[bksvol-discuss] submitted
- From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 19:47:11 -0500
I just submitted the book Facing the Lion Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi
Europe. I can't promise it will be the fastest or easiest validation
project ever, but I read the book through and edited. I also got sighted
help for checking footnotes and passages in German. I also put a lot of
effort in to the appendices and other difficult to scan material. The book
is about 400 pages long, and I thought it worth the effort to scan and read.
It might just be the only book out there about the life and experiences of
one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and the fact that it is a first hand account of
the author's life makes it an interesting story to read.
Here is the text from the book jacket.
Facing the Lion is the autobiographical account of a young girl's faith and
courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II, Simone Arnold is a
young girl who delights in life--her doting parents, her loving aunts and
uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the Alsace-Lorraine
region of France. As Simone grows into her preteen years, her parents turn
from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Simone, too,
embraces the faith.
The Nazi party (the "Lion") takes over Alsace-Lorraine, and Simone's schools
become Nazi propaganda machines. Simone refuses to accept the Nazi party as
being above God. Her simple acts of defiance lead her to be persecuted by
the school staff and local officials, and ignored by friends.
With her father already taken away to a German concentration camp, Simone is
wrested away from her mother and sent to a reform school to be "reeducated."
There, Simone learns that her mother has also been put in a camp. Simone
remains in the harsh reform school until the end of the war. She emerges
feeling detached from life, but the faith that sustains her through her
ordeals helps her rebuild her world.
Facing the Lion provides an interesting and detailed view of ordinary
country and town life in the pre-war years and during Hitler's regime. This
inspiring story of a young girl standing up for her beliefs in the face of
society's overwhelming pressure to conform is a potent reminder of the power
of remaining true to one's beliefs.
"...a shining example for the power of the spirit to triumph over evil....an
eloquent firsthand account of a little girl's struggle to keep her faith in
a world which had gone mad."
Sarah Van Oosterwijck
curious entity at earthlink dot net
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