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Australian Dollars (includes postage in Australia )
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Lolli's Apple
by Tomas Fleischmann
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| Click to enlarge image(s) |
Recipient of an International Gold Medal Independent Publisher Book Award in Non Fiction Young Adult category
Seen through the eyes of six year old Tomas, this true story unfolds through the games Tomas plays with the other children as he is transported to Szered, Auschwitz and Terezin concentration camps.
It is intertwined with the inspirational bravery and love of his pregnant mother Lolli, who managed to keep Tomas and her newborn baby alive in a camp where 16,000 children perished and only 123 survived.
Far from being a tale of woe, it is a wonderful, true account of a boy being a boy, in a terrible place at the worst possible time. It speaks of steadfast love and innocence amidst grave indifference and unspeakable cruelty.
“Lolli’s Apple is inspirational. It should be read by everyone.”
Buzz Words Books by Vicki Stanton
“… it is an uplifting story of survival … an amazing account to read, and one of the stories of that time that is so important to know of and always remember.”
Kids Book Review by Megan Blandford
“Within these pages, an incredible story is held.”
Hit the Road Jacq by Jacq Ellem
Excerpts From Lolli's Apple
Excerpt 1: Playing “Pin the Tail”
“Life was hard…but the worst part for me was the boredom. There was so little to do. They don’t build playgrounds in concentration camps.”
One day I was out playing with a group of boys [in Terezinstadt Camp] when one of the older boys dared me to ‘pin a tail’ on one of the SS guards. Obviously, this was a terrible thing to dare anyone to do, but I was too young to know this. Not wanting to look like a coward and wanting to impress this bigger boy I immediately decided to do as he had asked. The boy handed me a piece of rope combed out at the end. When an SS guard walked past I went up behind him and pinned the tail to the back of his jacket. Then I ran back to the others.
Unfortunately, the tail was fairly long and started to bang on the back of his legs as he walked. After a few steps he realised what was going on and went completely out of his mind. He saw we were laughing and ran towards us screaming in German, “I will teach you little Jewish f******s to mess with the SS.” His face went red with rage. “Who did this?”
The older boy who had talked me into doing it pointed at me. The SS guard must have thought I was too young to be the sole culprit. He picked me up by the scruff of the neck and said, “Who told you to do this?” I pointed to the older boy and replied, “He did.”
With his boot the guard kicked my backside as hard as he could. Then he walked over, grabbed the big boy and dragged him away. We never saw him again.
Excerpt 2: Spreading the Lime
When the ovens could no longer cope with the volume of bodies, large pits were bulldozed outside of the prison and the dead were thrown into these craters. Young boys were ordered to go into the pits to spread lime on the bodies. I was one of the boys selected for this task.
I used to play football with some of the other boys. For a ball we used rags tightly knotted together. One day we were having a game and as we played a guard became more and more angry with us. He became so infuriated at what we were doing that he couldn’t stand it any more. The guard marched over and as punishment for playing football we were sent down to spread the lime.
Other prisoners would stack the bodies into the pits and after a layer of bodies was put down we would then walk on the bodies and sprinkle lime everywhere so that they would decompose more quickly. The reason small boys were chosen was because we were light and would not sink into the partly decomposed bodies as we walked across them. My first job at the age of six.
After we had spread the lime they would put down another layer of bodies and out we would go and cover those with lime. Once, I stepped on a dead person’s chest causing air to come out of the mouth in a horrible rasping sound. I jumped into the air with fear. I don’t think I was ever more frightened than at that moment. This was horrendous work and not without other hazards. Because we were constantly spreading lime, we ended up with lime burns on the exposed parts of our bodies. To this day I still have the burn marks on my legs from that lime.
Product Details |
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| Author | Tomas Fleischmann | |
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| Paperback | 136 pages | |
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| ISBN | 9780980453034 | |
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| Dimensions | 198 x 128 mm | |
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| Weight | |
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