The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman

I was very pleased with the way the book ended. As I neared the end I was on the edge of my seat to see what the dybbuk would do. The mystery of why the dybbuk was possessing the entertainer and for how long kept me reading. Find the SS officer who now lives as a Jewish victim and get revenge. Avrom was eventually shot by the same officer. Avrom watched helplessly as his sister was poisoned and died. When is was alive he and his sister Sulka were hiding from the SS officers who took great pleasure in hunting down Jewish children, bagging them and then killing them.

It seems the dybbuk, when alive was a young boy named Avrom Amos Poliakov. The dybbuk needs the help of the entertainer to track down someone from his past. Against the entertainer's wishes the dybbuk enters his body and soon begins to speak for the dummy. He needs to inhabit his body in exchange he will help him. He wants something from the Ventriloquist.

That is until he returns to his room one night and finds someone waiting. This is the story of a ventriloquist who is not very successful. I was not sure what a dybbuk was but learned that it was the equivalent of a Jewish Ghost.

I first picked up this book because it had a ventriloquist dummy on the cover. Avrom wants revenge against the Nazi that killed him and his sister, and he knows just how to get it. Freddie doesn't know it yet, but he's going to return the favor. He was murdered by the Nazis, not long after he had saved the life of a young soldier-one named Freddie, who happen to be a ventriloquist. What makes a good ventriloquist? (Question class) You'd think, since Freddie is pretty much lousy at his profession, that he would welcome any help he could get. Unbelievably, this Holocaust novel includes humor in the form of a not very talented ventriloquist named Freddie. In Sid Fleishman's book, I learned yet another gruesome way that the Germans exterminated Jews, specifically, Jewish children. In Briar Rose, I learned about a camp and town in Poland I had never heard of, as well as yet another cruel way of eliminating the Jews, in this case, Jewish women. One of the first genres that kind of hooked me into reading was historical fiction centered on the Holocaust, and I have read many in the genre. I had just finished reading Briar Rose, by Jane Yolen, and was surprised that I learned something new about the Holocaust.

The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman