Courage in the Little Suitcase - Paperback

by Andrea Angell Herzig (Author)

Based on a real-life events, Courage in the Little Suitcase is the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising told through the eyes of its youngest survivor. All her life, Deborah's Mother has warned her not to open the door to the cedar closet at the end of the upstairs hall. But now Deborah, who has just celebrated her tenth birthday, decides she is old enough to explore the secrets of the forbidden closet. Tucked in among the ordinary hat boxes, blanket chests and garment bags, Deborah discovers a little suitcase. Opening it, Deborah realizes her true past and a pathway to her future. In Twenty-first Century America, people look back on the Holocaust and ask, "Why didn't someone fight back?" This historical fiction for middle grade answers that question by telling the true tale of some young people who resist the Nazis. It is the story of the Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz (pronounced Anjel-a-vitz), a young man in his early 20s, and 300 other young people who battled in every way they could, from civil disobedience and sabotage to armed combat and guerilla warfare. Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel said, "There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win." As horrible as life in the Ghetto was, Mordechai married his long-time girlfriend, Mira. Their baby, Devorah Tikva, was born on September 1, 1942. Knowing the uprising was doomed and that they would not survive, Mordechai and Mira decided to ask second cousins, living in the United States, to adopt the baby. They devised an elaborate plan to spirit the infant out of the Ghetto. With help from many "Righteous Gentiles", the baby was taken safely across Poland, through Germany and occupied France and eventually to Great Britain, where a British army nurse sailed with her across the Atlantic to the waiting arms of her new parents. Ten years later, Devorah Tikvah, now the thoroughly American Deborah Hope, disobeys her parents, opens the door to the forbidden cedar closet at the end of the upstairs hall, and discovers courage in a little suitcase.

Author Biography

Andrea Angell Herzig lives in Cincinnati, Ohio where she has been an English teacher, newspaper editor and public relations executive. She is an accomplished public speaker and essayist. In 2014, her non-fiction piece, "Reunion50" appeared in The Storyteller and won the magazine's Best Essay award. She is an active volunteer for the arts, the Jewish community and senior citizens, and is a devoted wife, supportive mother, and enthusiastic grandmother. Her current project is a collection of articles about Cincinnati's vibrant art scene. Courage in the Little Suitcase is the product of many years of research and writing that she says is her "Labor of love and small contribution to keeping alive the memory of the Six Million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust."