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Emil and Karl
Vienna, 1938. Two boys, one Jewish, one not, fend for themselves after their parents are taken away by the Nazis. Emil and Karl, best friends, are brave and loyal in a world of persecution and cruelty. The Holocaust has recently been rediscovered by children's authors as a new generation of young people, growing up at an ever greater distance from the reality, risks losing a sense of its horror. But Yankev Glatshteyn's Emil and Karl is an exceptional novel, not just for its raw and compassionate portrayal of what was suffered by the Jews in Austria, but for its historical accuracy. Written in 1940 in Yiddish, this heart-wrenching story of two nine-year-old friends caught up in the earliest tremors of anti-Semitic hatred in Vienna is all the more shocking because its author had no idea of what was still to come. Despite the casual violence done to their families—Karl's parents were socialists and Emil is Jewish—the boys find moments of kindness, courage and hope along their painful journey.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
12 people are currently reading
580 people want to read
About the author
Yankev Glatshteyn
6 books7 followersBorn in Lublin, Poland, Yankev Glatshteyn (1896-1971) was a major American Yiddish poet, novelist, and essayist. Emil and Karl is his only work for young readers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
June 28, 2025
Yankev Glatshteyn's Emil and Karl – published in Yiddish in 1940 while Vienna's streets still echoed with jackboots and broken glass – doesn't have the luxury of historical distance. This is no sepia-toned children's tale but a smoke-choked document written as history's abyss was still widening.
Its protagonists – Emil (Jewish, whose mother vanishes in a night raid) and Karl (non-Jewish, whose socialist parents meet similar fates) – navigate a city collapsing under ideological weight. From the moment Karl finds himself in a janitor's cellar, the narrative grips with merciless urgency. Their whispered conversations under candlelight – "Are they going to cremate my mother, too?" – and woodland fantasies of revolutionary justice carry the unprocessed terror of children confronting monstrous realities without adult filters.
There's a jarring, almost slapstick grotesquery to the antisemitic abuses that punctuate the novel. A man in a top hat is forced to scrub the pavement with his bare hands, over and over, and each time his hat falls off, guards make him put it back on, because dignity must be precisely arranged before it's destroyed. Another boy is punished by being forced to sing, not for any crime, but because he looks "too Jewish", and when he sings too well, they beat him anyway. Even the children develop survival taxonomies: "That one's a kicker," Emil mutters, "I can tell by the way he folds his sleeves."
The city's cruelty leaks into culinary absurdity: a butcher in a blood-smeared apron laughs maniacally while glass from a ransacked Jewish grocery crunches under his shoes, until he's randomly kicked to the ground by a Nazi officer for insufficient anti-Jewish zeal. The macabre bureaucratic efficiency of delivering Emil's father's ashes in a box treats human remains as a defective appliance being returned.
The novel's emotional trajectory moves with freight-train inevitability. A Nazi-sympathizing street performer named Hans transitions from circus-like "Heil!" somersaults to quiet reading, prompting Emil's observation: "That really is scary." Glatshteyn loads children's dialogue with eerie precision: "Your father was a Socialist... My father always said he was on the side of the poor workingman." These are innocents witnesses threaded through history's darkest seams.
Karl's teacher publicly denounces Emil as "an inferior being," only to privately confess, "You protected poor Emil with your own body, and I insulted him horribly." Every character wears two faces – one public, one private – reflecting a society fracturing under moral collapse. Even the trains carry double meanings: "Tra-ta-ta—Live!" chant the wheels, making "live" both imperative and accusation.
Glatshteyn, a modernist introspective Inzikhistn poet (a unique school of Yiddish poetry in the 20s and 30s), writes with a pen dipped in ash. His Yiddish mourns innocence and anatomizes its methodical destruction. Emil and Karl is like Waiting for Godot rewritten by children on the precipice of catastrophe. Vienna becomes a cracked diorama of Europe's moral implosion: the janitor's choral "Terrible! Terrible!", apartments "emptied" of humanity, the suffocating silence where neighbors once spoke.
