The Extra

Lasky, Kathryn. The Extra. 2013. 320p. ISBN 9780763639723. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Lilo is your typical fifteen-year-old. She loves books and school, and she enjoys movies. But as a Gypsy from Austria, her life changed when the Nazis invaded her country. As settled Gypsies, Lilo’s family has been living and working hard and are seemingly integrated in their society. Racial laws now discriminate against Jews and Gypsies, however, and Lilo and her parents are arrested by the local police and are imprisoned.

Sent to a prison camp, Lilo and her mother are separated from her father, and despair sets in. Suddenly, however, an opportunity presents itself. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite female director, is working on a Spanish-inspired movie and needs extra Spaniards. Given that the Second World War is on, she plans on using Gypsies instead. Lilo and her mother thus get sent to another prison camp, this one dedicated to the making of this movie.

Being there is like being in a different life altogether. The scenery is majestic, the actors are gorgeous. But the extras are barely fed, are kept filthy, and can be sent away back to a concentration camp at any time, and Riefenstahl is vicious and underhanded, with the power of life and death over every prisoner. Based on a true story, Lilo must decide whether staying is better than attempting escape.