While most people don't know how powerful even the very young were in the resistance, it's finally becoming a story more widely told. I have the great fortune of knowing and being related to one of these brave young souls, and I believe this book has done an excellent job of telling some of their stories. Highly recommended!

Children Against Hitler is a historical look at the youngest members of the resistance during WW2. Released 30th April 2020 by Pen and Sword books, it's 184 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.

I have always enjoyed reading history and found the stories of these young ww2 resistance fighters both touching and incredible. My father-in-law, born at the end of the war, in occupied Norway, was too young to make any substantive difference, but the stories his friends tell of stealing and destroying the boots from the occupying soldiers' barracks, hiding resources (several families hid and raised a pig together in the forest near Bergen), sabotaging vehicles, stealing materials and supplies, guerilla warfare, and more, are scary and sometimes funny/sad. A lot of kids were used as couriers since they were less likely to be stopped and questioned, but the ones who were caught were viciously punished. These stories are equally enthralling. There were only a few of these names which were previously familiar to me and I came away from the read with a renewed respect for the sacrifice and commitment of these children and their families.

I see more clearly than ever the danger we face in the current world-wide craziness and I can only hope and pray we're not doomed to repeat history. I can only wish all our kids could have the gift of an unencumbered childhood.

Five stars. Well worth a read. Deeply moving.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Born and raised in Germany, I always love picking up books that feature World War II and historical figures during that time. So, it is actually not surprising that I requested an advance review copy of this book on NetGalley. Thank you, NetGalley and Pen & Sword, for approving my request!

It was super interesting to read about a lot of the less known and young heroes of WWII. There were a few stories that I hadn't heard before and names that didn't even seem familiar. I really enjoyed that the book was written in narrative format. If I hadn't known that I was reading true stories, I'd thought I was reading a novel. That made the book easy to read, but also gave the stories a great character building feel. What I was missing in the book were two young heroes that don't seem to be well-known outside Germany, but whose memory has a remarkable story to tell--Hans and Sophie Scholl. The Scholl siblings and their anti-Nazi activities (including their death by guillotine) are so popular in Germany that there is even a book award in the state of Bavaria in their honor, the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis awarded to books which "show intellectual independence and support civil freedom, moral, intellectual and aesthetic courage and that gives an important impulse to the present awareness of responsibility." While I was missing their names in this book, the other heroes were no less impressive and inspiring! This book is written in language that can be understood by a wide range of readers. I'd say it's even a great book to introduce as additional reading to middle graders in history class.

I love books about resistance fighters of WWII, which is why got this book. It does not disappoint. I'm impressed with the amount of detail and research, and will be sharing this book with my son as he gets further into his WWII units for school over the years.

I had been really looking forward to reading this book, I have been reading more on this period and I knew that there were children that were involved in the Resistance but I had no idea until I read this book how young some of them were, and how involved they were in the fight against Hitler.

I have to say that I thought that it was a fascinating book and I can only admire the ambition of the children featured in the book. Most risked their lives, and some gave their lives and the ultimate sacrifice.

I liked that the author selected a wide range of children from different social classes and different ages groups too. In some countries they were much more active too and it was interesting to see the differences here and the book for me gave a very different view of the war from the books you normally see on the shelves.

Overall this was a fascinating book, at times it really pulled on my heartstrings and it did spark a real interest in me to find out more – it wasn’t an easy read but it was very well written and I loved the amount of detail the author used, it was clearly well researched – it is 5 stars from me for this one!!

I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from this book as my history classes at school hadn’t really covered young children being part of the resistance. What I was taught about the resistance was that they smuggled airmen out of German occupied area’s and that they blew up transport links to hinder the German Forces. I had also learnt a little about the female resistance members that were couriers and radio operatives through reading books and watching films. After reading Hitlers Housewives and learning more about what Hitler did to his own countrymen & women, how they felt peer pressure to conform, or face serious repercussions I was instantly interested in reading about what the German people and people of the countries Hitler and his armies invaded did to resist.

This book really opened my eyes to the other perhaps some would say smaller acts of defiance and acts of resistance carried out by the children of the areas the German Forces occupied and ruled over. I so want to talk about all the children in this book, and it is important to remember they were all children when they began their acts of defiance

risking their own young lives along with the lives of their family if ever caught. I could seriously ramble on forever about these young heroes and each and everyone of them deserve to be remembered and talked about, but I want everyone to read the book, so I will mention just a few of them and try my best not to go into too much detail. Hopefully telling you just enough to have you desperate to read the book yourselves.

Two Dutch sisters are featured in this book, Truus & Freddie Oversteegen live in Haarlem with their mother, who though it was very unusual had divorced their father. The family were poor and were basically surviving on the very small handouts they were eligible for from the state. Truus and Freddie’s mother brought them up to be independent, strong minded women. It wasn’t long after the rise of Hitler that the family were sharing their home and wht they had with refugees that were being smuggled out of Germany. They had to stay under the radar as though not totally ruled over by Hitler yet, the Dutch government prohibited their citizens to have what were considered illegal lodgers.

