1) 

        Good- Bye Marianne by Irene N.Watts 

        Tundra Books, 1998 

        McClelland & Stewart Young Readers 

 

Review by Louise Sorensen: 



I was sitting in the Vancouver-Seattle bus and the tears were rolling 

down my cheeks. I had reached Chapter 19 where Marianne is reading her 

mother's farewell letter. 



Born in Berlin, Irene Kirstein Watts was sent by Kindertransport to 

England when she was seven and one-half-years old. "Good-Bye Marianne" is based 

on her story.

 

This beautifully written book is intended for young readers and will 

provide an understanding of the Nazi period in Germany immediately 

before the outbreak of WWII.  The persecution of German Jews had already 

reached the point of desperation, culminating in Kristallnacht on November 9, 

1938. Shortly after, in December, the first Kindertransporte left for England. 

 

The book fills a gap in Holocaust literature by relating the story of 

these children who were put on a train, in many cases never to see their 

parents again. Not many books have focused on this particular period. 

Irene Watts wrote a play under the same name, which was published in 

1995. It has been performed by Carousel Theatre, winning a Jesse prize, 

and it has toured extensively inside and outside the province. 

This book takes the story much further and to a greater depth. The 

author manages to gradually build up the dramatic tension toward the 

heartbreaking farewell and the arrival of the children in England. Judging 

by my own reaction, I could say that adults would want to read the story too.  I 

recommend you buy it for your children or grandchildren and read it 

yourself. 

 

2) Goodbye Marianne 

       an award winning play for young audiences 

        by Irene Kirstein-Watts 

        Scirocco Drama 1994 

        J.Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc. 

 

3) The Old Brown Suitcase, 

        A Teenager's Story of War and Peace 

        by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz 

        Ben-Simon Publications 1994 

        Port Angeles, Washington; Brentwood Bay B.C. 

        Foreword by Robert Krell MD 

This book was highly acclaimed in Canada and has won two 

book awards. Documentary fiction, based on Lillian's own story. Her arrival 

in Canada in 1947 as a young teenager, with flashbacks to her life in the Warsaw 

ghetto, escape and subsequent hideout in a Polish village 

 

4) The Garden of Steel 

        Holocaust Poetry by Jagna Boraks (Lillian Nemetz) 

        Ekstasis Editions 1993 

        Victoria B.C. 

 

5) ( Holocaust Research by Robert Krell: note: I as yet have to check 

out title(s) and publisher) 

 

6) Books recently published in Holland (in Dutch): 

 

a) "Oorlogsverslag van een zestienjarig joods meisje" (war report of a 

sixteen year old Jewish girl), by Fia Polak. 

Published by Kolenoe, Amsterdam 1996. 

Fia de Vries Robbe-Polak, who became a noted art historian, survived an 

incredible eleven months in Birkenau and her recollections of that, and 

the preceding period is exceptionally detailed (she already written 

extensive notes shortly after her liberation) and very well written. 

 

b) "Witus en de jaren van angst; Een reconstructie" (Witus and the years 

of Fear, a reconstruction), by Wiktor Eckhaus 

Publisher Bas Lubberhuizen 1997. 

Wiktor, who recently retired as University Professor of Applied 

Mathematics was born in Stanislawow, 1930. He relates his story of survival, hidden 

in Poland. In 1946 he settled in Amsterdam. 

 

7) England: 

I will supply info. about a book by a child survivor from Bergen Belsen 

(Paul Oppenheimer), published recently in England