Barth-Grözinger, Inge 1950-

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Barth-Grözinger, Inge 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born 1950.

CAREER:

Novelist, 2004—; high school teacher in Ellwangen, Germany.

WRITINGS:

Etwas bleibt (novel), Thienemann (Stuttgart, Germany), 2004, English translation by Anthea Bell published as Something Remains: A Novel, Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Inge Barth-Grözinger's Something Remains: A Novel grew out of an exercise she developed with her high school class in Ellwangen, Germany. Over a period of eighteen months she led a research project that tried to trace the history of the town's tiny Jewish community during the 1930s, a period when Germany was dominated by Nazis who promoted persecution of Jews. The changes in Ellwangen are seen through the eyes of schoolboy Erich Levi, one of only three young Jews in the town's school. "‘A mixture of fiction and historical fact,’" declared a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "this chilling story asks readers to speculate how the Holocaust could have happened."

From Erich's point of view, the changes in Ellwangen are small, but their effects are devastating. "Hitler's genius," wrote Kliatt contributor Myrna Marler, "lay in depriving Jews of their rights little by little so that each loss seemed bearable until the Final Solution." "A teacher leads bullying and insults; classroom exercises label Jews ‘bloodsuckers’; the Hitler Youth run things," explained Hazel Rochman in Booklist. "Erich endures," a Kirkus Reviews contributor stated, "quietly celebrating his bar mitzvah, keeping a low profile in school and briefly falling in love." "This story of a boy who tried to live an ordinary life in an extraordinary, terrible time," Carlie Webber wrote on TeenReads.com, "is both hopeful and saddening."