In the classic vein of The Diary of Anne Frank--a heart-wrenching and inspiring story of a life lived in fear and cramped quarters--Clara's War is a true story of the Holocaust.Cara Kramer was a typical Polish-Jewish teenager from a small town at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the Germans invaded, Clara's family was taken in by the Becks, a Volksdeutsche (ethnically German) family from their town. Mrs. Beck worked as Clara's family's housekeeper. Mr. Beck was known to be an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a vocal anti-Semite. But on hearing that Jewish families were being led into the woods and shot, Beck sheltered the Kramers and two other Jewish families.Eighteen people in all lived in a bunker dug out of the Becks' basement. Fifteen-year-old Clara kept a diary during the twenty terrifying months she spent in hiding, writing down details of their unpredictable life--from the house's catching fire to Mr. Beck's affair with Clara's neighbor; from the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room above to the small pleasure of a shared Christmas carp. Against all odds, Clara lived to tell her story, and her diary is now part of the permanent col-lection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Clara Kramer was a typical Polish Jewish teenager, occupied with thoughts of friends, school and family. But when the Germans invaded her small town, Clara and her family were forced to go into hiding, taking refuge with the family's housekeeper and her husband. Confident that the war would be over in a matter of weeks, 18 people crowded into a small basement to wait. That few weeks turned into nearly two years of confinement, hunger and constant fear of discovery. Clara's War recounts that terrible period of time, as well as the bravery, determination and faith that allowed Clara to survive this terrifying ordeal. Clara (Schwarz) Kramer was born in 1927 in Zolkiew, a town in the Galicia section of Poland (currently a part of the Ukraine). In World War II, she and her family hid from the Germans in an underground bunker for 20 months. After the war, she met her husband Sol Kramer in a Displaced Persons camp, eventually settling in Elizabeth, NJ. The Kramers are active in organizations such as the Jewish Educational Center; the Jewish Federation; the Israel Bonds Organization; the Jewish Family & Children's' Service; the Union County YM & YWHA; and the Holocaust Resource Foundation at Kean U