"The anguish of an entire generation" is expressed by five Jewish teenagers whose diaries are excerpted and carefully documented here by Boas, who is a Holocaust survivor. David Rubinowicz (Poland), Yitzak Rudashevski (Lithuania), Moshe Flinker (Holland) Êva Heyman (Hungary) and Anne Frank (Holland) never met each other, nor did they meet Boas. Each teenager found a means of intellectual stimulation, and all remained ethically alive during a time when, for each, hate and bigotry seemed to prevail. They did not known their powerful written testimonies would inform and inspire survivors and later generations. McKissack's moving introduction suggests the chilling consequences of ignoring the types of "race superiority" alive today. (Age 12-adult)

The five diarists in this book did not survive the war. But their words did. Each diary reveals one voice, one teenager coping with the impossible. We see David Rubinowicz struggling against fear and terror. Yitzhak Rudashevski shows us how Jews clung to culture, to learning, and to hope, until there was no hope at all. Moshe Ze'ev Flinker is the voice of religion, constantly seeking answers from God for relentless tragedy. Eva Heyman demonstrates the unquenchable hunger for life that sustained her until the very last moment. And finally, Anne Frank reveals the largest truth they all left for us: Hitler could kill millions, but he could not destroy the human spirit. These stark accounts of how five young people faced the worst of human evil are a testament, and an inspiration, to the best of the human soul.