During World War II, many Jews were hidden from Nazi persecution like Anne Frank’s family. This book features stories from survivors in their own words describing their experiences in hiding. A great primary source resource. Glossary.

You may have heard of Anne Frank, the girl who went into hiding with her family during World War II because they were Jewish, a race of people the Nazis were treating cruelly and murdering. But did you know that Anne Frank was not the only child who spent time hidden away during WWII?

Each chapter of this book is a true story of stealing away in secret as a child in order to survive the war. The narratives are haunting: most of the authors were separated from their parents and siblings, some moved around to dozens of homes, others were abused by the families who hid them, and all found that the time they spent in hiding changed the courses of the rest of their lives, not always for the better.

These stories are riveting, but they are not easy to read. If you got through The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and are looking for similar fare, this is an excellent choice for you.

Grown-up portion of review:

Each of these chapters is told in first person; but because the author worked from interviews then retold the stories, they all have the same voice. It's concise, almost clinical, and simple to read. The lack of sentimentality and excess description made the book less appealing to me, but I think it actually creates a much more accessible volume for kids. Without blurring the truth of what happened during the Holocaust (or the cruel opportunism of some civilians during a time of war), Prins brings a matter-of-factness to a difficult subject, making it something plenty of kids (maybe 5th grade and up) can handle. ( )

I found this book to be interesting.Iit is heartbreaking to read of children going into hiding soyoung that they do not recall their mothers when they next see them. Their stories are interesting and should be told. ( )

Fourteen accounts of Dutch Jewish children who were hidden from the Nazis and survived the Holocaust. A powerful collection of survivor stories although the title is a bit misleading. None of the experiences of these children resemble that of the Frank family and Anne Frank, of course, died in Bergen-Belsen. ( )

The book that I chose to evaluate was called Hidden Like Anne Frank by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis. This book is a biography about real people going into hiding during World War II, just like Anne Frank. The author interviewed the survivors and wrote their accounts from their perspective. The accounts were all written in first person and included the survivors recounting their stories during the time they were hiding and sometimes how those events shaped and changed their lives. “After the war, my relationship with Freddy fell apart, much to the regret of his father in particular. Freddy kept checking up on me all the time. Where have you been? When will you be home? Why are you going out? I couldn’t stand it. I’d been so powerless for years that I never wanted to feel locked up again.” (Prins & Steenhuis, p. 53)

I believe that this book shows overall accuracy. The author is an award winning documentary filmmaker and his partner is a journalist. They both lived in the Netherlands where most of the survivors hid, so they were very familiar with the geography. There is also a website that correlates with the book that includes, “more photographs, watch short animated clips, and hear a part of each person’s story as it was told to me.” (Foreword) The website also includes an interactive map that shows the different places people hid and what happened during that time. Marcel Prins was inspired to write this book by listening to his mother’s story of hiding from the Germans. The very first survivor account of this book belongs to Prin’s mother. He wanted to honor her by telling true stories of Jewish World War II survivors who successfully hid from the Germans. He wanted to let people know about the thousands of Jewish people who hid, besides Anne Frank. He wanted to retell the true accounts of survivors as accurately as he could, so he interviewed them and used their own words to recount their journeys. The author kept his personal opinions to himself and let the survivors tell their own story.

The content of the book included the experiences the survivors went through leading up to hiding and during their hidings. Some of the authors’ goals were to find out “What did going into hiding actually involve? Where did you go? How did you know who to trust? How did you find money to pay for your hiding places? What did you do when you were frightened?” (Foreword) Each story begins with the subject describing their life before they went into hiding. Most survivors were aware that Germans could come at any time and take them to concentration camps. There was usually a particular event that would spur the survivors into hiding. For some it was the simple threat of Germans coming to raid their home. For others it was the danger of how close the war was to their home or an actually raid that took place in their home. Constant threats were all around and some families decided to take their chances and go into hiding. Each story focused on one survivor who was a child or teenager during the time they went into hiding. While most of the story focuses on what the survivors went through during hiding, some survivors also included how the experience affected them later in life. A survivor by the name of Rose-Mary Kahn described the experience as the worst time of her life. She spoke about how she wanted to move on but she just couldn’t. “A few weeks ago, I had to apply for a new passport, as the one had expired. My cleaning lady said, ‘Why don’t you just get one of those identity cards? They’re cheaper and you never go on vacation outside Europe these days anyway. A passport’s no good to you.’ ‘Yes, it is,’ I replied. ‘I need to be able to escape.’ ”

