The Girl from the Train Irma Joubert Get the bookReport a mistake

The Girl from the Train

by Irma Joubert · 2007

Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks. As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of… more

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Quotes from the Book

life is like a silver coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you can spend it once.

Like every other Christmas Eve, she went to Grandpa John's room, because they were the only ones who knew how long the yearning for another person could last, long after everyone else had forgotten.

Just remember, when you suffer and feel the heat of the flames, that’s when God is there. He watches carefully, until He can see His own image in you. He’ll never leave you in the flames too long.

Men, she decided, were a strange, thick-skulled, ball-kicking species no one on earth could have a sensible conversation with.

what to do, so she knelt behind

behind the aircraft.” “Sounds scary!” she said. “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “After

Elmo’s fire?” “No, I haven’t.” “It’s when lightning makes blue circles around the propellers, and blue flames form on the wingtips and are dragged

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About Irma Joubert

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About the book

Six-year-old Gretl Schmidt is on a train bound for Auschwitz. Jakób Kowalski is planting a bomb on the tracks.

As World War II draws to a close, Jakób fights with the Polish resistance against the crushing forces of Germany and Russia. They intend to destroy a German troop transport, but Gretl’s unscheduled train reaches the bomb first.

Gretl is the only survivor. Though spared from the concentration camp, the orphaned German Jew finds herself lost in a country hostile to her people. When Jakób discovers her, guilt and fatherly compassion prompt him to take her in. For three years, the young man and little girl form a bond over the secrets they must hide from his Catholic family.

But she can’t stay with him forever. Jakób sends Gretl to South Africa, where German war orphans are promised bright futures with adoptive Protestant families—so long as Gretl’s Jewish roots, Catholic e