Michael Rosen, well-known for his children’s books like the classic We’re Going on a Bear Hunt!, takes a different turn in The Missing: The True Story of My Family in World War II. He writes an autobiographical account of his search for his missing relatives. In the introduction, he likens them to today’s refugees as they were forced to run and hide during World War II.
In England, he begins with names of relatives he doesn’t know, his grandfather Morris and a brother Max who migrated to America. But there were six other brothers and sisters. Three sisters and a brother had stayed in Poland – Stella, Bella, Genia, and Willi. Two more brothers, Oscar and Martin, had migrated to France. When he asked his father for information about these two, his father only knew that one was a dentist, the other a clock-mender. His father shrugged and said, “They were there at the beginning of the war, but they had gone by the end. I suppose they died in the camps.” Michael, not as willing as his father to let this go, begins a long and extensive search. The book recounts his quest through books, online, and in conversations.
Interspersed into his narrative is heart-rending pertinent poetry that he has written over the years in response to what he learned. Into his account of the French effort to list Jewish people living in France but born elsewhere, he writes “I’m Not on the List”:
I’m not on the list./ I’m not on the list./ All I have to do/ is tell them if I know someone/ who should be on the list.
If I don’t/ tell them that I know someone/ who should be on the list,/ then I’ll be on a list of people/ who don’t help them make the list.
And people in my family/ will be on a list of people/ in families of people/ who don’t help them make the list/ of people who should be on the list.
If you’re not on the list,/ or the list of the people/ who don’t help them make the list,/ or the list of people who know people who/ don’t help them make the list . . ./ you’re OK./ It’s all OK./ It’s going to be all right.
The book is an intriguing look at the intricate and unflagging research as he seems to reach a dead end only to find another clue that engenders in the reader the need to root for a satisfying conclusion to the search for those who were there at the beginning and gone at the end. Quite different from his classic bear hunt, this is an intriguing book and well worth reading at any age from 10 and up.