After+the+War

Jean-Patrick Summer Reading Project

After The War, by Carol Matas

This book is about a Jewish girl of the age of 15 who is trying to get to Palestine so that she may be safe from anti-Semitism. The name of the girl is Ruth Mendenberg; Ruth was born and raised in Poland. Ruth lost her entire family during World War 2, and since the end of the war she has been trying to find them. One of the first things she does to attempt to find her family was to go to her Uncle Moishe’s house hoping that she might find someone there or at least maybe a place to stay. But the only person she sees at the door is her Uncles maid. What Ruth didn’t like about that was that she was wearing her own mother’s dress. Ruth said that that house belonged to her Uncle, but the maid just slammed the door in her face. So Ruth continues on until she hears someone say something in Hebrew she looks around and sees this guy. The guy said that he was from Palestine and he was born and raised there. So eventually he took Ruth to a place where there were a couple refugees. He said that he needed her in Palestine to help establish a Jewish Homeland. He explained that the more Jews that come to Palestine the bigger the chance that there will be a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, and that’s when the journey starts. Ruth was now on a journey to Palestine. On the way to Palestine Ruth had to stop at many refugee camps. Ruth always lied about her age saying she was 18 instead of 15 because she didn’t want to be treated like a baby. At many of the camps people would right there names on the wall incase there family would pass by and see that they were still alive. On the journey to Palestine Ruth and her friends had to pass many borders but every time they got very lucky and passed all of the borders. Usually they would try to pass at night, or they would try bribing the guards which didn’t always work. Almost everyone had fake identification which helped them a lot. Many of the guards didn’t know the difference between Hebrew and Greek so they would have Greek passports and they would speak Hebrew to the guards. On the journey one of her friends was almost taken away but Ruth saved. One of the little girls that was traveling with found her aunt on the journey. Eventually the hardest part of the trip came, Ruth and hundreds of other Jews were going to travel to Palestine. But there was only one problem the British who were controlling a part of Palestine didn’t want to let the Jews establish a homeland in Palestine so they made illegal for ships with Jewish immigrants to come to Palestine. So now the boat had to somehow get past the British without being seen. The leaders on the ship were saying to pretend to be Greek. If the British saw them they wouldn’t have much chance of getting to Palestine because the British probably knew what they were looking for. But everyone on the ship and everyone on the shore were hoping that they were going to make it so that they could finally establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This book was a great book to read it wasn’t maybe that long but I read pretty fast because it was very interesting. I would recommend this to anyone who likes adventure/history books because this book has both categories in it. Whoever would want to find out more about the Jewish culture or what the Jews had to go threw after the war this the book for you.