The Flag with Fifty-Six Stars

In honor of Flag Day

Rubin, Susan Goldman. The Flag with Fifty-Six Stars: A Gift from the Survivors of Mauthausen. Illustrations by Bill Farnsworth. New York: Holiday House, 2005.

Having heard, on their jury-rigged radios, of the advancing American army, and having watched their German captors flee, the prisoners in the Austrian concentration camp Mauthausen decided to welcome their liberators with an American flag made from whatever scraps of material they had at hand. Not knowing the number of stars to put on the flag, they guessed 56. When the Americans arrived, the prisoners gave the astonished commander a gift of the flag. Together, the prisoners and soldiers raised the flag over the camp. That flag now resides in the Simon Wiesenthal Museum in Los Angeles.  

http://www.worldcat.org/title/flag-with-fifty-six-stars-a-fift-from-the-survivors-of-mauthausen/oclc/962196233&referer=brief_results