This novel burns quietly but thoroughly, its embers still drifting through our contemporary politics with their curated hatreds. Glatshteyn pleads for justice and demands remembrance. The boys survive on tears, bread, and narrative will, left stranded in history's waiting room as the next train approaches.
Its protagonists – Emil (Jewish, whose mother vanishes in a night raid) and Karl (non-Jewish, whose socialist parents meet similar fates) – navigate a city collapsing under ideological weight. From the moment Karl finds himself in a janitor's cellar, the narrative grips with merciless urgency. Their whispered conversations under candlelight – "Are they going to cremate my mother, too?" – and woodland fantasies of revolutionary justice carry the unprocessed terror of children confronting monstrous realities without adult filters.
There's a jarring, almost slapstick grotesquery to the antisemitic abuses that punctuate the novel. A man in a top hat is forced to scrub the pavement with his bare hands, over and over, and each time his hat falls off, guards make him put it back on, because dignity must be precisely arranged before it's destroyed. Another boy is punished by being forced to sing, not for any crime, but because he looks "too Jewish", and when he sings too well, they beat him anyway. Even the children develop survival taxonomies: "That one's a kicker," Emil mutters, "I can tell by the way he folds his sleeves."
The city's cruelty leaks into culinary absurdity: a butcher in a blood-smeared apron laughs maniacally while glass from a ransacked Jewish grocery crunches under his shoes, until he's randomly kicked to the ground by a Nazi officer for insufficient anti-Jewish zeal. The macabre bureaucratic efficiency of delivering Emil's father's ashes in a box treats human remains as a defective appliance being returned.
The novel's emotional trajectory moves with freight-train inevitability. A Nazi-sympathizing street performer named Hans transitions from circus-like "Heil!" somersaults to quiet reading, prompting Emil's observation: "That really is scary." Glatshteyn loads children's dialogue with eerie precision: "Your father was a Socialist... My father always said he was on the side of the poor workingman." These are innocents witnesses threaded through history's darkest seams.
Karl's teacher publicly denounces Emil as "an inferior being," only to privately confess, "You protected poor Emil with your own body, and I insulted him horribly." Every character wears two faces – one public, one private – reflecting a society fracturing under moral collapse. Even the trains carry double meanings: "Tra-ta-ta—Live!" chant the wheels, making "live" both imperative and accusation.
Glatshteyn, a modernist introspective Inzikhistn poet (a unique school of Yiddish poetry in the 20s and 30s), writes with a pen dipped in ash. His Yiddish mourns innocence and anatomizes its methodical destruction. Emil and Karl is like Waiting for Godot rewritten by children on the precipice of catastrophe. Vienna becomes a cracked diorama of Europe's moral implosion: the janitor's choral "Terrible! Terrible!", apartments "emptied" of humanity, the suffocating silence where neighbors once spoke.
This novel burns quietly but thoroughly, its embers still drifting through our contemporary politics with their curated hatreds. Glatshteyn pleads for justice and demands remembrance. The boys survive on tears, bread, and narrative will, left stranded in history's waiting room as the next train approaches.
April 1, 2018
I really liked this book, but I am quite sad that because of the nature of the book I was unable to go into depth with some of the main characters as well as the events during the beginning of the Holocaust and Nazi authority. This book contains both perspectives of two young boys around the ages of 7-10 years old. Because of this, the book mainly contains easy to understand descriptions and events that are quite fast. There is very little for the reader to become excited about since there is very little big action moments or emotional moments, but the book allows me to understand the impact that the Holocaust had on children. This books gives a unique perspective on the affect of the Holocaust not on just Jews but for both Jews and Non- Jewish communities that tried to stop the Nazi acts and fight for the rights of the Jewish community. Even though this book was short it had many real moments that happened during that time, which involved the persecution and humiliation of Jews as well as the execution of social workers. Emil and Karl may not be one of the most popular or impacting books that people seek today, but it does carry a different outlook on how the Holocaust was not just about Jews and Nazis, but it was about everyone being affected whether it was psychically or morally changing to the people.
