Voices from the Second World War: witnesses share their stories with the children of today

This compilation of people’s first-hand accounts of the Second World War has been put together by First News children reporters, plus some other accounts.  It is an uneven collection in that some are very child-like memories of war, and some are very adult indeed, talking of rape, men being blown up in front of soldiers, torture of resistance fighters and other kinds of violence; also of course they talk of immense courage and witness to the horror of war. It follows the progress of the war in sections from the outbreak of war, women at war, the Holocaust to VE day and the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, with family and news photographs illustrating each page. The headings are in black typeface on a red/orange background which does make them very difficult to read. It has a very good cover with what looks like a propaganda poster.

It does seem that there has been some confusion as to the audience of this compilation, because of the different levels of the memories. Some are from grandparents and great-grandparents and give the personal reactions of the child interviewer concerned, and occupy just a page. Others run to several pages and are very adult memories of war, of fighting, seeing friends killed and with adult reactions to war and their experiences to end with. There is a memory of witnessing a man killing his own daughter because she was a collaborator and was about to blow up the soldier concerned. These memories are written by adults for adults. Because of this huge variation in the contributions this would be better used by teachers and adults in order to ensure the memories reach the correct audience.

It is vital that these memories do not die as the survivors of the war die and so this is an important book.  It is just a shame that it is not as good as it could be; maybe it would have been better in two separate books.