Facing the Enemy
How a Nazi Youth Camp in America Tested a Friendship
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- US$11.99
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What do you do when your best friend becomes the enemy?
Growing up in Newark, NJ, in the 1930s, Tommy Anspach and Benjy Puterman have always done everything together. It never mattered that Benjy was Jewish and Tommy was of German descent. But as Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party comes to power in Germany and war brews in Europe, everything changes. Tommy is sent to Camp Nordland, a Nazi youth camp for German Americans, where he quickly learns that Jews are the enemy. Heartbroken by the loss of his friend, Benjy forms a teen version of the Newark Minutemen, an anti-Nazi vigilante group, all the while hoping that Tommy will abandon his extremist beliefs. Will Benjy and Tommy be able to overcome their differences and be friends again?
Based on real-life events and groups like the Newark Minutemen and the pro-Nazi German American Bund, this daring novel-in-verse reveals the long history of American right-wing extremism, and its impact on the lives of two ordinary teens.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on real-life events from 1937 to 1941, this illuminating verse novel by Krasner (Ethel's Song) traces the evolution of a Nazi youth camp in suburban New Jersey during Hitler's rise to power and its effect on the friendship of two teens: Jewish American Benjy and German American Tommy. When Tommy's alcohol-dependent father—still grieving his first-born son who died in Germany before Tommy was born—forces Tommy to attend nearby Camp Nordland to "embrace" his German heritage, Tommy eagerly complies, desperate to win his father's love and approval. He is quickly swept up in the group's pro-Hitler/anti-Jewish rhetoric and casts aside his bewildered longtime best friend Benjy. Meanwhile, Benjy, his father, and their Jewish community form an anti-Nazi vigilante organization intending to shut down Camp Nordland. Krasner's depiction of Tommy's shifting loyalties between his political stances and his feelings for Benjy reads as somewhat implausible; Benjy's acutely expressed grief and confusion over the loss of his and Tommy's friendship, by comparison, portrays Benjy as a deeply sympathetic character, making for uneven narration. Major characters are white. An author's note, glossary, timeline, and historical photos conclude. Ages 12–up.