August 7, 2018
This is a new translation of a book that was actually written in 1940 in Yiddish for children to understand what was happening. This is a strong and frightening book about the time, as well as being about the power of resistance. The horror is handled appropriately for children.
February 13, 2021
This book was published in 1940 and tells the story of an Arian and Jewish boy who are friends in Vienna in the period between the Anschluss in 1938 and the first Kindertransport. It was written to educate Jewish children and should be read in that light.
January 12, 2011
J Glatshteyn
What would you do if you were suddenly orphaned in Austria in the 1930's right before the Nazi occupation and the start of WWII? This is the compelling story of two 9 year old boys, Emil and Karl, who are best friends and find themselves in just that situation.
There are a few reasons that this book stands out from many other World War II books. Among those is that this is one of the first books about the Holocaust for any age and in any language. It was first published in 1940 in Yiddish and was just this year (2006) translated to English. The author, Yankev Glatshteyn, was horrified by the growing discrimination against Jews after he visits his homeland of Poland on a trip from the United States. It is also unique because it takes place at the very early stages of WWII, which started in 1939 and lasted until 1945. This rare perspective foreshadows the horror of concentration camps to come, although the author could not have guessed that such appalling events were yet to happen.
The story makes its reader turn the pages to see what will become of Emil, who was forced out of school because he is Jewish just after his father was executed, and Karl, whose mother is arrested for her socialist political beliefs and dragged away by police as Karl watches and is then told by the police that they will be back for him. Essentially, the story is about survival and loyalty - survival, because two young boys must find their own way in a city that is increasingly descending into the madness that lead to the war; and loyalty for the strong bond between the two boys (one Jewish, and one not), as well as the brave people who risk their own lives in an effort to protect the lives of innocent people whose existence is threatened by the hatred being fueled on the cusp of the war.
When the boys find themselves with neither homes or families, they are forced into the streets of Vienna, where they witness and become victims of cruelty - including neighbors and friends who are too afraid to help them, and escalating to a scene where the boys are forced to scrub cobblestone streets with their bare hands until they are bloody and rubbed raw. The boys eventually find people willing to help them after they have witnessed Jews being corralled into a park to be ridiculed by spectators. The kind man and woman who bring them to the seemingly safer countryside are active resistors of the Nazi regime, and so live in danger themselves. After time, the countryside, too, becomes a dangerous place to be and the boys are encouraged to leave the country by train, along with many other orphaned innocent children. Read the book to see if the two friends escape harm - and to see if their promise to stick together holds true.
Allie
What would you do if you were suddenly orphaned in Austria in the 1930's right before the Nazi occupation and the start of WWII? This is the compelling story of two 9 year old boys, Emil and Karl, who are best friends and find themselves in just that situation.
There are a few reasons that this book stands out from many other World War II books. Among those is that this is one of the first books about the Holocaust for any age and in any language. It was first published in 1940 in Yiddish and was just this year (2006) translated to English. The author, Yankev Glatshteyn, was horrified by the growing discrimination against Jews after he visits his homeland of Poland on a trip from the United States. It is also unique because it takes place at the very early stages of WWII, which started in 1939 and lasted until 1945. This rare perspective foreshadows the horror of concentration camps to come, although the author could not have guessed that such appalling events were yet to happen.
The story makes its reader turn the pages to see what will become of Emil, who was forced out of school because he is Jewish just after his father was executed, and Karl, whose mother is arrested for her socialist political beliefs and dragged away by police as Karl watches and is then told by the police that they will be back for him. Essentially, the story is about survival and loyalty - survival, because two young boys must find their own way in a city that is increasingly descending into the madness that lead to the war; and loyalty for the strong bond between the two boys (one Jewish, and one not), as well as the brave people who risk their own lives in an effort to protect the lives of innocent people whose existence is threatened by the hatred being fueled on the cusp of the war.