At the age of 14, Truus left school and tried working as a domestic servant but her upbringing and her fire and spirit made this subservient kind of job impossible to keep, and Truus had many jobs that didn’t last very long. 14 year old Truus and younger sister Freddie aged just 12 years old soon became involved in distributing and underground anti-Nazis newspaper. They met Kees Boekman and became more involved in resistance activities. On one occasion Anton Mussert who was in favour and supportive of Hitler was dues to speak. Kees Boekman decided they needed to take action he urged Truus, Freddie and other youth members to encourage high school pupils to attend the meeting and make their anti-Mussert feelings known. The following night a large crowd of boys and girls arrived at the rally, on their bicycles as requested. Mussert approached the podium to speak and a pre-organised signal was given for the youngsters to all started sounding their bicycle bells. Then two members of Kees Boekman’s team ran up to the stage and cut the microphone wires. As Mussert carried on speaking without sound, the crowd roared with laughter at him. However, the NSB’s paramilitary wing, the Weerbaarheidsadeling that had been standing guard sprang into action, beating and hitting the youngsters and smashing their bikes.

Truus and Freddie were at one time the only female members in their section of the resistance group they were in. When deportations of Jews began the two young girls took on more dangerous missions, such as taking Jewish children to new homes where they could safely hide until the war was finally over. In taking part in this sort of activity, Truus and Freddie were defying the Nazis and were in danger of being caught by the Gestapo or being ratted on by Dutch collaborators. One young girl they moved ended up losing her whole family during the war and the couple who took her in hiding her ended up officially adopting her after the war was over.

The girls were taught how to use weapons and given an even more precarious missions to carry out, they were expected to “deal with” and remove as many Nazis torturers and Dutch collaborators as they could. These innocent looking children were basically taking part in drive by shootings using their bicycles! Another girl, 17 years old, Hannie Schaft, was brought in to work with the two sisters. Naturally the sisters were not keen to work with another to begin with but it wasn’t so long until Hannie proved herself and the girls became true friends and went on to carry out more and more missions. I would like to point out at this stage that the girls did not just obediently carry out missions they were told to, if they disagreed with something, they would have their say and could and would refuse the mission.

This is just one story of three young females that were not afraid to carry out increasingly more dangerous missions to help those being persecuted by the Nazis escape capture, knowing full well that if caught they would be beaten and tortured in the hope they would reveal names of different members of their resistance group. Sadly, the trio of girls did not all survive the war, but they had become so close that when one of the surviving girls married and she named her daughter after the girl that had been shot.

I read this book and it propelled me through a whole range of emotions, I felt proud of these children and their parents that knew what they were doing for being brave knowing what their fate would be if they were found out. I felt humour at some of the things the younger resistance members did to inconvenience the Nazis, then shock at some of the other acts these same youngsters committed, such as the using explosives to blow up bridges. It seems there was no act too small or too large for these young resistance members to willingly take on. It was amazing the way they could “play the silly child” if suspected of doing any wrong and fool the Nazis. So many of these young fighters had near brushes with death yet continued doing more and more missions. Things like stealing guns, hiding weapons, transporting weapons, or transporting radio parts, and messages. So many of these acts being the way the Allied Forces communicated with the resistance. Then you think of the lives these youngsters saved, the Allied force members they smuggled out, the Jewish children the moved to different homes one step ahead of the Nazis searching for them.

These children did all of this for nothing in return. If/When caught these children were beaten, tortured, starved, put in prison, sent to hard labour camps, or concentration camps where they were worked to death, or had medical experiments carried out on them.

Years later some would be recognised, having streets named after them. Whereas others were completely overlooked, simply labelled as trouble makers. Then there are still some that just seem to have initially been forgotten and just not talked about as much. Every single one of them deserve recognition for what they did. They all deserve their stories to be told, to be remembered and handed down to future generations.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing this book were just three words, interesting, informative and inspirational. I felt stunned, shell shocked by what I had just read and learnt. I usually read a non-fiction book alongside a fiction one, but I got to the point that I had to read this book. I didn’t want to put it down. I felt compelled to continue reading and ended up finishing the book late one evening. I think this is a book that will stay with me forever. Every time I hear of a survivor dying, or an anniversary of a camp liberations, or anniversary of a certain resistance act I will remember the children in this book, their bravery and actions.

To sum up this book sheds a light on certain areas of the resistance that in my opinion were not widely publicised. In that the films about the era tend to be about the concentration camps, or the resistance blowing up transport links, which in this book some of the young resistance heroes do take part in. The young resistance members took part in so much more yet seem to have been forgotten and are not really talked or taught about in schools etc. To be honest I believe our schools should be teaching more about World War 2 and what went on than they are at the moment. This book really is a moving, emotion invoking read.

“Children Against Hitler: The Young Resistance Heroes of the Second World War” will be published in 2020 (July) and was written by Monica Porter (https://monicaporter.co.uk). Ms. Porter has published six books.

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains Violence. The book tells the stories of children across occupied Europe who lived through WWII.

The children depicted in the book grew up across a range of social classes. Their ages stretch from 6 to 18 and they come from France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Belorussia, Poland, and Holland. The book is a collection of short stories about these children. All of these stories tell of work with the Resistance against the Nazis. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the 4.5 hours I spent reading this 184-page history.  I have read much about WWII, but this is the first book I have read that deals with it just from the viewpoint of the children. The book provides a very different view of the war. Many of these brave kids found themselves alone, yet they took it upon themselves to carry on and to risk their lives as part of the Resistance. I like the selected cover art. I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Some interesting stories here but the delivery was very bland. Some photographs or diagrams/maps might have lifted it. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley

what an eye opener. Really interesting to read. Lots of history to get sucked into. Couldn’t put it down once I got started

I was a history major in college, so I know this isn't everybody's type of book, but I do suggest reading it! The stories of the children come alive on the page, and you'll never guess all the things that happen to them! These unsung heroes of Nazi Germany deserve all the praise and honor! Monica Porter beautifully shows what happened from a younger generation's point of view. I would highly recommend that you check this book out and experience a world that we could never imagine living in!