The Girl in the Green Sweater by Krystyna Chiger

Chiger, Krystyna and Daniel Paisner The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow, 272 p. St. Martin’s, 2008.  $24.95.  Krysha Chiger was just a little girl, about six years old, when her family was forced into the ghetto in Lvov, her Polish hometown.  Life in the ghetto became more and more desperate and many days Krysha and her even littler brother, would spend their days locked into impossibly tiny hiding spaces, in complete darkness, until one of their parents came home.  Nothing prepared them, however, for the desperate flight into Lvov’s sewers the day the Nazi’s came to liquidate the population of the ghetto, nor could they ready themselves to live for more than a year underground, living in filth and dirt, with rats as pets, as they hold onto hope that the Germans would be defeated.  Chiger’s memoir is alternatingly heart-breaking and heart-warming and they manage to survive through cunning, luck and divine intervention when everyone else they loved died in so may horrible ways.  This is a great story to add to the boy of Holocaust literature – especially for older readers.  As hard as it is to read, I won’t hesitate to have it on my shelves.  MS, HS – ESSENTIAL. Cindy, Library Teacher.