Clara's War

<p><strong>In the classic vein of <em>The Diary of Anne Frank</em>--a heart-wrenching and inspiring story of a life lived in fear and cramped quarters--<em>Clara's War</em> is a true story of the Holocaust.</strong></p><p>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 <em>Volksdeutsche</em> (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.</p><p>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. </p><p>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.</p>