Parallel Journeys

by Eleanor H. Ayer

She was a young German Jew. He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth. This is the story of their parallel journey through World War II.

Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck were born just a few miles from each other in the German Rhineland. But their lives took radically different Helen’s to the Auschwitz concentration camp; Alfons to a high rank in the Hitler Youth.

While Helen was hiding in Amsterdam, Alfons was a fanatic believer in Hitler’s “master race.” While she was crammed in a cattle car bound for the death camp Auschwitz, he was a teenage commander of frontline troops, ready to fight and die for the glory of Hitler and the Fatherland. This book tells both of their stories, side-by-side, in an overwhelming account of the nightmare that was World War II. The riveting stories of these two remarkable people must stand as a powerful lesson to us all.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Holocaust, Biography, World War II, Read For School, School

260 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Eleanor H. Ayer is an American novelist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her book Parallel Journeys. She was born and raised in Vermont, and was inspired to write at an early age by her mother's career as a teacher. She attended Syracuse University.

Reviews

[Kellee Moye · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you follow my reviews, you probably know that I lack in my history education. However, I have been fascinated (and appalled) by the history of World War II since I was a young girl and my grandfather would tell me stories of his time on the front and as a POW. Throughout my life, I have read many novels about WWII, but it wasn't until last year when I read The Boy Who Dared and Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti that I began to learn about the other side of the story. The way that Hitler manipulated and brainwashed such a huge population of young people is terrifying. I had not realized the cult-ness of Nazism until reading those books. I always thought it was just a bunch of evil people; never did it occur to me that good people were talked into doing bad things.

After hearing about my new historical knowledge, a friend of mine recommended this book and lent it to me. And the horrors that are found within this book takes my historical education of WWII and the Holocaust to a whole different level. Parallel Journeys is written by Eleanor Ayer, but she uses parts of three autobiographies throughout: Commitment to the Dead: One Woman's Journey Toward Understanding by Helen Waterford, a Holocaust survivor, as well as The Burden of Hitler's Legacy and Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika by Alfons Heck, a Hitler Youth officer during the war. Eleanor Ayers brilliantly intertwines the two stories and chronologically takes us through their parallel journeys. If all books that taught history were as intelligently woven as this book, we would have no problem teaching our children history.

[Sarah Grace Grzy]

This is a hard book to rate, so I think I am going to skip the rating and just review it.

This was a very accurate, real life, and therefore sometimes slightly gruesome account of a young boy in the Hitler Youth, and a Jewish girl\woman in her fight for her life, and the lives of her husband and daughter. It was very fascinating and made me want to keep reading. But at the same time, it was very hard to get through because of the sheer bleakness portrayed. WWII was not a happy time for many people in Europe, to put it mildly. The desperation and fear of these times for people like the Jews, and yet the exhilaration and thrilling excitement for followers of Hitler, particularly the Hitler Youth. It's just mind-blowing, really. Surprisingly, throughout most of the book, I felt a compassion and sympathy for Alfons. It is so sad that someone can be so brainwashed and blinded by the lies of the Enemy that they would blindly follow such a person as Hitler, and give their whole-hearted dedication to said person. And, of course, Helen's story also broke my heart.

I loved how the author included frequent snippets from both of the character's autobiographies. It lent a more personal aspect to the otherwise simple relaying of facts.

Not recommended for anyone under the age of 15 or for sensitive persons. I was in tears numerous times just at the numbers. It was a very good and well written account, but definitely not something I would read again!

[Kimba Tichenor · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title suggests, the author interweaves the writings of two young Germans who lived within miles of each other but had very different experiences of World War II. Helen Waterford, a young Jewish mother, escaped Nazi Germany only to be captured in the Netherlands and sent to an extermination camp in Poland. Alfons Heck, only six years old when Hitler first came to power, became a high-ranking officer in the Hitler Youth. Many years after the war, Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck would meet in San Diego. For ten years, they visited schools, synagogues and churches together to share their experiences of Nazi Germany. These lectures were not always well-received; Heck came under attack from American Neo-Nazi groups for dishonoring the memory of their hero Hitler. Helen encountered hostile Jewish audiences, who felt that her association with Heck (an admitted former Hitler Youth fanatic) dishonored the memories of those murdered during the Holocaust. They could not understand why she did not hate all Germans and asked her what did she expect to gain by not hating them. How could she forgive them? To this, she responded that she had not forgiven anyone for the crimes committed against the Jewish people. She did not believe that it was up to her to forgive, that if it were possible it "would be up to the six million who were murdered." However, she also believed that hating Germans or Nazis was not the answer, because as she had learned "hating is a boomerang that only destroys the sender. I want to build peace not feed the flames of never ending destruction" (234). Their shared goal was to speak for those who had died and to warn that what happened in Germany could happen in any nation "where people hate those who are different."

