Edith's Story : The True Story of a Young Girl's Courage and Survival During World War II

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Summary: An outstanding contribution to Holocaust Studies.
Review: Edith's Story is the true story of a young girl's courage, loveand survival during World War II and the infamous Nazi occupation ofHolland. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking autobiography that begins when Edith was thirteen (in 1938),and follows her when at sixteen when she went into hiding in Breda, and nineteen when Holland was liberated. Edith's Story is more than just another holocaust memoir. It is the deeply engaging, memorable, and moving story of a courageous Protestant family who took Edith in for three years as one of their own, and the of bravery and optimism in the face of pain, loss, and brutal occupation. END

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Summary: I couldn't put it down.
Review: I've read a number of accounts by Jews who were hidden by heroic friends and strangers during the Holocaust. But Edith Velmans' story stands out. I found myself totally drawn into her idyllic teenage life in the Hague as war slowly began to overshadow the sunshine of her youthful pusuits. She lovingly paints a warm but realistic picture of her community and family. I was especially touched by the letters she shares from her parents. Velmans also relates her psychological adjustment of going into hiding and taking on another identity, something other accounts have rarely mentioned. Yet through it all, Velmans captures the fact that despite the agony of going through such a painful experience, she emerged with her courage intact. I highly recommend this book, especially for teachers in search of good reading material for high school students studying the Holocaust. But anyone would enjoy this book. I read it one evening, unable to stop.

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Summary: I liked Edith's Story
Review: This book is an absolute treasure. It is a very moving account of an adolescent Jewish girl's life in Holland as the Nazi regime moved in and took over. The book contains some of her actual diary entries written as a teenager along with her present-day adult comments to help put the entries into perspective. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, but most especially to young people. It's a gripping story of a girl from the past with great courage and love of life.

Rating:
Summary: A very moving story
Review: This book is an absolute treasure. It is a very moving account of an adolescent Jewish girl's life in Holland as the Nazi regime moved in and took over. The book contains some of her actual diary entries written as a teenager along with her present-day adult comments to help put the entries into perspective. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, but most especially to young people. It's a gripping story of a girl from the past with great courage and love of life.

Rating:
Summary: Looking Over One's Shoulder
Review: This book may not have the deep poignancy of Anne Frank's diary, as its author tells her story from an adult vantage point. But it does offer a vivid picture of day-to-day life as a jew in hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland. I readily felt Edith's anxiety, as she attempted to pass for a gentile, far from friends and family, and not knowing what had become of those she loved. The story also has a deep honesty -- it is clear, for example, that she often found the family who saved her difficult, and that she felt resentments as well as gratitude. I'm sure that this is, in fact, how it felt, and am grateful to Edith Velmans for the straightforward telling of her story.

Rating:
Summary: Looking Over One's Shoulder
Review: This book may not have the deep poignancy of Anne Frank's diary, as its author tells her story from an adult vantage point. But it does offer a vivid picture of day-to-day life as a jew in hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland. I readily felt Edith's anxiety, as she attempted to pass for a gentile, far from friends and family, and not knowing what had become of those she loved. The story also has a deep honesty -- it is clear, for example, that she often found the family who saved her difficult, and that she felt resentments as well as gratitude. I'm sure that this is, in fact, how it felt, and am grateful to Edith Velmans for the straightforward telling of her story.