Resistance

Chaya Lindner is in trouble. She lives in Poland during the Nazi occupation, but she is not simply Polish. She is also Jewish, a fact that means her very existence is under constant threat. When her family is too large for their new space, Chaya knows she’ll be on the trains coming in the morning. She leaves to join her grandmother, but joins the Resistance movement instead. She becomes a courier, with her fair coloring and lighter eyes tricking the Nazi soldiers so she can smuggle food and weapons into the ghettos, and people out. When Chaya’s cell is broken, she is dismayed to find the one Resistance fighter she can’t trust, but she has a plan to show the invaders just how strong the Jewish people are.

This is Nielsen’s second historical fiction novel, following A Night Divided and firmly putting her in a league with Ruta Sepetys and Alan Gratz. Her research and writing show a different side to the Jewish experience, one in which hope resides in Resistance. The afterword includes brief character descriptions of those who lived these horrors, making the story even more chilling, knowing these storybook characters are based on reality. Heart-breaking but hopeful.