Review: When the World Was Ours
When the World Was Ours by Liz Kessler Aladdin (imprint of Simon & Schuster) Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org When the World Was Ours follows the lives of Leo, Elsa, and Max from 1936 to 1945. Opening on Leo’s ninth birthday, the three best friends ride Vienna’s giant ferris wheel. When Leo accidentally collides with an English couple, a friendship blooms. The joy of that day does not last long, however. Despite the rising tide of Nazism, Leo’s family remains in Vienna. His father is arrested and sent to Dachau and then to Auschwitz. Leo and his mother scramble to get visas out of Austria, but to no avail. Finally, the couple Leo bumped into on the ferris wheel three years ago agree to sponsor them. Elsa, who is also Jewish, and her family escape to Czechoslovakia, but are eventually sent to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. Max’s father, an ardent Nazi, moves to Munich to work at Dachau. To please his father, Max joins the Hitler Youth. Suppr