Written with the young reader in mind, meticulously researched, and brilliantly crafted is K.R. Gaddy’s Flowers in the Gutter. It is a story of heroism and resistance that will inspire readers to stand up and fight for what’s right.
Flowers in the Gutter tells the real-life story of Gertrude, Fritz, and Jean, three young people involved in a youth resistance group known as the Edelweiss Pirates, young people who not only resisted, but fought passionately against nationalism and prejudices in time of fascist violence in Nazi Germany. Told from alternating viewpoints, Gaddy takes us from the pre-school years through the war of each of the three persons named, illustrating both in words and in meaningfully curated historical photographs the tense and often horrific accounts of each of the pirates. (Tip: read the footnotes.)
For such heavy subject matter, Flowers in the Gutter (a title which pays homage to the edelweiss flower itself—the namesake of the pirates and a symbol of deep love and devotion due to the flower’s mountaintop location which required daring and potentially fatal climbs to attain, thus a fitting moniker for the young resisters) is a remarkably light read, engaging and eloquently penned. Gaddy displays an adept knowledge of German-language primary sources, including memoirs of the three main characters, as well as an inexpressibly vivid tongue for bringing the included photographs and other historical materials to life.
There is, likewise, an artfully crafted balance to this book; Gaddy deftly juxtaposes accounts of fights with the Hitler Youth, beatings at the hands of the Gestapo, and the horrors of bombed-out Cologne with mountainside merry-making, passion and loyalty, and the steadfast determination of the pirates to carry the torch for justice. Such excellent storytelling elevates Flowers in the Gutter from a narrative recount of the pirates’ history to a tale of their redemption—these young people remained branded as criminals decades after the war redemption—and a beacon of inspiration to today’s youth. Flowers in the Gutter is not just a history lesson, but perhaps more aptly it is a mirror collapsed into paper—a powerful tool through which we see once again the import of resisting oppression, of holding tightly to our ideals, and of always, always, fighting for what is right.
Flowers in the Gutter is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Photo-illustrated nonfiction, the story of the Edelweiss Pirates, a group of working-class teens who not only survived but resisted the Nazis by whatever means they could, even when they knew it could cost them their lives.
Flowers in the Gutter is told from the points of view Gertrude, Fritz, and Jean, three young people from working-class neighborhoods in Cologne, beginning with their pre-school years at the dawn of the Third Reich in the 1930s. Gaddy shows how political activism was always a part of their lives and how they witnessed first-hand the toll it took on their parents–and how they still carried the torch for justice when it was their turn.
Once the war began, Gertrude, Fritz, and Jean and their friends survived and even resisted in one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany. Gaddy includes tense accounts of fights with Hitler Youth and the Gestapo, of disseminating anti-Nazi pamphlets, of helping POWs and forced laborers, and even of sabotaging Nazi factories.
Ultimately, the war ended tragically for several young pirates, and Gaddy shows how post-war politics and prejudices led to these young men and women being branded criminals for decades after the war.
