So inspirational! It's amazing what young adults can accomplish when forced to. Adults really don't give the enough credit. Aliza's group, the Hashomer Hatzain, is a new one for me to learn about, I've read about the Edelweiss Piraten and only recently learned about the Leipzig Menter. Though not as dire as those, the US also saw young adults change the US back in the late 60's-70's. Amazing story.

A moving account of life surviving the Holocaust. I found the interspersed early surviving notes with the later recounting of events very interesting and added texture to the book.

Youth in Flames is a heart wrenching tale of tragedy and bravery despite the odds. It is a story that is brought together from letters and scraps of paper the author kept while in the Warsaw ghetto and the Bergen-belsen concentration camp. I would reccommend this to everyone as it is not just a story of the authors life during the Holocaust but of the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27002733-youth-in-flames

Everyone should read this book. Well written and heartbreaking.

A moving account of life surviving the Holocaust. I found the interspersed early surviving notes with the later recounting of events very interesting and added texture to the book.

Youth in Flames

A Teenager’s Resistance and Her Fight for Survival in the Warsaw Ghetto
by Aliza Vitis-Shomron

Concierge Marketing Inc.

Tell the Story Publishing
History, Biographies & Memoirs

Pub Date 17 Aug 2015

I was given a copy of Youth in Flames through the publisher and Netgalley:

She was born Liza Melamed. The diary/Memoir begins just months after she was liberated from the Nazi's. Born in 1928 she spent five and a half years of her life in war. On April.13 1945 her and her Mother and younger sister were liberated from Bergen-Belsen, having been separated from her Father they looked for his name on the survivors list to no avail.

In the fall of 1940 things were different for Jews, that Summer she had turned twelve, but there would be no celebration.

Aliza was born in Warsaw Poland, they made their living from a small haberdashery store they had in a large market, and a soda factory with a store next to it. When she was only six she lost her Mother. She goes too talk about life in the Warsaw Ghetto, the overcrowding, filth and disease the horrific conditions they were forced. She talks about the kidnappings of some of the youth in The Warsaw Ghetto. Schools and clubs were closed. In 1941 a Typhus epidimeic took hold in the Ghetto.

Starvation and death were common place in The Warsaw Ghetto.

Youth in Flames is a story of great loss, but it is also a story of survival against all odds.

I give Youth in Flames five out of five stars.

Happy Reading.

Thanks to Concierge Marketing, Inc. and NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC ebook version of this book.

This memoir is a well written, painfully honest account of what takes place in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. The author’s perspective and the inclusion of excerpts of her diary engage the reader in a way that is hard to forget. Though nonfiction is not my regular go to for a leisurely read, this book is an exception. An informative, graphic and heartbreaking story that impelled me learn more.

It's important. Everyone should read it. The two-star rating is because it is so dark.
This is a biography that poignantly keeps alive the memory of the millions that were slaughtered in the Holocaust. It has a slightly different perspective because it was written by a teenager. You get a sense of the confusion she must have felt. She doesn’t try to fill in the gaps of her knowledge from other sources to give the full picture. It’s just her memories of events and people.
It’s not overly political. While she is a member of Hashomer Hatzair Movement, the way she discusses it is mostly from the social and educational side. The people she met there inspired her to hold to the movement for the rest of her life.
One step away from despair, that’s what I felt through the whole book, even as she speaks of the forging of lifelong friendships and inspiring heroic examples. Perhaps it was because I knew what was happening around and would follow those glimpses of hope. The way she chose the ‘Movement’ over her family is so heartbreaking. She tries to offer hope, but it’s the hope of people trying harder to be better with no foundation to build on. Never once does she appeal to anything higher than humanity. It was just heartbreaking. There is no eternal hope. God and the Messiah are entirely missing. Without Him, humanity will just keep on killing each other and the Jews. It’s only when we acknowledge our sin and ask Him to forgive and change us that we have eternal hope. When we see His plan for us, the Jews, humanity as a whole then we can see that the future isn’t based on the flimsy trust in man. There will be justice.
It’s for a mature audience. She speaks of the facts-of-life as they played out in the Ghetto and the camps as delicately as possible. It can also be quite graphic. It’s just heartbreaking.
NEVER FORGET.

This book was so interesting. The in depth detail of the Warsaw Ghetto and the youth movement within it is amazing. I truly felt Aliza's anguish of what is going on around her. Her will to survive shines through her circumstances and forces her to make decisions for herself. She is an intelligent young lady who manages to follow her dreams, even though she faced so much adversity.