I ended up falling off of YA before I got this one downloaded. I have heard good things, but have not followed up to read a finished copy.

Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz lived up to all of the recommendations I’ve gotten for it. It is hard to talk about it with positive adjectives just because of the truly devastating story that Gratz shares with his readers. Jack Gruener’s story which is unbelievable yet was six years of his life. I highly recommend this novel (and I’ve already passed it onto a student!).

A truly fantastic Holocaust story based on real events. Jack or Yanek as he's referred to, is a Polish Jew when Hitler rises to power and the Jews are beginning to be quarantined, herded, and killed before the reality of concentration camps and inescapable desperation take hold. Yanek is on the verge of his bar mitzvah when the family takes refuge in a coop on the top of the apartment complex where he is taken in the dead of the night to a basement and given the rights to manhood through the celebration. It's now that Yanek realizes the situation is deadly when soon his parents are taken, the remaining other family members are now missing, and finally Yanek finds himself on the road to the camps as well.

The story moves swiftly through each of his time at many of the famous concentration camps as well as some littler-known ones where he is trying to survive. He briefly reunites with his uncle, who perishes, and while Yanek would like to do good for his fellow sufferers, sometimes he cannot for fear of retribution and death. He narrowly escapes the gas chambers where instead of gas, cold water comes, and he realizes it's a sick game of cat and mouse with the Nazis and there may not be luck that gets him out alive. The story is quick, almost too quick, but sympathetic, hopeful, and powerful.

Luckily, Yanek does survive, barely, and tells of the American soldiers' rescue and eating real food and sleeping in a bed with a mattress and his life subsequent to this where he really became an orphan though some distant cousins did survive. Like many, he came to the US and still lives here but does not forget the tattoo on his arm, Prisoner B-3087.

Each section, chronologically, follows his route through the different camps. The story should be read as a whole, but certainly to highlight certain atrocities, can be taken by these "chapters" and pulled apart to help student understanding.

I found it difficult to get past the first few chapters, could just be the wrong moment, however, I did not finish.

What a captivating, horrifying story. I could not put this book down as I continued to read about things that I swore couldn't have happened. Amazing. Highly recommend.

An enlightening read. At times this story gets heavy, and one needs to step away for a few moments.