I don’t read any reviews about books until I have finished reading them. Even so, I have to confess, it wasn’t a hard ending to figure out before I was halfway through the book, yet it still doesn’t detract from the story of Chana and the novel’s impact. I found this book to have an interesting premise by adding the Neo-Nazi element. Hilary wasn’t really a Neo-Nazi at heart, but it shows how easily a person can be drawn into something like that when they don’t feel there is anywhere else to turn and they are made to feel important to the cause. Often, it is really no different then the way children were drawn into the Hitler Youth in 1930s Germany. And although this book may feel a little dated since we don’t hear much about Neo-Nazis anymore, but don’t be fooled by that – they are still out there.Some people have compared If I Should Die before I Wake to The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. I have not read this book yet, because I thought the movie was so awful, I was turned off to it, but do plan to read very soon. I suspect the real similarity is the time travel back to Nazi-occupied Poland. All in all, I found this to be a truly worthwhile novel and would highly recommend it, though maybe not to middle grade readers, or even for that matter, to immature YA age readers because of the disturbing, graphic descriptions. If I Should Die before I Wake won the following well-deserved honors: 1995 International Reading Association/Children's Book Council Book Award1995 New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age1999 A YALSA Popular Paperback for Young AdultsThis book is recommended for readers age 13 and up.This novel was purchased for my personal library.
I believe everyone should be treated right like everybody else.this historical fiction book is very sad at a point. It takes place in the civil war time at night and morning because then we know where they are at.Hilary a 16 year old wanted to kill all the Jews alive but she is critically injured in an accident and everything changes. So Hilary has become Chana with a different family. Then she us a Jewish girl fighting for her life in World War ll. the conflict is person vs person because Chana is trying to fight for life in World War ll against other people. I didn't agree with Nazis mistreating Jews because in the book Nazi's always thought violence is the way to fix problems with others. In the story it said they killed Chana's dad because he was complaining that he was tired. I've read once that Nazi's were horrible people to Jews. Also I was surprised when Chana said she will take her dads place in his job because like some people really do care for family while others don't. Also in the book she hated Jews now she thinks she was wrong all along. I love the way she then knew she was wrong. Next my favorite part was when Chana realized how bad Jews suffered because that's a good thing to not just think about yourself. That's also how i felt before because then i noticed how my parents couldn't get me everything i wanted. To me at first i thought Chana was a bad person now i think she is a loving person. Also, when Chana realized that,I was very shocked and thought she would always hate Jews.Then I couldn't understand why Hilary who turns into Chana doesn't like Jews in the first place because she never knew what they went through. In the book it said in the beginning Hilary who changes into Chana said Chana looks at her really weird. I understand she hated them but not why she hated them.That's how i felt until my parents explained to my why they couldn't get me everything i wanted. In conclusion, i would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars because I thought it was a had a good theme of not judging others. I would recommend this book to someone who likes to read about history of the Nazi's and the Jews or has a report on those people. If you feel like you are being treated differently then tell someone how you feel that they are treating you differently. When you do so always remember of how Hilary when the Nazi's treated her family badly.Now you get to know how I feel about the book.
What do You think about If I Should Die Before I Wake (2003)?
I have never written a book review and it probably won't be like others but I have to say, other than The Book Thief, this is the best "holocaust" book I have ever read. I have read tons of these types of books but none of them showed me this level of hatred toward jews. and at the same time showing me such love and compassion. this book has the best examples of both worlds. (nazi and jew) it is so hard to imagine the life of Jewish families being thrown into a ghetto and expected to live basically on top of one another with barely any food and awful horrible living conditions. I felt a few times that this author went a little to far and told too much and made me feel too much and then I caught myself and felt so selfish. these people LIVED this life. they lived it every day. they had their children torn from their arms and had their families murdered in front of them. and it's too much for ME to read? how selfish of me. This book hit home with me because I remembered hearing "history repeats itself" my entire life growing up. now we are seeing so much hatred and genocide towards christians. Jewish people are God's chosen people and christians are "adopted" into that family once they become christians. so with all the Christians being killed simply because they are christians, I would say that yes, history does repeat itself. I've never had a book open my eyes so much. this is a must read, no matter which side of the "ghetto" you are on.
—Allyssa Terry
For some reason, I expected this book to be more about Hillary and less about Chana. I felt a little left out of Hillary’s story, the life of a neo-Nazi. We learn snips of her life, parts of her past, but never really see the whole picture and while I certainly recognize the need to tell Chana’s story of being a Jew during WWII, I felt as if leaving Hillary out of the book so often made her sudden change from hateful to kindhearted a little sudden and somewhat unbelievable. I doubted that someone with that much hate in their heart could simply be shown the life of a person they hate and suddenly repent and heal deep down in their soul.This is not to say that I disliked the book. I enjoyed reading every page and easily found myself within Chana’s life, experiencing her struggles and heartaches. So many things were done in the war and it is important o remember them. IF I Should Die Before I Wake is a good book for remembering all of what happened. It manages to put every stage of life for the Jews into 293 pages, from wearing the star and walking the streets freely to leaving for the ghetto, to finally being in the camps. Inside the camp it shows all the ways of life most people have heard of, the struggle for survival, the fear of the gas chamber, illness and inner strength. The reader also gets to glimpse the selection of workers and the kinds of mostly meaningless jobs they were sent to. One of the most interesting features in the telling of this story was the ability to see how the Germans worked people against each other to bring them down, putting one person against another so that even a friend could betray you. It was something I had rarely experienced in any form of Holocaust retelling and having experienced it now, I am surprised that it could have been left out so often elsewhere. We often see how Germans treated Jews, but not how they made Jews treat each other. It brought another dimension to a very human story of remembrance.
—Mirrani
Have you ever wondered what it was like to live during the Holocaust? The nazi perspective? The Jewish perspective? Well, in the book If I should die before I wake written by Han Nolan you’ll get to read about both. It’s about a young girl named Hilary who is apart of a Nazi youth gang which was introduced to her by Brad, the boy of her dreams who may not have the most positive influence on her. Soon enough Hilary finds herself close to death in a Jewish hospital due to a motorcycle accident that she got into with Brad. She cannot communicate with anyone due to her major injuries from the accident but occasionally she finds herself in these realistic trances which put her in the shoes of Chana, a Jewish girl struggling for her life during the holocaust who is sent to the Lodz ghetto, than a prison and later she is sent to Auschwitz. She encounters torture, loss of family members, and what it is really like to be treated as if you are less than human. It really puts Hilary into the other perspective of what’s going on. In order to understand this story you will need to know about the undesirables, Labor camps, death camps, conditions within the camps, the Nazi party, transportation to the camps, treatment of the Jewish, genocide, scapegoats, medical experiments on the Jewish, ghettos, and rationing. Personally, I loved the book. It continued to keep me on the edge of my seat the entire time and it always made me think outside of the box. However, I would not recommend this book if you do not prefer books that skip around because every other chapter this book has a different perspective. At the beginning this book was a smidge confusing because you’re trying to figure out the setting and organize the names of the different characters because Chana and Hilary both have different characters in their chapters and different settings so it can be a little bit confusing, but once you get used to it and figure out which characters are with which setting I can almost guarantee that you will love the book. I actually got emotionally attached to the main characters and I found myself crying during one of the chapters (I never do that). This is the book I would recommend if you’re up for a challenge. I’m so happy that I chose this book because it really helped me understand the perspectives of both the German side and the Jewish side during WW2. I think that book is very well written for you to understand both sides well once you get the hang of it, although at times it is a bit confusing anyone who is looking for a good read and a strong emotional connection to their book should go to the library and check this book out right away so you can find out if Hilary ever changes her mind on Jewish people after her experience in the shoes of Chana while she’s in the Jewish hospital, or if Chana ever makes it after all of the suffering she went through to survive in Auschwitz, also known as, the most deadly concentration camp that there ever was during that time.
—Jada Smith
