Hidden Children: Secret Survivors Of The Holocaust Review

Title: Hidden Children: Secret Survivors Of The Holocaust

Author: Jane Marks

My Rating: 5/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Non-fiction, History, Biography, WWII, Holocaust. 

Description/Blurb:

They hid wherever they could for as long as it took the Allies to win the war -- Jewish children, frightened, alone, often separated from their families. For months, even years, they faced the constant danger of discovery, fabricating new identities at a young age, sacrificing their childhoods to save their lives. These secret survivors have suppressed these painful memories for decades. Now, in The Hidden Children, twenty-three adult survivors share their moving wartime experiences -- some for the first time.

There is Rosa, who hid in an impoverished one-room farmhouse with three others, sleeping on a clay pallet behind a stove; Renee, who posed as a Catholic and was kept in a convent by nuns who knew her secret; and Richard, who lived in a closet with his family for thirteen months. Their personal stories of belief and determination give a voice, at last, to the forgotten. Inspiring and life-affirming, The Hidden Children is an unparalleled document of witness, discovery, and the miracle of human courage.

My review: 

This book contains some incredibly moving accounts from people who survived the Holocaust as children, although distressing in parts the accounts show some wonderful acts of kindness and demonstrate the bravery of those who were willing to help rescue Jews despite the threat to their own lives. The book really made the Holocaust seem that more real to me while I was studying Nazi Germany as part of a history GCSE and I would recommend this book to nobody who has an interest in that period.