Bart van Es, The Cut Out Girl; and Two More Books of Holocaust Miracles
$ 13.73
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Cut Out Girl : a Story of War and Family, Lost and Found by Bart van Es COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD WINNER "The hidden gem of the year . . . Sensational and gripping, and shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time, this was our unanimous winner." -- Judges of the 2018 Costa Award The extraordinary true story of a young Jewish girl in Holland during World War II, who hides from the Nazis in the homes of an underground network of foster families, one of them the author's grandparents Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: a young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents, who understood the danger they were in all too well. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, there was a falling out, and they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? So began an investigation that would consume Bart van Es's life, and change it. After some sleuthing, he learned that Lientje was now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam. Somewhat reluctantly, she agreed to meet him, and eventually they struck up a remarkable friendship, even a partnership. The Cut Out Girl braids together a powerful recreation of that intensely harrowing childhood story of Lientje's with the present-day account of Bart's efforts to piece that story together, including bringing some old ghosts back into the light. It is a story rich with contradictions. There is great bravery and generosity--first Lientje's parents, giving up their beloved daughter, and then the Dutch families who face great danger from the Nazi occupation for taking Lientje and other Jewish children in. And there are more mundane sacrifices a family under brutal occupation must make to provide for even the family they already have. But tidy Holland also must face a darker truth, namely that it was more cooperative in rounding up its Jews for the Nazis than any other Western European country; that is part of Lientje's story too. Her time in hiding was made much more terrifying by the energetic efforts of the local Dutch authorities, zealous accomplices in the mission of sending every Jew, man, woman and child, East to their extermination. And Lientje was not always particularly well treated, and sometimes, Bart learned, she was very badly treated indeed. The Cut Out Girl is an astonishment, a deeply moving reckoning with a young girl's struggle for survival during war, a story about the powerful love of foster families but also the powerful challenges, and about the ways our most painful experiences define us but also can be redefined, on a more honest level, even many years after the fact. A triumph of subtlety, decency and unflinching observation, The Cut Out Girl is a triumphant marriage of many keys of writing, ultimately blending them into an extraordinary new harmony, and a deeper truth. A Child Without A Shadow: A Story of Resilience by Prof. Shaul Harel with Dalia Harel & Ela Moscovvitch-Weiss The moving story of Professor Shaul Harel’s life from darkness to light, from Holocaust survivor to world expert in pediatric neurology and child development. This is the story of Prof. Shaul Harel, formerly Charlie Hilsberg, who lost his shadow in 1942 at only five years old, when he was separated from his family and surroundings and saved from the furnaces of Auschwitz by the Belgian resistance. This book reveals his story, from his time as a “hidden child” in France and Belgium during the Holocaust, through his experiences in orphanages, his immigration to Israel, the serious injury he sustained in his military service, the choice to study medicine, and lastly the mark he has made in the field of pediatric neurology and child development in Israel and in the world. A story of overcoming impossible trauma and reaching professional and personal success against all odds. The book channels a universal message of survival, optimism, and hope. Small Miracles of the Holocaust: Extraordinary Coincidences of Faith, Hope , and Survival by Yitta Halberstam & Judith Leventhal The authors, both second-generation Holocaust survivors, have culled stories from before, during, and after the Holocaust that demonstrate the full strength and power of the human spirit. Small Miracles of the Holocaust: Extraordinary Coincidences of Faith, Hope, and Survival Yitta Halberstam & Judith Leventhal Review By Marcia Weiss Posner – January 10, 2012 The authors combed Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation recordings and other archives and collected more than fifty narrow escapes, reunions, love stories, and near miraculous turns of fate that explain how some people survived the Shoah. One of the most memorable, “ My Betrayer, My Savior,” is about a murdered mother visiting her son in his dreams, telling him how to escape, and then visiting his jailer, who had turned him in and is now waiting to help him in the forest. There is also a new story, “ Righteous Among the Nations,” about the Sugiharas’ visit to a Jewish family during Hanukkah. (He was the Japanese Consul who supplied visas to the Jews of Lithuania.) “ Good Morning Herr Mueller” shows the spark of humanity that sometimes still flickers. Not all the stories are of the same caliber, but all are points of light in a maelstrom of darkness. The telling is straightforward, but tales like these don’t need inventive writing. Marcia W. Posner, Ph.D., of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, is the library and program director. An author and playwright herself, she loves reviewing for JBW and reading all the other reviews and articles in this marvelous periodical.