The authors’ overall style is that of a story teller. The authors’ provide the medium in which the survivors could tell their stories. By doing this the authors succeed in making the story very clear. Each story is set up the same way and has similar content. The survivor talks about their life before they went into hiding, then they describe how hard the experience of hiding was, finally they talk about how they were effected by having to go into hiding. The language used in the book is very appropriate for the situation. The survivors use many ethnically based words to describe their situation and in conversations they had with others. Both German, Polish, and Jewish language was used. To help the audience understand that language better, the book included definitions at the bottom of the page. The survivors also included in text explanations of words and situations that they knew the audience wouldn’t recognize. During Rita Degen’s recount of her experience in hiding she explained what a Jewish Council was. “My father always liked to know exactly what was going on, so he found a job with the Jewish Council, which had been founded in 1941 on the orders of the Germans to represent the Jewish community in the Netherlands.” (p. 2) When describing their experiences, the survivors used descriptive language to try and get the audience to understand how they were feeling at that time. “They pulled me through the hedge into the school next door and someone said, ‘We have a good address for you.’ I put up a fight. ‘I don’t want to go!’ I yelled. I was scared that my parents would be punished for my escape.” (p. 89) I believe the authors take a Partisan stand on the subject matter, but let their subjects make their points for them. One of the authors was inspired by his mother’s story of survival to create a book detailing other survivor tales. Being an award-winning documentary film-maker he knew how to stand out of his subjects’ way and let them make the story. While the book contained answers to some of the questions he wanted to know, the survivors were the ones who provided those answers in their own words. Having everything told in first-person allowed the author to show his passion about a subject without making it about him. The book was still about the survivors and their experiences.

The order in which the survivor stories were told were in no particular order. Since one of the author’s mother inspired him to write the book, her story was told first. The table of contents labels each story with the subjects name and a subtitle of an important event that happened to them during their hiding. In Rose-Mary Kahn’s chapter her subtitle was My Father’s Store. Her father’s store was very important in her story because it was both a starting and ending point in her story. In the back of the book there is a glossary of words pertaining to the war that the survivors used throughout their stories. Each word that may be foreign to readers was bolded and then given a full definition. Whenever a survivor spoke about something that might not be readily known by the audience it was bolded and given a reference number. At the bottom of the page the reference number was defined. The word was also provided in German.

Throughout the text there are a variety of pictures to go along with the survivors stories. The beginning of each chapter included a picture of that particular survivor. Other photographs included family pictures, documents, and the places the survivors hid. In the beginning of the book there is a master map of The Netherlands and it points out all of the places each survivor hid. In the beginning of each survivors chapter there is also a map documenting the different places they hid. All of the pictures in the book are in black and white. The cover is in color and shows a woman’s partially obscured face as she hides under floor boards.

While looking at our UNO collection on the subject of Jews who hid during World War II, I found quite a few titles. The ones closest to my subject matter were, Hiding to survive: stories of Jewish children rescued from the Holocaust and Behind the secret window: a memoir of a hidden childhood during World War Two. I would still suggest keeping this book in the collection. I think it would be a good idea to have an updated book in the collection on this particular subject matter. Almost all of the other books that were of a similar subject matter were published in the early nineties.

As a teacher I would definitely use this book. I think it would be appropriate for grades 6-12. I think this book is an excellent example of a first person account. I would use this book to help explain perspective and point of view. We would explore the Jewish perspective and also the German perspective. I think it would be interesting to have a conversation of why my students think certain people, including neighbors would expose the Jews hiding places. I would also explore author motivation. One of the author’s made it clear that he was inspired to write this book based on his mother’s survivor story. I would ask my students if he presented any bias, even subtly. While Anne Frank’s story is very important I would want my students to understand there were many other Anne Frank’s whose stories haven’t been told. Each person’s experiences were different, but they all were impacted by what they went through. This book was excellent and can be used in the classroom multiple ways. ( )