When the boys find themselves with neither homes or families, they are forced into the streets of Vienna, where they witness and become victims of cruelty - including neighbors and friends who are too afraid to help them, and escalating to a scene where the boys are forced to scrub cobblestone streets with their bare hands until they are bloody and rubbed raw. The boys eventually find people willing to help them after they have witnessed Jews being corralled into a park to be ridiculed by spectators. The kind man and woman who bring them to the seemingly safer countryside are active resistors of the Nazi regime, and so live in danger themselves. After time, the countryside, too, becomes a dangerous place to be and the boys are encouraged to leave the country by train, along with many other orphaned innocent children. Read the book to see if the two friends escape harm - and to see if their promise to stick together holds true.
Allie
April 26, 2016
The harrowing story of two 9 year-old Austrian boys, one of whom is Jewish and one of whom isn't, caught up in war. They are on the run and are wandering trying to find somewhere to be, dealing with strangers who don't necessarily have good intentions and meeting people they cannot decide whether it is safe to trust but running out of options. It is interesting because it is from the point of view of the children, and written in the time of war, in 1940, so you get a different kind of sensibility, no big picture just the day to day of what is happening in the lives of the two boys as their lives change completely and inexorably. The friendship between the two boys is beautifully written and I'm sure that young people who enjoy reading war stories would like it.
February 6, 2015
What is special about this book is that it was one of the first novels published about the Holocaust. Realizing that it was published in German in 1940 made me look at it in a different way.
March 21, 2015
Emil and Karl begins with Karl's mother being dragged away. Emil and Karl are two boys in Austria. Emil is a Jewish boy, while Karl is a normal person. Karl's father was taken away an killed by the Nazis because he was a resistance leader. When the Nazis come to take away Karl's mother, they abuse Karl. Karl wakes up and is injured. His neighbors do not accept him, and Karl goes to his friend Emil's home. When the Nazis started to abuse Jewish people, Emil was ostracized at school. Karl always stood up for his friend, and was bullied like Emil. When Karl reaches Emil he finds out that Emil's father has been taken away too. Emil's mother received a wooden box with her husband's ashes. Emil's mother cannot take care of the children as she is so grief stricken . Karl and Emil are forced to travel and live with another woman, and then other people. Emil and Karl stand up for each other like brother's would for each other in time of war, even though they are not related.
This book was pretty good. The story was heart warming, and showed exactly how two children stay together, do that they can both live. The book made me feel that I could actually use some better friends. The friendship between the two boy's was extremely strong, more than I could think my friends could give me. The reason it got four stars is that it was slow and confusing at times. Most of the book was interesting, but the idea of friendship was stressed a little too much in the book. This caused the book to become uninteresting at times. Other than this, this book was very good.
This book was pretty good. The story was heart warming, and showed exactly how two children stay together, do that they can both live. The book made me feel that I could actually use some better friends. The friendship between the two boy's was extremely strong, more than I could think my friends could give me. The reason it got four stars is that it was slow and confusing at times. Most of the book was interesting, but the idea of friendship was stressed a little too much in the book. This caused the book to become uninteresting at times. Other than this, this book was very good.
June 8, 2015
I thought it was a really good book and I suggest it to anyone who likes holocaust or anyone who wants a little glimpse on some stuff that happened.
June 15, 2022
Written in Yiddish in 1940 for Jewish children in America & possibly the UK too, to be able to understand the horrors of anti semitism that were occurring in Germany & Austria. This children’s novel is set in Vienna. Although written for children, it does not whitewash the horrors. Emil’s Jewish father is taken away and executed; his grieving mother is taken into care, being profoundly affected by her husband’s death. Karl is not Jewish but his Socialist father has already been killed and he witnesses his mother being arrested in a brutal way. Page 70 : Karl asks an Austrian officer this question: What makes them do it? In fact the entire novel tries to answer this. The beautiful old Jewish “Zeyde” who befriends the two boys, tells them that this question will haunt the officer.