The book's intended audience appears to be young adults. In presenting the stories and actual writings of Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck, Ayer provides general information on Nazi Germany, WWII, and the Holocaust in plain, simple to understand language. This background information is intended to contextualize her subjects' experience and clarify the firsthand accounts of the author's two subjects. Unfortunately, the transitions between background information and eye witness accounts are not always smooth. In some places, the various narrative voices, i.e. Elizabeth Ayer, Helen Waterford, and Alfons Heck become indistinguishable, making it difficult to know who is speaking. In other places, the author's voice feels intrusive, interrupting Heck and Waterford's powerful firsthand accounts with unnecessary commentary. For this reason, I have given this book a 4, rather than a 5.

[Ezra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who has read this book? I'm truthfully suprised our teachers dont have it on the books for the year. I love Night but this book beats it by the history, dates, pictures and real diary pieces from the two protagonists during their lives in the holocaust. I have read this book about 3 times and it is just on of those books where you find new ideas each read. Parallel Jouneys basically describes the book but even so here is more. Alfred Heck, a high Nazi Youth at the age 15 and Helen Waterford, a Jew are living both through the time of the Holocaust, obvioulsy one effected more negatively than the other. They both have to learn how to survive either allown or watched by the Nazi. Though they never meet, they both go through horrifying life experiences that make you wonder how a world was blinded by all of this. My favorite quote in fact is this: "There are none so blind as those who will not see"-old english proverb. This basically sums up that fact the the horrors concerning the world can only be as bad as those who make believe they are not there. I love this quote and believe that all should strive to do the opposite. I encourage us youths to read this book for enlightenment and to also be ahead of the game in Global Studies :) The world is too big for just one type of book, i recommend this book to the world who find history entriging and especially the holocaust. There are no regrets after this book, TRUST!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating is not for the content of this book. The content is bleak, painful and heart-wrenching as goes with such books, and that is something that can never be rated. The rating goes out for the purpose and the cause behind the making of this book. And for that it has my complete support.

Despite having attained ample knowledge about the Holocaust before, there is never an end to know more about what happened during the Second World War. This book, despite the fact that it is written for ages 12+ I learnt a lot of new things. Yes they were brief and superficial, but things I still didn't know. And one such was the first-hand inside story about the young people in Hitler Youth.

The main purpose of this book - by providing a real-life example from our history's worst times into the new, and to make more peace in our world - is something I admire the most.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful book club discussion we had! My Top 5 Take-Homes: #1 Learn from history so we don't have to live through the horrors first hand. #2 I am so grateful for my blankets on my comfortable bed in my beautifully furnished, heated home. I'm thankful to eat as much food as I could ever want. I am immeasurably blessed to have all of my family with me every day, safe and sound. #3 I will never know how brave or resilient I am until I have to be. #4 Unanswered question: What am I doing to make the world a better place right now? #5 " It seems impossible to me that living under one sky, without hate, would not be the wish of any human being." "The murder of eleven million people in the Holocaust began very simply with prejudice, minor harassment. if you allow harassment to grow and fester, if you do nothing to stop it, then you become one of the perpetrators." "... hate is a boomerang that only destroys the sender."

[Valerie knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many students start learning about the holocaust in middle school and do a vast number of projects through out high school. Being one of those students, I was not very enthusiastic about reading Parallel Journeys for my Novel class. I knew it would be the same stories I've learned over and over. I was obviously mistaken. Ayer does a fantastic job of taking the reader back to the beginning of the war in the late 1930s to travel with Helen and Alfons throughout the war. My attitude quickly changed toward this book as my mind was opened up by their stories. Especially Alfons' story. Being a seventeen year old I haven't been exposed to many Nazis, mostly Jews like Anne Frank, so I learned a a whole new perspective. I am glad there are people like Helen and Alfons to speak out and teach us about our history even if it is the part of history we are not proud of. I always love learning about characters in books and how things play out and this being first biography I read I was excited when I realized that there is more for me to learn. There are many survivors of the Holocaust and an endless amount I can learn about this part of our history. Weather you are a history person or not this book has a lot to offer and everyone should read it.

[Jennifer Mangler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The background information really helps to contextualize the experiences of Alfons and Helen. And the excerpts from each of their books does an excellent job of showing how Nazi ideology negatively impacted them both. I'm very grateful that Helen and Alfons worked together and shared their stories to help people know what happened and see the warning signs. I just wish we'd do a better job of learning from their experiences.

