This is the true story of Lisa Jura, the author’s mother.

Lisa Jura was born in Vienna in 1924, and showed a talent with the piano from an early age.

In 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria and began implementing anti-Jewish measures affecting all walks of life. Music teachers were no longer allowed to teach Jewish children, and Lisa was heartbroken. Lisa’s mother Malka told her, “Whatever tomorrow brings, Liseleh, you must always remember to hold on to your music. It will be your best friend.”

On the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, known as “Kristallnacht” because of all the broken windows, mobs of citizens egged on by Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses and burned synagogues. Many Jews were beaten, including Lisa’s father (this fact and other more "unpleasant" incidents are omitted from the story).

Lisa’s parents decided to send her with other Jewish children on a special train, called a KIndertransport, to Britain, where she would be safe and could follow her dream (or any dreams, for that matter). In August, 1939, 14-year-old Lisa said goodbye to her parents. Her mother’s last words to Lisa at the train station were “promise me that you will hold on to your music.” She never saw her parents again; after the war, Lisa learned that her parents were murdered in Auschwitz (also not mentioned in the book).

In Britain, Lisa was placed in a boarding house on Willesden Lane with 32 other Jewish boys and girls. There was even a piano in the house, which Lisa was able to play in the evenings. Mrs. Cohen, the head of the home, helped Lisa get an audition at the Royal Academy of Music, and she was accepted. When the war was over, she had a debut in a concert hall:

“She took a deep breath, pictured her mother by her side, and began to play.”

The author reports that after the concert, the audience was on its feet cheering, and Lisa thought: “I kept my promise, Mama. I held on to my music and never let go.”

The book concludes with a note from the author and a page providing some additional historical background (again without any possibly frightening details), including the information that over 10,000 children - about 7500 of whom were Jewish - were saved by the Kindertransport project. End papers feature actual photographs from Lisa’s life.

A website for the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles reports that Lisa went on to become a professional pianist. In 1949, she married resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Michel Golabek and the pair immigrated to the U.S. The couple had two daughters, Mona and Renee, who continued their mother’s legacy, becoming concert pianists and fulfilling Malka’s wish that they hold on to their music.

Mona, the author of this book, endowed the Lisa Jura Collection at the Holocaust Museum LA and also established the Hold On To Your Music Foundation. The Foundation website explains:

“We bring books, music and the performing arts together to tell a universal story of hope, empowering generations with knowledge and understanding. We partner with educators to inspire students, families and communities through holistic programs to keep vital lessons of resilience engaging and relevant.”

Illustrator Sonia Possentini uses pastel and gouache for her soft-edged representations of Lisa’s childhood.

Evaluation: This story about Lisa Jura could have had greater impact if the author had included more specific information about why the Holocaust was so bad beyond the fact that Lisa could no longer take piano lessons. As Carole Boston Weatherford observed in an interview about her book for children about the Tulsa Massacre of African Americans in 1921:

“I decided a few years ago to tackle the subject. If children of the past were — and still are — victimized by racial hatred, then today’s children can learn about it. I do not think that young readers are too tender for tough topics.”

Floyd Cooper, illustrator of the Weatherford book, added in the same interview:

“. . . I personally link the pervasive assault on truth that we see in our politics and media directly to historical truths that exist and have existed and are now being brought to light. A good thing for America. And of course there will be many who are and were just fine with leaving truth under the rug where it is had been swept for far too long."

[Then again, it seems that telling the truth about history can get books banned. . . .] ( )

WWII ( )