{"id":5664,"date":"2011-01-27T01:20:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T05:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/?p=5664"},"modified":"2016-05-15T15:21:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T19:21:35","slug":"book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REVIEW: How one Jewish believer escaped ‘Hitler’s Hell’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book Review by Lee Holman
\nFormer Editor at Messianic Times<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With all of the thousands of books out there about the Holocaust, you might be tempted to ask, why read another?<\/p>\n

Indeed, there are countless works that document the cruelty, the hate, the deprivation and death inflicted by the Third Reich. Those such as Eli Weisel\u2019s \u201cNight\u201d provide a first-hand account that is masterfully written but leave the reader depressed, wondering why God abandoned His people during this period of history.<\/p>\n

But there is a book, \u201cTrapped in Hitler\u2019s Hell\u201d by Anita Dittman with Jan Markell, that will sweep you into 1930s Germany and back with your faith firmly intact.<\/p>\n

This is the true story of Ms. Dittman, whose first encounter with Hitler\u2019s \u201cnew Germany\u201d took place in the first grade, when she was threatened and mocked by her classmates. She is the daughter of an anti-Nazi newspaper editor and an Orthodox Jewish mother. Her father, a Gentile and an atheist, succumbs to Nazi pressure to divorce his Jewish wife and abandon his two daughters, Anita and Hella.<\/p>\n

All Jews were required to register with the government and their names were promptly given to public schools so they could be monitored.<\/p>\n

The hateful threats of \u201cWe\u2019ll get you after school, you little Jew brat,\u201d escalated into beatings and lack of support from teachers.<\/p>\n

Anita finds solace in, of all places, her German textbooks, which at that time still included references to Jesus. She reads all she can find about Him and later finds answers to her questions from a Lutheran pastor who helps get her placed in a Lutheran school and later puts his life on the line to try to save her family from the death camps. Pastor Hornig is able to get Hella out of the country to London but the Gestapo clamps down completely before he can get Anita and her mother out.<\/p>\n

The Dittmans are then transferred from their comfortable row house in Breslau to a Jewish ghetto. They live in daily fear of hearing the Gestapo agents\u2019 boots walking down the main hall of their apartment building, wondering at which door they will stop.<\/p>\n

Then came the knock on the door, the shout of \u201copen up, open up\u201d and the predictable announcement, \u201cYou have five minutes to gather your things in one small bag and come with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all of their friends were taken, the Nazis came for Anita\u2019s mother, and then for her. She miraculously makes it through several death-defying situations, including a stint in a hospital with a Nazi nurse who slips her a poison pill that she promises will \u201cmake you feel better.\u201d But for every evil Nazi, there is a well-placed \u201cangel\u201d who helps get Anita out of a jam, and she makes it through the ordeal, barely a shell of her former self physically, but stronger than ever spiritually.<\/p>\n

The book carries a stark message for today\u2019s Western Christian. Germany was a Christian country and a democracy that was transformed into a dictatorship because the vast majority of Christians placed their trust in one man to lead them back to the promised land of economic prosperity and respect on the world stage. There were two types of German Christians, those represented by Pastor Hornig, who sacrificed his finances and his own safety to help the Jews, and those represented by Mrs. Michaelis, a self-absorbed, compromising Christian who agreed to take in Anita for a time, only to treat her cruelly. Mrs. Michaelis claims Anita\u2019s food rations for herself and watches the 12-year-old waste away. In contrast, some German farmers secretly slipped food to starving Jews being worked to death in the camps.<\/p>\n

The book, originally written in 1979 under the title \u201cAngels in the Camp,\u201d has been repackaged with a new epilogue [and many photos] by Lighthouse Trails Publishing.<\/p>\n

If you buy one book this summer, make it \u201cTrapped in Hitler\u2019s Hell<\/a>.\u201d It will refocus your priorities and recharge your spiritual life.\u00a0 (from\u00a0April\/May 2006, Messianic Times<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review by Lee Holman…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[2912,162,509],"class_list":["post-5664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookfilm-reviews","category-remembering-the-holocaust","tag-remembering-the-holocaust","tag-anita-dittman","tag-hitlers-hell","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-13-id"],"yoast_head":"\nBOOK REVIEW: How one Jewish believer escaped 'Hitler's Hell' - From the Lighthouse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BOOK REVIEW: How one Jewish believer escaped 'Hitler's Hell'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Book Review by Lee Holman...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\/blog\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"From the Lighthouse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LighthouseTrailsResearch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-01-27T05:20:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-15T19:21:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Miscellaneous News Source\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@LTrails\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@LTrails\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Miscellaneous News Source\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Miscellaneous News Source\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/9fdbcbd48da5f29bb452804f6cac87fd\"},\"headline\":\"BOOK REVIEW: How one Jewish believer escaped ‘Hitler’s Hell’\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-01-27T05:20:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-05-15T19:21:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":684,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"Remembering the Holocaust\",\"Anita Dittman\",\"hitler's hell\"],\"articleSection\":[\"BOOK\\\/FILM REVIEWS\",\"Remembering the Holocaust\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com\\\/blog\\\/book-review-how-one-jewish-believer-escaped-hitlers-hell\\\/\",\"name\":\"BOOK REVIEW: How one Jewish believer escaped 'Hitler's Hell' - 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