The Hidden Children of the Holocaust

Book 25 of my 2018 Reading Challenge

The Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Teens who hid from the Nazis
by Esther Kustanowitz

Summary (excerpt from the book)
During the Holocaust, Jews in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied countries did what they could to protect themselves and their families. Desperate parents even sent their children away to other countries or into hiding, hoping to give them a chance at life. These were the hidden children of the Holocaust.

My Opinion
This was a good point about options: "In the past [when other genocides had occurred in history], victims or oppressed people were usually offered an option to avoid death: they could change their religion, or be expelled to another country. But the Nazi concept of racism did not give the victim any possibility for survival, since a person cannot change his or her blood, skin color, or eye color."

New fact: "each ID card [for Jews] had to have the cardholder's fingerprints on it, as well as a photo that showed the cardholder's left ear as another identification mark."

I also found this point about the effects interesting: "After the war, some hidden children who told their stories were not believed. Other Holocaust survivors sometimes dismissed the experiences of the hidden children because they had not lived in ghettos or survived the camps. But as Yvonne Sokolow observes, "Everyone is left with scars.""

Quote from the Book
"For this who can bear witness, their stories become a necessary and important part of human history. As Bernard Rotmil observes: "Twenty years from now people will say, 'Things couldn't have been that bad, you must have been exaggerating.' And the sad part of it is, it was worse than you can ever put into words." "