The Boy on the Wooden Box: The Holocaust and Sensitive Subjects

The question of whether or not a parent should let their child read or see the new Hunger Games or Divergent movie has arisen a lot lately. Ultimately, the problem that surrounds their reservations is violence. Understandable. Why wouldn’t our first inclination be to protect children from the ugliness in the world? At the same time, we need to ensure that our adult perspectives of the world don't inhibit our children from developing their own.

I’ve had a significant number of students ask for books about the Holocaust lately. Specifically, fifth graders. This is the age kids begin to deeply consider fair and unfair, just and unjust. Genocide is the ultimate amplification of this exploration into the human condition. I just finished Leon Leyson’s memoir of survival, a first hand account of both the very worst and the very best of humanity. Leyson passed away before his book was published but his final contribution to this world was for adolescents. While there are many stories for middle grade readers that involve this atrocious topic, Boy on the Wooden Box is an immensely powerful firsthand account of a child who survived to become a husband, teacher, and grandfather. As such, Leon conveys his experience with as much sensitivity as he does dignity.  

Through a combination of coincidence, luck, and sheer brazen Leon’s life was spared by the generosity of Oskar Schindler. The Boy on the Wooden Box chronicles the improbable life of a Polish Jew before, during, and after the tragic events of World War Two. The memoir is a straight forward narration of Leyson’s survival. The discrimination imposed on Jews in Poland during the Nazi occupation is enough to outrage any student. As the war progresses and Leyson’s family is relocated to the Krakow ghetto, Leon describes a life that is nothing short of horrifying. And there are simply no adequate words to summarize living under the constant threat of death during his time in the Plaszow concentration camp. 

The Boy on the Wooden Box chronicles a life that the majority of children in this world will never know. Certainly not the children whose parents contemplate the appropriateness of the Hunger Games. After the war, Leon’s family resided in an American Occupied Zone in Germany where his father arranged tutoring from a local doctor. Leon shares an anecdote from one of their session in which he was asked about his time in the concentration camp. Overhearing the conversation the doctor’s wife expressed the common sentiment of bystanders at the time, “We didn’t know.” Immediately, Dr. Neu shoots his wife a look and replies, “Don’t say that.” The unfortunate truth is that children all over the world are suffering many of the same inhumanities experienced during the Holocaust. While this is not reason to force traumatic stories on kids, it doesn’t mean the ones that explore the darker nature of humanity are inappropriate either. 

In a graduate class about multicultural literature, Ellie Wiesel’s Night was one of the required reads. I didn’t think for a moment about approaching the teacher and explaining why I had no intention of completing the assignment. I understood why it was good selection for the class but the movie Million Dollar Baby put me into a funk for the better part of a month. I could have very well missed an opportunity to grow and learn. And while I do consider myself sensitive to the topic, my decision not to read Night came down to a desire to be defiant of required reading. Boy on the Wooden Box sat on my counter for a while before I was ready to take on the subject. I’m glad I did under my own terms because the Holocaust isn’t any easier to stomach as an adult. 

Conversely, Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killer came out the summer before seventh grade. If there ever was a spectrum of appropriateness this is the movie that could mark the far end of the spectrum. But I was enthralled. Meaning, my mother had no other choice than to take me. It’s not a quality I’m particularly proud but let’s just say if I were her and refused, I wouldn’t have wanted to live with me. So she acquiesced, taking quite a bit of heat from anybody who had an opinion about parenting. I may not remember the specifics of our conversation on the ride home, I do remember we were both appalled. I also remember coming home from school later that year beaming about my teacher’s reaction to a comment I made during a class discussion about our culture’s glorification of violence. It was of the few times I felt smart in school. For what it’s worth, beyond dabbling, I was never into violent video games; for no other reason than they weren’t for me. 

When it comes down to sensitive subject matter, be it a book, a movie, video games; it’s not about the message being sent. It’s about how the message is received. I wasn’t mature enough to see Natural Born Killers. Watching and then discussing it with an adult matured me. To this day I have friends who have a visceral reaction when they talk about their parents banning them from Beavis and Butthead, gangster rap, or the movie everyone else was talking about. It was my mother that wasn’t comfortable with the Natural Born Killers. I didn’t know any better. If she had made the easy choice, the strong sense of self she helped me develop through that experience, would have been lost in favor of censorship.

These are two anecdotes about extremes. I chose to read Wooden Box because I wanted to be able to discuss it with my student who are interested in the Holocaust. I haven’t read Night because somebody tried to force me into a situation I wasn’t comfortable with. Had I been prohibited from seeing Natural Born Killers, it probably would have engendered distrust. Instead, they capitalized on my interested and guided me to an understanding beyond my years and beyond what preconceived notions expected. At the very least, if our inclinations tend towards absolutes, it can’t be a bad thing to take a moment and consider the middle. 

Additional Middle-Grade Holocaust Reading