The Boy Who Dared Blog #1

 The Boy Who Dared, a fictional story by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, tells about a German boy named Helmuth.  Helmuth, a Hitler Youth, is a boy with confused thoughts about Hitler and what he is doing to Germany. He is unsure if what he is doing to Jewish people is good or not.

The story starts in Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, Germany with Helmuth, age 17, in a jail cell. It describes how an executioner works only on Tuesdays, and how it is Tuesday. There is a feeling of fear within Helmuth. It then goes to a flash back. Helmuth is at school, waiting for the broadcast to find out if Hitler would become the next chancellor of Germany. The whole school gathers to wait for the broadcast. When Hitler is sworn in, there is a lot of buzzing throughout the school. The students talk about their opinions on Hitler. “The teachers ignore the Hitler Youth. They are too busy whispering sharply with the other teachers, fighting over the reasons why Germany is so desperate for Adolf Hitler.” (p. 13, The Boy Who Dared).  People had their own opinions on what Adolf Hitler would do as chancellor of Germany. After school is dismissed that day, Helmuth notices that everybody is talking about Hitler becoming chancellor. A soldier approaches Helmuth and hands him a leaflet about the parade that would be held in Hitler’s honor. Helmuth wasn’t allowed to go. A few days later, the Reichstag was set on fire. Hitler claimed that it was a plot to destroy the government by the Communists. After that happens, Hitler advises people to not shop at Jewish stores in order to defend themselves. A boy at Helmuth’s school is discriminated against by the teacher and the class because he is Jewish. Later, Helmuth is ordered by his mother to go to a Jewish bakery to buy apple-cake trimmings. When he arrives at the bakery, he finds that Hitler Youth had written discriminating things on the windows. When Helmuth tries to enter the bakery, soldiers instruct him that he shouldn’t buy from this baker because he’s Jewish. When the owner of the shop tries to clean off the discriminating words from his windows, the soldiers begins beating him up.

The characters in the book so far are Helmuth and his family. His family consists of Opa, Oma, Mutti, Gerhard, and Hans. Helmuth is the main character. The story takes place in Berlin, Germany during World War II. Since the plot hasn’t completely developed yet, there are only a couple of problems. One problem is when Helmuth is in jail. He doesn’t know when he will be killed, so he is living every day knowing that eventually he will be killed. The second problem so far is how Jewish shops are being boycotted by the rest of Germany.