His elderly teacher, broken by the demands that she teach anti Semitism with full hatred and cruelty, secretly confides her shame to Karl and tells him: And you, you must protect your precious heart.” (Page 21)
This is such an unusual book about The Holocaust because it precedes our full knowledge of the millions who would die in The 3rd Reich’s evil insanity. The English translator concludes his final remarks with these words: And so those first readers of Emil & Karl learned from this novel, as we do today- of the importance of friendship, of tolerance and of bravery.
His elderly teacher, broken by the demands that she teach anti Semitism with full hatred and cruelty, secretly confides her shame to Karl and tells him: And you, you must protect your precious heart.” (Page 21)
This is such an unusual book about The Holocaust because it precedes our full knowledge of the millions who would die in The 3rd Reich’s evil insanity. The English translator concludes his final remarks with these words: And so those first readers of Emil & Karl learned from this novel, as we do today- of the importance of friendship, of tolerance and of bravery.
June 7, 2017
Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn is about a two boys name Emil and Karl. They are friends who have experienced somethings that average children there age would have never experienced. This book takes place during the Time of the Holocaust. Emil and Karl's families have gone through situations where they either got taken away, died, or unable to take care of them. They have to find ways to live on there own, and as you can imagine that is very difficult. Throughout the story, Emil and Karl end up with different families who are in different situations. From families who are only able to supply a shelter, to families who are able to supply endless meals. They learn that everyone one is different, and that you don't need a king sized bed or an eight course meal everyday to be health and happy. I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest for history (and maybe particularly the Holocaust), and for people who want to learn about what the children went through during this tragic time.
December 24, 2017
Glatshteyn, Yankev Emil and Karl 194 p. Roaring Brook (Holtzbrinck) –
Emil and Karl are best friends in the city of Vienna at the start of World War II. Through horrible circumstances, both young boys are left orphaned and without family to take them in. Their little eyes see many of the cruel atrocities carried out in the name of Christianity upon the bodies of Austria’s Jews.
This amazing thing about this book is that it was written in 1940, in Yiddish, so that the Jewish children of America could know what was really going on in Europe. I am amazed that it hadn’t surfaced in English before now.
MS, HS – ESSENTIAL
http://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2007/...
Emil and Karl are best friends in the city of Vienna at the start of World War II. Through horrible circumstances, both young boys are left orphaned and without family to take them in. Their little eyes see many of the cruel atrocities carried out in the name of Christianity upon the bodies of Austria’s Jews.
This amazing thing about this book is that it was written in 1940, in Yiddish, so that the Jewish children of America could know what was really going on in Europe. I am amazed that it hadn’t surfaced in English before now.
MS, HS – ESSENTIAL
http://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2007/...
October 17, 2019
This book shows the lives of two fictional boys, Emil and Karl. They're friends living in the time period of the Great War. Emil is of the Jewish religion, putting him in danger, however, Karl is determined to protect his friend no matter what happens.
This book is definitely a tear-jerker. Yankev Glatshteyn incorporates real events that took place during this time period, that will leave you heartbroken. He takes his time describing these real-world events, giving the reader a solid understanding of the real events that happened. The fact that these are two boys, not even teenagers yet, just makes the book even more emotional, with bit of a loss of innocence displayed.
This book is definitely a tear-jerker. Yankev Glatshteyn incorporates real events that took place during this time period, that will leave you heartbroken. He takes his time describing these real-world events, giving the reader a solid understanding of the real events that happened. The fact that these are two boys, not even teenagers yet, just makes the book even more emotional, with bit of a loss of innocence displayed.
May 13, 2020
I am so glad this book was translated! And to think it was written at the beginning of the changes that were coming for the Jews and the rest of Europe.
