The rest of the Kleinmann family in Vienna, meanwhile, were arranging their own survival. Kurt's oldest sister, Edith, fled to England in 1939 to work as a maid, while their mother, Tini, had managed, via a well-connected associate, to acquire a permit for Kurt to escape to the US. The arrangement couldn't have happened at a better time. For three years, Jeremy used his experience as an academic researcher and writer to find out more. And make it accessible. As the research continued, he came to realise something. As far as he could tell, this is “completely unique in the whole history of the Holocaust.” A Jewish father and son “stayed alive together for five and a half years in concentration camps. And then leave a record.” It’s important to remember, too, that during those years, there were some “extremely dangerous brushes with death”. It was extraordinary that either survived, let alone both of them. Fritz revisiting Auschwitz concentration camp around 1980. Photograph: Reinhold Gärtner Language barrier The story follows both brothers – Kurt to America who bravely voyaged alone aged just eleven years old. And Fritz who was old enough to be sent on the transport to the concentration camps with the men. It was a truly harrowing and awful time.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield | WHSmith Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield | WHSmith

The Kleinmann family in 1938 featuring Gustav (second left) and Fritz (fourth left). Photograph: Peter Patten It certainly opened my eyes, just months after John Boyne did an adults-only sequel to his different covers for different ages The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, to see this be a junior rewrite of a mass market adult Holocaust book. I was left with the feeling this felt the need to be more educational than the adult equivalent. I also was left with the feeling that, in being so repetitive, the author did not have a firm grasp on his target audience's intelligence before he started. But I may have been wrong in seeing that as an issue.At a few of points in the book, basic aspects of Judaism are explained, such as Shabbat and synagogue, suggesting readers are not expected to have encountered Jewish life before. Author Guy Bass introduces SCRAP, about one robot who tried to protect the humans on his planet against an army of robots. Now the humans need his... A story based on real-life. A narrative on harrowing events: The Holocaust. Fritz and Kurt is a story about a Jewish family, The Kleinman's, living in Austria during the 1930s; a time when their world was seemingly changed overnight and ripped apart. Hitler invaded, blaming Jewish people for the demise of Germany: they are sent to concentration camps or executed. Jewish residents are sought out, humiliated and bullied - once friends but now enemies.

Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene

The impact of the illustrations certainly contributes to the effectiveness of the storytelling in what deserves to become as much of a classic as Ann Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. Fritz And Kurt is a read suitable for any age, not just children. You will be full of admiration for the bravery of the brothers who lived through a time of great evil.Fritz and Kurt has the best interests of the reader and the subject matter at its heart. It is a new version for younger readers of Jeremy Dronfield’s internationally bestselling The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz. What is incredible is that these are narrative nonfiction texts. I found out just how incredibly true they are, how much research went into them, and how education was at the forefront of their creation. My conversation with Jeremy Dronfield was fascinating, and sharing it here is a privilege.

Book review: Fritz and Kurt - A moving Shoah book for older

In the words of Dronfield - “ it is vitally important to remember what happened in those terrible years, and to do whatever we can to make sure nothing like it never occurs again […] we have to begin with memories and knowledge of what happened in the past, with understanding, and with compassion for our fellow human beings – all of them, not just the ones who look like us to share our beliefs.” Fritz And Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield is a powerful historical novel for children aged ten years and over. Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri... It is an incredibly moving book, with many harrowing details and scenes. Whilst not glossing over them, it doesn’t go into too much detail. It does highlight the many kindnesses that were shown to Fritz and Gustav during their time in various concentration camps, and this is a great positive to take from reading it. The author has painstakingly researched the family’s history and got to talk to Kurt about his story and life in America. I feel like starting this book review with a review of me, if you don't mind. I have been to Auschwitz and Birkenau, and Dachau, and the Nazi camp in Poznan, Poland. I have a fairly wide reading history when it comes to the Holocaust – certainly greater than the average man you could point to on the generalised commuter bus. However, a few years ago I fell into the Heather Morris trap. For I thought The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a well-made book, which it is, and somehow multiple thousands of copies were printed with a quote from my review in them. They don't print like them like that these days, however, probably due to a regular refresh, and possibly because I tried the sequel and found it unreadable – the amount of barrels in Donkey Kong nothing like the risible amount of sharks jumped, and people knowing the reality behind the characters demanding legal settlement over it all for it being errant fiction. This, and the fact The x of Auschwitz has been one of the most common publishing formats over the last years, has put me off reading much Holocaust literature. Hence my ability to read this junior retelling of The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz in full ignorance of the original, adult version.Mauthausen was the destination towards which father and son were going when Gustav persuaded his son to leap from a speeding train of starving men and corpses, out into a snowdrift. If there are moments when Dronfield’s extraordinary book sounds more like a peculiarly gruesome thriller, readers should remind themselves that none of this is fiction. These horrors happened. Witnesses such as Gustav and Fritz survived and told their tales to ensure that their past should never be repeated. The rest is up to us.