Through the Eyes of Innocents by Emmy E. Werner [PDF] (World War II children)

Through the Eyes of Innocents by Emmy E. Werner [PDF] (World War II children)



Amazon.com Review
Emmy E. Werner survived World War II on the ground, as a child living in Germany, with a family split over both sides of the conflict. That war set more than a few gruesome records, but perhaps the most tragic was that, for the first time in modern history, more civilians than soldiers were maimed or killed in the fighting. Thirteen million were children, and another 20 million were left orphaned by the war. As one of the survivors, Werner carries a unique qualification for crafting this moving and well-researched book, a sweeping, reverently assembled collection of children's eyewitness accounts of that traumatic and uncertain time.

Pulling together contrasting experiences from over 200 different children and teens (drawing from diaries, letters, journals, and a handful of adult interviews), Through the Eyes of the Innocents paints an impressively rich and varied picture of the war. Children on every side of the conflict recount images and incidents ranging from the benign to the horrific, whether it was German youngsters in the Ardennes decorating Christmas trees with radar foil or a 12-year-old writing to MacArthur, begging him to let her "get down in the trenches and mow these Germans down 5 by 5." But Werner manages to temper the horror with hope, devoting much attention to postwar recovery and rebuilding (especially the efforts of CARE and UNICEF), and pleading that we remember the words of the "wide-eyed and defenseless" as we confront the violence of today. --Paul Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Having authored several books on children's ability to survive trauma (e.g., Reluctant Witnesses: Children's Voices from the Civil War), developmental psychologist Werner now turns to children's memories of World War II and her own reminiscences of growing up in wartime Germany during "a global conflict in which more children [were] killed and maimed than in all previous wars in the world." The result is surprisingly upbeat and utterly compelling: a story of children's resiliency in the face of repeated uprootings and batterings. In the middle of the fighting, Sandra, aged ten, wrote: "Don't ever hurt the children. They are not guilty of anything." Read this affecting book, and you will be hard-pressed not to agree. While there have been numerous first-person accounts of the war, this reviewer has not come across another with quite this angle. A simply wonderful book that deserves many readers.ADavid Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"...a captivating read." -- Harvard Book Review

"In this absorbing book, Werner captures the innocence of children caught in the crossfire of social change wrought by the war...." -- Booklist

"While there have been numerous first person accounts of the war, this reviewer has not come across another with quite this angle." -- Library Journal

"[T]he cumulative effect of the book and its many photographs of war's children can move one to tears..." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"weaves children's letters, diaries and interviews into a spellbinding narrative that brings WWII's saturation bombing... into [a] focus..." -- Berkeley Express