Product Description

She was a young German Jew.

He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth.

This is the story of their parallel journey through World War II.

Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck were born just a few miles from each other in the German Rhineland. But their lives took radically different courses: Helen's to the Auschwitz extermination camp; Alfons to a high rank in the Hitler Youth.

While Helen was hiding in Amsterdam, Alfons was a fanatic believer in Hitler's "master race." While she was crammed in a cattle car bound for the death camp Auschwitz, he was a teenage commander of frontline troops, ready to fight and die for the glory of Hitler and the Fatherland. This book tells both of their stories, side-by-side, in an overwhelming account of the nightmare that was WWII. The riveting stories of these two remarkable people must stand as a powerful lesson to us all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190990 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780689832369
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Ayer juxtaposes the stories of two WWII youths, one a German Jew and the other a Hitler Youth, excerpted from their published memoirs. "Weak execution undermines the premise of the volume," said PW. Ages 10-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up?This is a book to make your blood run cold. Through Ayer's narrative and excerpts from Heck's memoirs, A Child of Hitler and The Burden of Hitler's Legacy, readers learn how Alfons changed from a loving, wholesome boy to a "Nazi devil" (even the Germans called the elite Hitler Youth by that name). It is frightening to see how easily young people can be swayed, and readers learn just how it happened. Alternating chapters reveal Helen Waterford's story through excerpts from her book, Commitment to the Dead, and Ayer's background material. Fleeing with her fiancee to Amsterdam after Kristallnacht, Helen was again caught in the Nazi noose and struggled to survive. As her plight grew more desperate, Alfons rose higher and higher in the Hitler Youth. Eventually, when he and his ragged corps faced annihilation by the Russians, he realized how Hitler had sacrificed his "children." When Alfons and Helen met in the U.S. 40 years after the war, they found that they shared a common purpose: to help young people understand that peace and compassion are possible between individuals, and on a larger scale as well. Their first-person accounts are interwoven with Ayer's words so seamlessly that readers are unaware of the intrusion of a third person. She is an excellent biographer, capturing nuances of her subjects' characters and personality traits. A fascinating work.?Marcia W. Posner, Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, Glen Cove, NY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great Book
This is a great book. It contrasts the views of a Hitler Youth and follower and a Jewish Prisoner very well. If you are interested at all in the Holocaust, this book is a must read. It is filled with interesting and horrifying facts. The author arranged this book well

Parallel Journeys By Eleanor Ayer
Parallel Journeys
By:Eleanor Ayer


This book turned out to be a very good book. The front cover features Adolf Hitler with
thousands of his young supporters hailing him during World War Two. Books about the war
usually depress me so usually I wouldn't read them, but this book appealed to me because of the
faces of two teenagers on the front cover. That lead me to read the back cover which simply
said-He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth. This is a story of the parallel journey through
World War II with Alfons Heck, and Helen Wohlfarth. It compares the two people who had
completely different experiences of the war and to let them tell their stories side by side. It tells
how Helen was treated bad during the war, and how Alfons was training to treat people like
Helen badly and get ready for the war. When I first started reading this book I noticed how
different it was to some of the other novels I have read about the holocaust. It's very chilling to
realize that it is non-fiction. It isn't based on a true story

I learned many things that I didn't know about the Holocaust. I never realized how bad it
was until I read this book. I was surprised to know how young some of the men were while in the
army. It was really sick to know that if they disobeyed an order they could be put to death. For
example, when Alfons thought an order he was given was a mistake and didn't follow it. He was
punished but luckily not killed. After he punished he never disobeyed an order again even if it was
to kill himself. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes war books especially World
War Two books.

Written by: Joe Boggs Madison Middle School

Parallel Journeys

Parallel Journeys, by Eleanor Ayer with Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck, compares the life of two young people in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the outbreak of World War II. They were born within sixty miles of each other, but their lives took dramatically different paths. Alfons, a boy grew up on a farm in Germany, but when Hitler came to power he became involved with the Hitler Youth. He began his training to become the future of Germany and eventually the world. There he learned discipline and order. He trained to become a soldier and he learned the ways of warfare. He was taught to be a follower of anti-Semitism. He was told to hate the Jewish, and that they were the reason for Germany's problems. As years went by, Alfons rose through the ranks of the military. He started as a captain of a couple hundred boys into a major general of a couple thousand that were among the last to surrender. When the Allies finally came into Germany, Alfons, only seventeen, threw out his uniform and became a translator for the Americans who did not know of his past. Eventually the Americans found out and Alfons was ordered to turn himself in. The Americans viewed the Hitler Youth as misguided children and let Alfons go. After thirteen years Alfons moved to America after the memories of the Hitler yeas were forgotten.
Helen Waterford was a young Jewish girl who grew up in Frankfurt, Germany. She married Siegfried Wohlfarth and the two moved to Amsterdam because of tension in Frankfurt. She had a baby girl Doris whom she gave to friends because she was going into hiding. She and her husband were found by the Nazis and taken to Birkenau. Birkenau was one of the forty camps at Auschwitz. There she experienced to horror of the death camps. Eventually she and three hundred other women were transported to the work camp of Krarzau. She became sick of hepatitis, but eventually recovered. The camp was liberated and she began her quest across Europe back to Holland to find her daughter. Eventually after being held prisoner again she completed her journey and was reunited with her daughter. She learns her husband did not make it back. She and her daughter get help from her husband's boss who buys them tickets to America where they begin their new life. Her story can be seen at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Parallel Journeys was a decent book. It shows the lives of two young Germans. One was promised a bright future as a member of Hitler Youth, and the other almost experienced death in a concentration camp. The book illustrates how lives of young Germans could be completely different. Both stories were very interesting and educating, but were not captivating and enjoying to read. It was hard to follow with book switching back and forth between stories. At some points it was boring and hard to get into. In conclusion, Parallel Journeys was a descriptive book with a lot to offer. It provides much information on two completely different lives. It provides the opportunity to learn of the status of the world during some of the most rememberable decades in world history.