Ellen Cassedy

We Are Here by Ellen Cassedy is both a personal journey and an exploration of what it means to be a bystander, collaborator, rescuer, or victim of evil. Cassedy travels to Vilnius to study Yiddish, explore her family history, and examine how the people of Lithuania were confronting the past. We Are Here is powerful but not depressing. I could not put it down. Although Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Septeys (about the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in the 1930s and 1940s) is young adult fiction, it would pair well with We Are Here. This book would be an interesting read for a college ethics class.… (more)