Twenty and Ten

Doug Adil & Timur Kotil

World War II

Starts September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.

Ends in Europe May 1944, the Pacific August 1944 after the drop of atomic weapons on Japan.

Global conflict involving all of the major powers.

Axis: Germany, Italy, Japan Allies: United States, France, United

Kingdom, Soviet Union

The Holocaust Forced collection and

genocide of 6 million Jews and other groups by the Nazis during World War II

Started slowly before the war with anti-Jew legislation, and escalated with forced relocation.

After the start of the war, concentration camps are subsequently created as labor camps, and shortly after the Nazis begin to exterminate Jews using gas chambers and other inhumane means.

Many Jews and Jewish families are forced into hiding, and survive on the good will of sympathetic Europeans.

The French Resistance

Came into being after the German occupation of France beginning in May 1940.

Played a signifigant part in aiding the Allies to victory over the Axis in Europe.

The Resistance was not a country-wide coalition, but separate groups that engaged in many different forms of resistance. Most Resistance members mainly participated in passive ways, such as providing aid to active members and distributing anti-Nazi propaganda.Others provided intelligence to the Allies, assisted downed pilots, and some French formed armed groups that fought the Nazis and preformed acts of sabotage, such as blowing up bridges and railways.The French Resistance also played a significant role as a way for Jews living in France to escape persecution by passing along information on raids and actively hiding French Jews. As a result, roughly three quarters of the Jews living in France at the time survived.

Claire Huchet Bishop

Born in 1899 in Geneva, Switzerland, died in 1993 at the age of 94 in Paris.

Storytelling was in her family, both her grandfather and mother were touted as excellent storytellers, and she embraced books and writing.

She opened the first library for children in France in 1924.

She had Jewish friends living in France during WWII, and their persecution had a lasting impact on both her life and her writing.

She was a Catholic but a staunch opponent of anti-Semitism: Bishop was president of the Jewish-Christian fellowship of France from 1968-1981, and president of the International Council of Christians and Jews from 1975-77.

She wrote a plethora of books, many about tolerance and religion, a good number of them for children. Twenty and Ten is one of her most popular.

Twenty and Ten

Occurs January 1944, the last year of the war. Based on a true story. Written as a children’s book to promote religious

tolerance and provide some understanding of the things that happened during WWII.

Written from the point of view of twenty non-Jewish children living in a mountain refuge near Dieulefit, in the south of France.

The woman who takes care of them, Sister Gabriel, takes in ten additional Jewish children to hide them from Nazi persecution, at great risk to both herself and the children she is in charge of.

Discussion Questions

Does the children’s point of view make a difference as to how you view the issue of hiding Jews during WWII?

Do you think that the children of the school did not realize the severity of the situation when the new children arrived?

Were you surprised by how kind and generous the children of the school acted towards the Jewish children?