Review Detail

“One Day: A True Story of Survival in the Holocaust” by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Benjamin Phillips, tells the story of Eugene Handschuh, a Jew in Paris. During the time of the Nazi occupation there, he and his father were taken, in late 1942. When this happened, they knew they were no longer free to fight the Nazis.

After being put in a work camp, they tried to escape with many others by digging a tunnel, but when they were discovered, they were interrogated and told they would be deported. Being put into trucks with 1,200 other Jews, they knew that something bad was going to happen, though they didn’t know about Holocaust as it is remembered at present. Some people were able to escape the train, including Eugene’s father, who eventually found refuge with a non-Jewish family who saved him from harm when they told those who came looking for him that they didn’t know of what they spoke. These brave people could have been killed if they had been found to be harboring Eugene’s father, who was, for all intents and purposes, a fugitive in the eyes of the Nazis.

Eugene and his father were lucky enough to eventually find each other again, but there are stories, even to this very day, of people who were and are unable to be reunited with those they love. Prejudice in any form is terrible, and while this book focuses on religious prejudice against Jews, there is far too much going on in this world that is not looked down upon by the masses for unknown reasons. Everyone who stands for what is right in this world must stand up to prejudice in any form as it occurs, lest we end up in the same predicament as before. History must not repeat itself, though it has already begun to do so, and the Holocaust is not as distant a memory as some might choose to believe.