Edith van Hessen was a happy child and teen growing up in Holland. As I read about her, I was reminded of my own daughter, Annabelle, who seems to make friends wherever she goes.
Edith was good at sports. She attended an exclusive private school, played the piano, loved to write and had a wonderful and loving mother and father, grandmother, and two brothers. Her home was a home filled with love.
She even wrote that she ice skated with her friends in Holland and learned the Fourteen Step, an ice dance that I know well. Edith, like all young teens, looked forward to a happy life and future.
Just like Anne Frank, she kept diaries and wrote a lot of letters. Parts of her diary entries and letters are woven together throughout her book.
Before Germany invaded Holland, Edith's oldest brother moved to the USA when it seems that it might be dangerous for the family to stay in Holland because they are Jews, but the rest of the family did not really want to leave the comfortable life they had in Holland.
The van Hessens know they are Jewish, but they are secular Jews who celebrate "St Nicholas" day. They have friends from all sorts of religious backgrounds, and life in Holland is good. They actually could have moved easier than some since her father worked for an American company based in Ohio.
Also, the USA will not allow Edith's grandmother in the United States since the grandmother was from Germany and the US will no longer allow Jewish Germans into the USA, so the family decides to stay since they don't want to leave the grandmother behind.
Just in case they might possibly change their minds, they did obtain passports and Visas, but those were burned up after the Germans invaded Holland.
At first the van Hessens don't believe Hitler will actually do the same things in Holland as he did in Germany, but they soon find out they were wrong. It happened slowly, but soon they had to sew yellow stars on all of their clothing, Edith can't go to school with gentiles, they can't ride bikes, they can't ride buses, their car is taken away, they can only shop at certain times, and things keep getting worse and worse. Jewish friends are suddenly told they must vacate their homes. It is a very scary time.
The van Hessen family decides to have Edith and her brother Jules hide since young people are being "called" and being "called" could mean that they could be sent to work camps or to unknown places.
It is the right time for Edith and her brother to hide. Edith and her brother obtain false identification cards without the Jewish "J" and different names. Jules goes to a different place to hide than Edith.
Edith lives with a gentile family in an area where no one knows her and takes on the name "Netti" (a gentile girl whose parents are ill) and helps her hosts keep their home clean. She is very lonely during that time and misses her family so much. She is visited by a gentile friend that gives her letters from her parents that are supposed to be burned after they are read, but she keeps the letters anyway. These letters are treasures now since they are what made Edith's book so very dramatic.
During the hiding period, Edith does get to travel to see her father one last time while he is the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, but knows it will be the last time she will ever see him. She also does see her brother one time, just before her brother tells her about his plan to leave Holland and head for Switzerland (I or was it America?).
The brother who had false identification is caught though before he has a chance to escape and is eventually sent to a death camp. Her family's home is eventually taken by the Germans. Her mother and grandmother, and friends and other relatives are eventually sent to death camps and die there. Her father dies in the hospital, but Edith says that later she believes he may have committed suicide rather than be sent to a German death camp.
Edith "hides" under the false gentile identity for about three years.
After the Germans are defeated and things return to "normal," Edith leaves the gentile family and returns home and finds her bedroom almost intact, although her family's house was stripped and everything else was gone. In her room she also finds photos and memories.
Edith is reunited with her brother,who moved to the USA and also her cousin who both served with the Allies during the war She goes on with her life and eventually goes to college, participates in sports, gets married, has children and goes to America.
She forms a new family and life goes on, but she always misses her parents, brother, grandmother, and other friends and family who died in the Holocaust.
This book really affected me and seemed to be more powerful a read that Anne Frank's diary. In fact, when Edith had twin babies in 1950, she shared a hospital room with Miep, the woman who helped hide the Frank family! She tells Miep, when Miep mentions that Mr. Frank is trying to publish Anne's diary, that she doubts anyone will read it...
It is awful to think such a sad thing happened to such a young and sweet girl. I cried and I will cry again when I think about Edith's story. I hope nothing like the Holocaust will ever happen again...
No comments:
Post a Comment