Salt Lake City, Utah, is home to an interesting state park that is currently called This Is the Place Heritage Park. I remember it as This Is the Place State Park. It is home to a grand monument to Brigham Young, the Mormon pioneers, and other explorers of the early American West. The rest of the park is a number of reconstructed early pioneer homes, outbuildings, and buildings such as a blacksmith’s shop, a general store, and other buildings typical of frontier towns. As a kid, the thing that attracted me most to the park was that they sold candy in the general store, there were farm animals to see, and there were a few things that kids could do, such as give combing wool a try (it was much more difficult than it looked). I had little appreciation for the pioneers that the park and monument were originally meant to honor (“originally” is a key word because now it’s billed as a “living history museum” and they’ve even added that old, traditional pioneer facility, the splash pad).
Saints: No Unhallowed Hand (ISBN: 978-1-62972-648-9) is the second volume of a multi-volume history published by the Church itself. This volume follows the Church’s exodus from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley. It tells the story of the wagon trains and hand cart companies that forged the Mormon Trail. The Church was forging into new territory as well, as Brigham Young became the second president of the Church and the second prophet of this era. In addition to trekking across the North American plains, the Church was expanding internationally, with missionaries taking the message of the restored gospel to Europe, South Africa, and the islands of the Pacific. Missionary work didn’t always go so well, and there were plenty of other locations, like Southeast Asia, where missions resulted in extremely few converts. The book also chronicles the early Church’s struggles with the American government. After the lack of concern the federal government showed the Church when Missouri’s official position was persecution, most Church members were wary of the U.S. government. Brigham Young and his successors were wary, but also saw the wisdom of working toward a reconciled position. This led to things like the Mormon Battalion and helped influence Church members’ thinking as some later struggled to accept the end of polygamy. A major theme in the book was the construction of temples. They required great sacrifice, but also resulted in great blessings. The book is written in the same way as the first volume in the series, so there were no surprises this time with formatting, style, or anything like that. I probably enjoyed reading this volume a little more than the first one because I am less familiar with the early missionary efforts and the stories of Church members across Europe and the Pacific. I thought most of the stories were good: interesting and something one can learn from. The book dealt in depth with polygamy, which was never something I struggled with, but I know it’s a question that many, both inside and outside the Church have. The book touched on the Mountain Meadow massacre in a way that I thought presented a good level of detail and the level to which Church members were involved. The stories of faith and sacrifice were what made the book a worthwhile read, though, teaching of their importance and the attendant blessings they bring to our lives.
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Escape: Children of the Holocaust by Allan Zullo (ISBN: 978-0-545-09929-5) and Sophie Scholl: Die Weiße Rose by Achim Seiffarth (ISBN: 978-3-12-556024-6) are books written for young people (junior high kids seemed to be the target audience), but present some of the stories of Nazi Germany that are good for readers of any age to know. Zullo’s book told the story of about a dozen Jewish children and their survival of the Holocaust. The stories were varied and all captivating. They usually started with the pre-war life of the kids or, at least, their life under Hitler when it still wasn’t too crazy. This allowed for the reader to see how quickly things went downhill. Inevitably, before long, families were separated, people were in ghettos or concentration camps, and life would never be the same again as kids were forced to grow up quickly and learned that the adult world wasn’t all it was cracked up to be since it induced a lot of pain, suffering, and cruelty. The kids in Zullo’s book all displayed incredible levels of resiliency, though, scraping by and taking advantage of what was few chances and opportunities were given them, such as a truck taking workers to another camp with a sympathetic guard who was known to let one or two people at a time make a run for it. The stories, which are of those who survived, do not glass over the fact that the survivors of the ghettos and camps were in the vast minority, and it is sobering to read of all the friends and family these survivors lost. Seiffarth’s book is written for learners of German, but although relatively simply written, still does a great job presenting a fascinating story. Sophie Scholl was a young woman who went from teenager to college student during the Nazi rise to power. Originally a believer in what Hitler was doing, as she came closer to adulthood, she saw the errors intrinsic to nationalist socialism. Following the lead of her older brother, an activist in the underground resistance, her religious father, who could not abide the unfair treatment of Jews and others oppressed by the regime, and a college professor who encouraged free thinking and debate even when it was unpopular, Sophie joined the resistance, helping to distribute anti-Nazi flyers. Her efforts helped present what was an unpopular opinion to the masses, especially as she helped found resistance cells among young people in cities outside her hometown. Eventually, the Nazi regime caught up to her, her brother, others in their circle, including their professor, and they were executed.
As stated above, while both books are juvenile literature, they are quality works. I enjoyed trying to stretch my knowledge of German, the native language of my grandparents and other ancestors who have a story or two of their own involving the Nazi authorities. The stories in Escape easily kept my attention, told interesting details, and were from a variety of people, such as those from Germany proper as well as from occupied territories. This variety gave more flavor and a nice, broad overview of what are certainly not isolated incidents. I thought Sophie Scholl was also a nice overview that provided sufficient detail to be informative and yet not get bogged down. I had seen a movie on her a few years ago, but this book gave me some new information and was, I thought, better (I always think that about books relative to movies, though). Both of these books present an interesting and accurate picture of what life was like under the Nazis — for Jews in the first and for conscientious Germans in the other. They remind us what we should be fighting to avoid, even if it’s only a step or two in that direction, and the kind of people we should be striving to be, even if that striving leads to unpopular positions, ostracization, and, possibly, the ultimate sacrifice. Liberty — for ourselves and for others — is worth those things.