“Things didn’t start out at Auschwitz. They built to Auschwitz.” -A Jewish Q&A with author Danica Davidson, I Will Protect You

I have been angry about Holocaust education in schools for a while. About the books that are chosen and the books that are banned. About the way it’s skipped over or minimized. About the way students don’t learn what happened to Anne Frank after her family was discovered. So when I received a copy of I Will Protect You by Eva Mozes Kor with Danica Davidson, I was eager to like it. And I did. When my 8th grade niece needed to choose a Holocaust book, she borrowed this book from me and reported back: she liked it, too. It was a quick read but deep and gritty and honest.

I caught up with Danica Davidson, the author who helped survivor Eva Mozes Kor bring her story to the page, to ask all the Jewish questions about I Will Protect You.

Q: Danica, I'd love to hear how you first got involved with writing this book with Holocaust survivor Eva Mozes Kor, and what your expectations were going into this very special and unique project.

A: Eva and I met after I saw her speak at a college and introduced myself afterward, hoping to interview her for a magazine. I’d gone to her speech — and been to other Jewish speakers — because I’d experienced increased antisemitism, especially at work. So I wanted to write something that could help educate people and prevent hatred, prejudices and double standards against Jews. 

I didn’t walk in there expecting to do a book with her. But when I mentioned I’d published sixteen kids’ books, she lit up and said she wanted to do a children’s book about her life. She said the only way to truly fight antisemitism is to teach kids in an accessible way. 

Q: Eva tells her story in first-person, narrating her experience in a way that's accurate and true in all its horrors, but still for middle grade readers. I am interested in hearing about the way in which you helped with that balance.

A: Eva knew that she wanted a book for young people, but she wasn’t sure how to go about it. That’s where she leaned on me. I would pass ideas by her, and luckily we were pretty much on the same wavelength. She liked most of the ideas I had. 

For instance, I knew I didn’t want to write it like a textbook, because I figured that would put kids to sleep. To interest kids, I thought it needed to read like a novel, be fast-paced, have short chapters, and use a child’s voice. 

Eva looked at me dead in the eyes one day and told me not to sugarcoat her story. And I didn’t want to. I kept running into people in my life who said things to the effect of, “The Holocaust wasn’t that bad.” Obviously anyone who says that doesn’t know anything about the Holocaust. Eva and I wanted to educate against this, so it was important to talk about the darker stuff.

I made a general rule: Details went in if Eva witnessed them herself, or if the details were needed for the bigger picture of the Holocaust.

Sometimes I would also try to read between the lines of what I thought Eva was trying to say, and most of the time I was right. She said I understood her thinking and appreciate how I could “translate” her thoughts into a language that was both literary and kid-friendly. Sometimes I also added on to what she said. For instance, she wanted kids to not go through what she did. So how do you do that? I thought an easy way to talk to kids about this is to recommend you look at what people do and see if it matches with their actions. This came out in the scene after the war when Eva got swept up into Romanian communism because she thought it was a good alternative to Nazism. It was an alternative to Nazism, but it had a number of overlaps in terms of antisemitism, censorship, and control over people. It was also an opportunity to show how anyone — including Eva, or you or I — can fall for something if it sounds good, even if it’s actually something that’s harmful. This wasn’t something Eva specifically said, but I put it in there, and she really liked it and gave her approval. 

Q: The book opens with Eva and her twin sister Miriam experiencing antisemitism at school in their small village of Portz. Eva must have shared many childhood stories with you. How did you decide which stories from her childhood in Portz to include in the book?

A: I pared down a lot of what Eva told me to make this book so that it would flow better and stick to a few themes. I latched on to the idea of opening with the girls experiencing antisemitism in school because Eva kept bringing it up, so I knew how much it affected her, and because I thought it was the perfect place to begin. Not only is school a familiar setting for kids, but it gets us to the heart of the matter: antisemitism. And it shows that things didn’t start out at Auschwitz. They built to Auschwitz. I also thought it was important to go into the long history of antisemitism, especially after I’d heard multiple people say things to the effect of, “The Jews only had a few bad years in the 40s. That’s it. What are they complaining about?” 

Q: While this is a book for middle grade readers, it does not shy away from the grim and cruel truth. From the train ride to Auschwitz to the Mengele experiments to which Miriam and Eva were subject, I Will Protect You shares Eva's story with morbid and difficult accuracy. Many Holocaust novels for children do not see the inside of a concentration camp, often taking place in the attics and hiding places of righteous gentiles. What advice do you have for middle grade teachers wanting to incorporate this book into their Holocaust education programs?

A: You hit the nail on the head. Most kids’ Holocaust books deal with hiding or escaping. These are important stories to tell, too, but if that’s all there is, it gives an unrealistic idea that most Jews successfully hid or escaped. We don’t have concentration camp stories from child survivors simply because child survivors of camps are that rare. That’s what most drew me to Eva’s story: that she could tell a child’s story to children about this part of the Holocaust. 

Even though this story is hard, it’s important it’s implemented in upper elementary school and middle school education on the Holocaust, because it can teach more about the Holocaust than the hiding and escaping stories typically do. A teacher might want to read the book in class with students, so students can ask questions as they go along. 

We teach kids not to be bullies, which is important, but I also think it’s important to teach kids strength in the face of adversity, because bullying is never going to fully go away, and sometimes life is very, very hard. I think Eva’s story is a great way to show kids how emotionally strong they can be. 

Q: Eva remembers the quote that hung in her childhood kitchen: "Your mind is like a garden. Plant flowers so weeds can't grow." She holds onto that message of hopefulness and desire to live until she is freed. What message do you hope readers will take from this book?

A: I hope this book teaches a lot of kids (and anyone who wants to read it!) more about the Holocaust so we can fight against the ignorance. I also hope readers take away messages of strength. That quote was one of the things Eva told me that I latched on to because I saw the meaning it could have in our book, and I hope readers continue to think about it. We only have control over ourselves, not outside events, so we control our actions and our minds. And we have capabilities to do amazing things with our actions and our minds.