Book Review: We'll Soon Be Home Again

Six Stories of Children Who Watched Europe Descend Into Tyranny

Sweden's Most Internationally Renowned Graphic Novel

Hey Y'all,

In an attempt to switch up from my usual content I'll start doing book reviews once a month. For May, I'm reviewing the graphic novel by Jessica Bab Bonde and Peter Bergting titled We'll Soon Be Home Again. 

It's a haunting but necessary read that shares six real stories of children who survived the Holocaust, each one raw and painful. The illustrations are honest and stark; the storytelling straightforward, which somehow makes it hit even harder.

As we watch anti-Blackness, anti-migrant, and all forms of hate rise in today’s America, especially against anyone who isn’t cis, white, or Christian, this book feels urgent. For me it served as a history lesson and a warning...

I'm going to be honest, this isn’t an easy read, but it shouldn’t be. Their stories are a moving cry for compassion, as each one is stripped of their possessions and lose their loved ones and their dignity. 

Their accounts of living through their persecutions in the ghetto, the de-humanization and the starvation in the concentration camps, and the industrial-scale mass murder taking place in the extermination camps aren’t meant to comfort, they’re meant to make you remember, reflect, and refuse to let this happen again.

Read it. Sit with it. Pass it on. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Trucks drove into the ghetto and took all of the sick people from the hospitals. They went from house to house and took all of the elderly people, everyone unable to work, and all the children under 10 years old. By the end of August 1942, all children under 10 were supposed to be handed over"

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Timeline of Events

• 🔎Jan. 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, becomes head of the government in Germany

• 🔎1933-1935: The German Parliament successfully introduces laws that isolate Jews from the rest of society, limiting their freedom and opportunities.

• 🔎Sept. 15, 1935: The Nuremberg Laws are announced in Germany. Jews no longer have rights as German citizens. Marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews is prohibited.

• 🔎March 12, 1938: German troops enter Austria.

• 🔎Oct. 28, 1938: 17k Jews of Polish descent are forced to leave Germany for Poland.

• 🔎Nov. 9-10, 1938: Crystal Night: Jews are hunted and murdered, their property is destroyed, and synagogues are burned down all over Germany.

• 🔎March 15, 1939: Germany attacks Poland and WWII breaks out. The day after, Italy announces and alliance with Germany. Great Britain and France declare war against Germany on Sept. 3. The Swedish government announces neutrality in the ongoing war.

• 🔎Sept. 17, 1939: The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.

• 🔎Sept. 21, 1939: In Poland, Jews are transferred by force to specific areas called ghettos.

• 🔎Dec. 1, 1939: All Jews living in Poland must carry the Star of David visibly on their person. Later, that will include all Jews in Germany and in German-occupied territories.

• 🔎1940: Germany invades Norway and Denmark. Sweden allows Germany to transport soldiers and weapons to and from Norway through Sweden. German troops invade Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. They continue onto France and occupy Paris. German troops attack Britain. Large parts of London are destroyed by German bombings.

• 🔎June 21, 1941: Germany attacks the Soviet Union.

• 🔎Dec. 7, 1941: The Japanese air force attacks the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Together with their Allies, the U.S. declares war against Japan, Germany, and Italy.

• 🔎1941-1942: Six extermination camps are established in Poland by the Germans. Among them is Auschwitz-Birkenau.

• 🔎Jan. 20, 1942: German officers gather outside Berlin for the Wannsee Conference, to discuss the "Final Solution" for the "Jewish issue". The plan: to systematically exterminate the Jewish people. 74k Jews are sent to extermination camps.

• 🔎1942-1943: German troops deport Jews from ghettos to camps. Thousands are put to death in gas chambers and through forced labor.

• 🔎Feb. 2, 1943: Soviet troops defeat the German army at Stalingrad (today Volograd).

• 🔎April 19, 1943: The Warsaw Rising breaks out against German troops, the largest resistance in occupied Europe, with a significant symbolic impact.

• 🔎Oct. 1943: Sweden welcomes Danish Jews, a vast majority of which reach Sweden by boat.

• March 19, 1944: Germany invades Hungary. Soon Jews are deported to Poland.

• 🔎June 6, 1944: D-Day: Western Allied forces successfully march on Normandy, France. The troops continue fighting Nazi forces throughout Europe.

• 🔎1944: The Soviet Union attacks German forces in Eastern Europe and makes their way through Poland where they discover several concentration camps.

• 🔎Year's end, 1944-45: German forces in Poland escape the Soviet army, forcing more than 100k prisoners from the camps to follow, often by foot, back to Germany. Later this is called the March of Death, because of the large number of prisoners that died of exhaustion or were sho to death along the way.

• 🔎1945: The Allies continue making their way through Europe, to Germany, discovering camps filled with prisoners, many so weak they die during liberation. Survivors reach Sweden with the White Buses, a Swedist rescue action coordinated by the Red Cross, Sweden welcomes 10k refugees to be rehabilitated at hospitals and refugee camps throughout the country.

• 🔎Jan. 27, 1945: The Soviet army liberates the prisoners, mostly sick or dying, in the Auschwitz camps. In 2025, the U.N. declares Jan. 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

• 🔎April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

• 🔎May 7-8, 1945: Germany surrenders. The war is over in Europe.

• 🔎July 17- August 2, 1945: The Allied powers disarm Germany, their war industries are destroyed, and those responsible for the crimes against humanity stand for an international military court of law. Germany is divided into four zones of occupation controlled by Britain, the U.S., France, and the Soviet Union.

• 🔎Summer 1945: Throughout Europe, refugee camps are established to help prisoners and survivors of the Holocaust. Slowly, survivors find their way back to everyday life. Buraeus established to help people find family and friends that also survived, and to help re-establish their lives.

• 🔎August 1945: The U.S. drops nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Hundreds of thousands are killed, and Japan surrenders. WWII comes to an end.

• 🔎October 24, 1945: The United Nations is formed and its statues adopted.

• 🔎November 20, 1945: An international trial in Nuremberg against the German war criminals commences. Other trials follow.

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This book is inspired by Survivors of the Holocaust by Kate Schackelton, Zane Whittingham, and Ryan Jones, published by The Watts Publishing group.

Some of the information in this book is taken from Living History Forum and the Swedish Antisemitism Committee. 

Visit their home pages to learn more: https://aboutholocaust.org/about/