[Bradley Petry · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book and had some good information in it

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim, thinking it would be yet another recounting of Germany during the war. This book illuminates the personal devastation that Hitler unleashed on the innocent people of Europe. The book, in alternating chapters, recounts the personal stories of two of those victims. One of them is Helen Waterford, a Jewish survivor of the concentration camps. Her story is in some sense predictable, because it has been told so many times in so many variants by so many survivors. While each story is unique, as is each life lost, the stories have been told so many times that I come to expect a certain sameness from them. Helen, through the ghostwriter of this book, though, makes her story immediate and personally painful. No one should be allowed to ignore or forget the kind of abuse she suffered at the hands of her countrymen in Germany.

The second victim, though, tells a story that to me was somewhat more troubling. The story of Alfons Heck, while not as tortured as Helen's, is really just as troubling. Here was a child brainwashed by the Nazis whose innate morality was perverted to the point that he admits that he would have committed any act demanded of him by the Nazis, without consideration or even knowledge of its depravity. A lifetime of soul searching has left him angry at what was done to him. He does not feel that he deserves forgiveness, and does not ask for any; he only tells his story in the hope that some who hear it will understand, and take it upon themselves to do what they can to make sure that no one else is victimized as he was.

The story of the relationship these two formed with each other in America is inspiring. It is easy to despair for humanity when reading stories like this, but these two offer hope. In the aftermath of atrocities emanating from the worst aspects of the human psyche, Alfons and Helen show a way through by their friendship with each other.

Still, though, the incident in the book that will stick with me is the one in which a seventeen year old American student asks Alfons (with Helen sitting next to him) if he would have shot Helen during the war had he been ordered to do so. His truthful answer to that blunt question, his pained apology to Helen after giving it, and her response in turn to him, illustrate the extent of the journey traveled by these individual participants in the worst event of the troubled twentieth century.

[Qt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and engrossing book, following the experiences of Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck, both before, during, and after the war; quotations from both of them are used frequently throughout the book. My one complaint is that it's not always instantly clear who is "speaking" in the quotations.

[Noah Scherer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fascinating to read. It tells the stories of Helen Waterford, a German Jew who survived Auschwitz, and Alfons Heck, a German boy who was a member of the Hitler Youth. Both were victims, one of the cruelties of the genocide of the Nazi Party, and another brainwashed into mindlessly fighting for the Nazi Party.
It is written in a way that has both paragraphs written in the third person, and then sections by the individuals themselves. Overall it was a very good book, with a warning at the end against mindlessly listening to what the crowd is saying, and against giving in to hatred for a people.

[Nancy G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents two stories, one about a woman who survived Auschwitz; the other about a man who was part of the Hitler youth. It was this second part, hearing the account about how Hitler recruited and influenced these very young people, and his journey towards recognizing his role in the atrocities, that made this book unique. There two ultimately sat together and spoke to students. How I wish I could have heard their presentations.

[Christopher Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book. It told the two separate stories of two people living in the same area during WW2 one Jewish, one German. I’ve read many books about Holocaust survivors and this ladies story is equally heartbreaking and gripping but I’ve never read a story from the perspective of a former Nazi youth. I found his story to be extremely interesting and just the fact that they were basically brainwashed from such a young age and under such mind control from Hitler and his people is incredibly scary. The things that were endured on all sides of that war were horrific. I think this is a very important YA book about this subject and would recommend it to anyone to read.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am always sad and emotionally spent when I finish a book about World War 2. Such a senseless waste of human life and so much hatred. This book gave a good overall summary of Germany's involvement in World War 2. It was also interesting in that it gave us one point of view from someone that was in the Hitler Youth. That is a perspective I haven't read much of and it gives me more insight into the fictional book, The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, which I read earlier this year that deals with a zealous youth devoted to Hitler. I really liked how it took both that perspective and the perspective of a Jew who survived Auschwitz and intertwined them using excerpts in their own words. I also really liked learning about how they teamed up in the 1980's and lectured together. That was very interesting.

2017 Popsugar Reading Challenge #8 A book with multiple authors

[Ava Gonzales · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good topic for a non-fiction book and for anyone who is interested in the Holocaust should definitely read it

[Kelsey Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parallel Journeys is a book about World War 2 where Eleanor Ayer gives a description about two different people during the time, Alfons Heck and Helen Waterford. Helen was a Jewish girl who went into hiding in Amsterdam against the Nazis and Alfons was a German child who became a high ranking Nazi official during the time period in Germany. This book is great at giving information, feelings, and stories over the tragic incidents in Germany over The Holocaust and World War 2. If you are interested in the history of Germany during this time period then I would definitely recommend this book to you. Although, if you are like me and are not too interested in history, then this book may not be that interesting to you. All together, this is an important time in history for everyone so it is definitely worth reading to get a good understanding of this time.

[Debbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A true story or stories as this is two people's journey through World War II. The first is a young man who grows up in a small village and like all German children he is brainwashed by Nazism and inducted into the Hitler Youth at 10-years-old. The other story starts with a young Jewish girl about the time Hitler starts his propaganda campaign against the Jews. The book goes back and forth between the two but stays current date wise as it goes from the early thirties when Hilter first rose to power clear through the war and beyond. Very accurate and told a lot about the war that I did not know or had forgotten. I didn't know that Germany invaded France so early in the war or that Hitler ordered his Hitler Youth to fight even after he had killed himself. Excellent book.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

There isnt a negative rating...

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely one of the best books i’ve read about the holocaust and the lives affected by it. i’m glad this is in my collection now and i’ve definitely learned a lot from it.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books like this should be required reading in our schools. It shows from Alfonse's writing how a "God" is created out of a man and how they blindly will follow that person.
He writes "At first I thought my god had died fighting the Soviets, but when I found out it was suicide, I did not think any less of him."
"The French ordered us to watch the films....When we saw the corpses and pictures of the dead and dying prisoners we simply refused to believe them. These were obviously fakes.... They could not possibly be real."
But it was real and he later came to realize that
From Helen's diary we can see love and compassion even through the pain she suffered. Helen writes " I know that genocide can happen in any society where people hate those who are different. When we allow ourselves to live with hatred and seek revenge against our enemies we destroy all hope."
Our enemy is not the one of a different race, color, language, sex, age, ..... our enemy is the one that divides us.

[Melissa Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very worthwhile read about the Holocaust from the perspectives of both a former fanatical Hitler Youth leader (Alfons Heck) and a Jewish woman (Helen Waterford) who survived horrible conditions in concentration camps. This book describes well how a powerful, charismatic leader can convince followers to unquestioningly do things they would never have otherwise done. Not an easy read because of the intensity and horror of the content, but riveting and eye-opening. Alfons Heck and Helen Waterford partnered in speaking and writing with the hopes of encouraging people to let go of hate in order to prevent genocide from happening again. It was disturbing to read in the epilogue how hatefully some people reacted to their message, and I hope many people will read this and similar books with open mind and heart.

[Maddie Swick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was pretty good. It was kind of depressing because of the time period. It had a Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Germany, and a boy that she grew up near that was in the Hitler Youth. Both of the people were one of the strongest people they could be given the circumstances. The girl, Helen, was probably one of the strongest people I’ve ever heard of. She went through the camps, and never gave up for what she was fighting for. Her one goal was to get out and see her daughter again. She fought through all of the horrible conditions just so she could maybe have the chance to get her back. After the war was over, and her life was back to normal, she did something that totally took me off guard. She called the boy, Alfons Heck, who was in the Hitler Youth but was doing the same stuff as Generals at his young age, and asked to meet up. She had no hatred for him and what he had done. They ended up going around America and lecturing at schools about the horrors of WW2.

[Alex Baugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The early lives of Alfons Heck and Helen Katz and their individual experience of Hitler’s sway are the subject of this book. Alfons was born in1928, in Wittlich, Germany, a town near the French border and in the heart of the Mosel wine country. He was still a young boy when Hitler came to power and knew no other way of life than Nazism. By the time he was old enough to join the Hitler Youth at age 10, he had been fully indoctrinated in and completely accepted Nazi dogma. Helen was older, born in 1909 in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1933, she married Siegfried Wohlfarth. When the first new laws were passed discriminating against Jews, Siegfried lost his job and Helen was forced to leave university.


By 1935, things were considerably worse for Jews in Germany. Helen and Siegfried decided to leave and went to live in Amsterdam, Holland. In 1937, their daughter Doris was born. Less than a year later, Alfons was sworn into the Jungvolk , the junior branch of the Hitler Youth. After Kristallnacht, or the night of the broken glass on November 9, 1939, Helen and Siegfried were able to get Helen’s brother Fred to England and later the US, and their parents to Holland. But other Jews were not so fortunate.

