"The Berlin Boxing Club," by Robert Sharenow is a great book for people interested in boxing, and the hardships Jews faced in Germany. Karl Stern, the protagonist, is a normal German boy. He's never been to a synagogue and he looks just like a pure Aryan, however that's not what the kids at school take him for. When a group of boys discover his family has Jewish roots he is beat up and made fun of constantly. Max Schmeling, the boxing heavyweight champion, decides to become Karl's private boxing teacher after Karl's father gives Max a very valuable piece of art. My favorite part of the book is when Karl burns the book about rotten apples, a book discriminating his sister at school. I found this part enjoyable because of the funny thought of a Jew burning a propaganda book, while antisemitic Germans were burning books that weren't propaganda. It also may have been symbolic to a theme of equality, for both were burning each other's books. I would not want to trade places with Karl. I could never handle rampages of antisemitic Germans bashing through windows and beating up innocent Jews. Everything about the hardships Karl and the Jews in Germany had to overcome such as losing citizenship, losing the ability to marry a German, losing the ability to go to a German school, and losing overall freedom, seem almost too far fetched to imagine they happened. A quote I found very interesting was, "And then I saw him. Just behind Neblig, standing with a group of boys, was Gertz Diener, my old nemesis from the Wolf Pack. His eyes met mine. I tried to read his expression. Was it confusion? Fear? Clearly I was no longer the Piss Boy he remembered." He sees his old childhood bully right after Karl goes crazy with blood lust and wins his boxing match. I enjoy this passage because the image of a scrawny weak Jew that is constantly picked on and harassed creates and image of fear in one of his tormentors. This proves strength in Karl to his bully which most likely causes his tormentor to rethink all of the propaganda he has consumed, bringing Jews one step closer to equality and respect. After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars, The Boy in Striped Pajamas, and The Book Thief, I had formed a little genre in my mind of "stories about Jewish children experiencing the Holocaust." While The Berlin Boxing Club technically fits into that category, it is vastly different and curiously refreshing.Although Jewish fictional main character Karl Stern has never gone to a synagogue and doesn't look particularly Jewish, he begins to find that society (and the aggressive Aryan school bullies) still lump him into the category of "mongrel race." After a fortuitous meeting with (historical) German boxing champion Max Schmeling, Karl begins training at the Berlin Boxing Club. As Germany continues to demonize and dehumanize the "mongrel races" more and more and the rights of his family are slowly stripped away, Karl discovers that there are great Jewish boxers and Black boxers winning matches in America. If Jewish boxer Barney Ross can fight with the best of them, maybe there's hope for Karl as well... As someone who puts on gloves and trains on a punching bag three times a week, I enjoyed reading about Karl's training and progression into the world of self-defense and fighting. As a middle school teacher, I can see middle school boys probably enjoying this book much more than the other "Holocaust kid genre" books I listed above. Easy read, interesting twist on the genre, and fascinating blend of historical fact and fiction.
Do You like book O Clube De Boxe De Berlim (2013)?
This is a young adult book and one of the best Holocaust themed books I've ever read.
—Tori
Great historical fiction from pre-WWII Germany.
—bob
