Speak or Stay Silent

The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"For seventeen-year old Christine Bolz,the war began with a surprise invitation to the Bauerman's holiday party."

This isn't as much a story of love, as of grit. Webster defines grit as mental toughness and courage, traits that Christine exhibits throughout the book. Yes, she loves too, deeply loves, but courage and grit are necessary to survival.

Do you ever wonder, what you would have done had you lived in war torn Germany during the holocaust? Would you have hidden a Jew in your attic? Would you have spoken against the injustice being done to your Jewish neighbors? What about your disabled neighbor, or the gypsy? Would you have said, this is wrong? Would you have stayed silent to protect your family?

Although I would like to think I would have the courage to speak out, I think I would have stayed silent. Why? to stay under the radar. Because, there is always the fear, if you speak out, your family would be harmed, perhaps even killed.

The story of Christine and Isaac will will make you ponder these questions.

We are so quick to judge other people's actions, but fear, whether out of intimidation or the desire to protect, can make us respond in unjust ways.

For me, I am not only pondering those questions for Holocaust times, but for these times. As ISIS is intimidating and killing to expand their power and territories, where will people get the courage to resist?

In a recent news story, a villager who had welcomed ISIS into their village, did so because he thought they would improve things. Evil came disguised as Hope.

Christine is aware, throughout the story, that how she chooses to react will affect not just her, but her family. Sometimes, her sense of justness, or rightness, has her acting impulsively, and there are consequences. Sometimes, as she ponders a situation, she agonizes over the thought that she may put her family in danger. Sometimes, she lies, in order to survive.

There are many stories about the holocaust, and many of them are very good. I can't really say I enjoyed this story, because it seemed full of truth to me, and truth is very hard. People were treated cruelly. People did things they would never  normally do to survive. I felt this book was written in a way that made that very clear, and that is what made this story valuable to me.


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