When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, the Wohlfarths knew their safety would be in jeopardy from then on and they realized that they would have to do something. In July, 1942, they received a letter telling them to report at the train station for “resettlement to the East.” They bought themselves a little more time in Holland by having a doctor remove Siegfried’s healthy appendix. Through the Dutch Resistance, they were able to find a Christian family who was willing to take in Doris and protect her from the Nazis. With Doris safe, Siegfried and Helen decided to go into hiding, again with help of the Dutch resistance. Meanwhile, Alfons had been accepted into the elite Flieger Hitler-Jugend, where he would start training first in glider flying and later as a Luftwaffe pilot. Alfons loved flying and became youngest top-rated glider pilot in all Germany.

Eventually the Wohlfarth’s were discovered in their hiding place. On September 3, 1944 they were put on a train and sent to Auschwitz. Their arrival at this camp was the last time Helen saw Siegfried. It wasn’t until many years later that his death on December 5, 1944 in Stutthof concentration camp was confirmed for her. Helen stayed in Auschwitz for two months and was relocated to Kratzau, a work camp in Poland. She remained there until the Russian Army liberated the camp. She decided to go find her daughter, despite being sick and weak, and, wearing a pair of men’s dress shoes she had been given by the Red Cross, she started walking across Europe to Amsterdam. By the end of the war, Alfrons never made it to the Luftwaffe, but he did achieve the highest rank possible in the Hitler Youth.

Alfons and Helen both ended up living in California, and after reading an article Alfons had written in a newspaper, Helen got in touch with him. In 1979, they formed a partnership, speaking to groups of people about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Their only criterion for their collaboration was complete honesty. I can only imagine how much courage it must have taken for these two people to stand in front of audiences and tell their stories.

In 1985, Alfons Heck published a book about his life called A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika. In 1987, Helen, whose real name was Herta Katz, published a book about her life called Commitment to the Dead: One Woman’s Journey toward Understanding. These books are not for young readers. However, using excerpts from each of them to trace the parallel, but very different journeys of Helen and Alfons, Ayer has produced a very informative and engrossing book for a younger reader. She has filled in their personal stories, which are compelling on their own, with historical details. The book is intense, but never overwhelming. It is clear both Helen and Alfons continued to bear the scars of their youth under Hitler’s domination, although they both tried very hard to come to terms with their separate pasts. But can one ever come to terms with this period in history? I did find that sometimes, when reading the sections on Alfons, I had to remind myself that he was still a child turned into a boy soldier, along with so many others, by the end of the war. And even after Nazi Germany fell, he was not yet a man, just a 16 year old boy who wanted to go back to school. Not that youth exonerates Alfons of the things he did, but it points to the vulnerability of young people to the attraction of a charismatic leader.

My only problem with Parallel Journeys was the timeline. Hitler’s 12 year reign is a period I am pretty familiar with, but found myself getting confused in the book timewise and had to go back and reread parts to figure out the timing. It seemed to me that I was reading about 1942, and suddenly it jumped to 1944, with no reference in between. I understand it can be complicated, made more so by the two different lives Ayer is writing about and not a debilitating confusion and certainly did not diminish the real life stories of Alfons and Helen. Perhaps a timeline at the end of the book would be helpful.

Alfons died in 2005 and his obituary may be found at The Boston Globe

Helen died in 1996 at age 86. A short obituary may be found at Los Angeles Times
Helen may be heard describing the day she sent her daughter into hiding in Holland at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This book is recommended for readers’ age 9 and 12.
This book was purchased for my personal library.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was terrific, with the literal parallel stories from both sides of the story. I am an avid historian of World War II, enthralled with desire to help, the desire to survive.

I learned many details from this journey that had never heard of before.

I believe EVERYONE needs to read this book. The world we live in is quickly falling back into the horrid mentality that caught up so many those years ago. We must not forget, lest we be doomed to repeat it.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done and insightful. I appreciated the way the two viewpoints were woven together to show the devastating consequences of WWII. I liked, too how the book does not end with liberation but continues to the follow the two people for years after.

[Kaytlan]

I really liked this book because it had a lot of action and detail. It was also really sad which made it seem fake but it wasn't which makes it even sadder. I didn't cry though because I forgot how to :).The ending was really happy though so yea. 11/10 recommend

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read a copy from the Internet Archive’s Open Library. Powerful look into different Holocaust perspectives.

[Mari]

This book is amazing and to see the differences in points of view was mind blowing to see how others saw this war and why some were influenced to like Hitler was very interesting.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chapters alternate telling the stories of Alfons, a former Hitler Youth who fought for Germany as a child soldier and Helen, a German Jew who survived Auschwitz. Very well-written, this book tells the story of the Nazi horrors for both German children and Jews. Moving and appropriately sad. Never forget!