Module 14 Tropical Secrets Holocaust Refugees in Cuba

Engle, M. (2009). Tropical Secrets Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Summary:

Daniel is a young Jewish boy from Nazi Germany who finds himself a refugee in Cuba where the ship America bound ship is turned away. He is waiting to reunite with his parents who have been sent to a concentration campy by the Nazis. We learn of his experiences and the people he encounters while in Cuba.



Booklist (January 1, 2009 (Vol. 105, No. 9))

“Grades 7-11. As in The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006) and The Surrender Tree (2008), both selected as Booklist Editors’ Choice titles, Engle’s latest book tells another story set in Cuba of those left out of the history books. In fluid, clear, free verse, two young people speak in alternating personal narratives. Daniel, 13, is a German Jewish refugee whose ship is finally allowed entry in Cuba after being turned away from both the U.S. and Canada. He longs to be reunited with his parents, who sent him away after Kristallnacht. Paloma, 12, discovers that her father is getting rich selling visas to refugees and then selling refugees to the Cuban authorities. She and Daniel help hide a Jewish woman and her Christian husband, who is suspected of being a Nazi spy. When adult narrators fill in background, the voices become diffused. But the international secrets make for a gripping story about refugees that becomes sharply focused through the viewpoint of the boy wrenched from home, haunted by the images of shattered glass and broken family” (Titlewave, 2011).

Impression

According to the author, Cuba accepted 65,000 refugees from 1938 to 1939, the same number that was taken in by the much large United States during the same period (Engle, 2009). The author using narrative prose makes her readers realize that in spite of differences of religion, race, ethnicity; we are all people with feelings, hopes, and dreams. We can’t always control the situation that we are in but we can control our actions and make the most of what we have got. Daniel realizes that he may never see his parents again but that he has a new family in Cuba and tries to help other refugees because he know how they feel living alone in a foreign land.

Library setting

Give a brief history of WWII, Hitler and the Nazis and the Holocaust using prezi presentation. Then have students write a journal or diary entry on how they would feel if they were separated from their family and weren’t sure if they were ever going to see them again. Some other options might be writing a poem or a song rather than a journal/diary entry.





Engle, M. (2009). Tropical Secrets Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
　

Titlewave. (2011). [A Review of the book Tropical Secrets Holocaust Refugees in Cuba]. Retrieved from
http://www.titlewave.com/search?SID=ca7f358a76c565c4b488ea60b832f1aa