I have read a lot of books about this period, but somehow nothing that is so contemporary, and nothing about the start of the changes in Vienna.
I really appreciate the focus on the friendship between these 2 lads, Emil and Karl. And there is much insight through the introduction in the book to a variety of types of people and how all these changes affect and change them.
You do wish you could continue to follow Karl and Emil. But then again, the next few years were all too traumatic for Europe, and maybe we would rather not follow them further.
I have read a lot of books about this period, but somehow nothing that is so contemporary, and nothing about the start of the changes in Vienna.
I really appreciate the focus on the friendship between these 2 lads, Emil and Karl. And there is much insight through the introduction in the book to a variety of types of people and how all these changes affect and change them.
You do wish you could continue to follow Karl and Emil. But then again, the next few years were all too traumatic for Europe, and maybe we would rather not follow them further.
February 18, 2019
I've read a lot of Holocaust novels for children and teens. This book stands out as it was written in 1940, in the midst of the situation with no idea of the outcome of the war. There is talk of the camps, but it hits hardest with its everyday realism - the psychological effects of persecution and murder, the taunting attacks and brutality, the coping of looking the other way. The Resistance exists with hope. An eye-opener intended to illustrate the conditions of life for Jews in Europe. Originally written in Yiddish.
August 17, 2019
Considering the book was written before the monstrosities of WWII became known, it tackles the topic of racism and violence quite well. However in my personal opinion the book's plot is difficult to actually believe. The events happen so fast and randomly that any young reader (since it's written for a younger audience) will get confused if not bewildered. Themes such as loss, death and human relations are widely ignored for the sake of the plot which for me is a no no.
June 16, 2017
I read this book as an English assignment. It is about two boys, Emil and Karl, who are living during the Holocaust. Emil is Jewish and Karl is not. They lose their parents during they war, forcing them to stick together in order to stay alive. I enjoyed the book other than the vague ending. I recommend it to those interested in the historical fiction genre.
October 16, 2019
This book was very good. It had many cliff hangers that kept me reading. It was a story of two boys, best friends of course, and both of their parents were gone. They traveled from home to home during the Holocaust in hopes to survive. They had to be brave but when a train taking all the children out of Vienna came, Emil and Karl have to face some challenges apart.
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August 26, 2023This is one of the saddest books I’ve read. I found it really intriguing that it was written during the Holocaust rather than years later like most books on that subject. I appreciated also how the afterword remarked how my religion ( Jehovahs Witnesses) was also a victim of the Holocaust. Of course, as usual, it was the friendship between the two boys that I liked the most.
February 6, 2021
My rating is more about how the book fits the use I have for it, more than the book itself. I'm not going to read it aloud to my classes. It's powerful, conveying the absolute confusion and fear these boys experienced. But too much fear for the kids I need to share it with.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2017
One of the first WWII books written by an ex-patriot Jew for young people even before the USA entered the war.
May 8, 2018
Hindsight is what makes this book so horrifying. Then you add the fact that it was written before WWII and it adds a whole other dimension to the book.
This /should/ be on school curriculums.
This /should/ be on school curriculums.
November 27, 2019
Very touching. The event was clearly illustrated and made me sympathize with the boys.
December 30, 2019
Another educational story about WW2 and the impact of the holocaust. Very emotional read.
September 23, 2020
I wish that schools would read this alongside/in place of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas!
January 14, 2021
A story written in the 1940s about what life was like early into the war for a young Jewish boy and his best mate. It was an interesting story.
May 19, 2021
Vienna right before WWII. Two young friends, one of which is Jewish, find themselves without families or homes. Socialist persecution by Nazis. Moral dilemmas.
March 5, 2023
Honestly I liked this book, but the storyline and characters are very hard to follow, hence, 4 stars
October 24, 2023
Translated from German, good quick read about 2 boys in Poland during the Nazi regime.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews