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January 2, 2004
Inspiring young readers
Sally Rogow's new book shows the power of one.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
A group of young Germans risk their lives to agitate against the
Third Reich. A Danish girl saves lives by helping to rescue fleeing
Jews. A Gypsy boy leads British soldiers through the trails of the
Pyrenees mountains. These are a few of the dozen stories told about
young heroes of the Second World War by a Vancouver author in a
new book for young readers.
Sally Rogow's book Faces of Courage: Young Heroes of World War
II takes a creative step in illustrating the tremendous impact
some young people have had on the history of the world, by mingling
true stories with a number of fictionalized – but representative
– tales of life-risking efforts made in the face of totalitarian
horrors.
Rogow's book, which is targeted to inspire young readers, tells
the true story of Jacques Lusseyran, a French boy who, despite his
blindness, helped lead the resistance to Hitler. In another chapter,
three young Mormons in Hamburg, who learned through a contraband
shortwave radio that the Nazi war effort was not as successful as
they had been led to believe, began fomenting dissent by spreading
what they could of the truth through posters and handbills. In a
third true story, a Jewish boy from Poland makes the startling choice
to travel to Germany as a foreign worker, on the correct premise
that most people assumed, by that time, that there were no free
Jews left in Germany.
The brief stories are generally upbeat, serving as inspirational
tales about the power that one individual, regardless of age, can
have. Rogow told the Bulletin there is a challenge in writing
about terrible subjects, such as the Holocaust, for young readers.
"I didn't want to freak people out," she said, although
several of the tales do not end well. The stories provide characters
that the reader can identify with, who are experiencing life-altering
times. Though the horrors of the war are largely left oblique, the
danger faced by each of the characters is palpable at times, such
as when the young Mormons move stealthily through the night distributing
anti-Nazi propaganda or when Louise, a young German taken in by
gentile neighbors, hides inside a closet while the Gestapo search
the house.
This is Rogow's third book for young adults, though the other two
were published more than three decades ago. Rogow's diverse career
and avocational path has allowed her to make positive change in
different areas.
Rogow is a retired professor who has taught in the area of educating
the developmentally disabled. Her own teaching experience has taken
her into the classroom with deaf and blind students and she is increasingly
active in the disability rights movement. In addition, she has become
a stalwart in the pro-Israel movement here in Vancouver and has
become a noted expert on what she terms the child abuse inherent
in the Arab world's incitement of young people to become violent
and self-destructive terrorists. In addition to the intellectual
explorations, Rogow has also seen plenty of geographic change, originating
in New York, she and her late husband, Robert, went on to Michigan
where Sally Rogow taught creative writing. (One of her students
would become famous as "Little" Stevie Wonder.) In the
late 1960s, the Rogows came to Canada, where Sally Rogow taught
for a couple of years at Simon Fraser University, before beginning
a 25-year stint at the University of B.C., where she not only taught,
but developed some of the programs that are still used to teach
the teachers.
Rogow is also the author of other academic and general interest
books, including a monograph about children with disabilities in
Nazi Germany.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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