Your Name Is Renée: Ruth Kapp Hartz's Story as a Hidden Child in Nazi-Occupied France - Hardcover

Cretzmeyer, Stacy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195132599 ISBN 13: 9780195132595

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999

Synopsis

In Nazi-occupied France in 1941, four-year-old Ruth Kapp learns that it is dangerous to use her own name. "Remember," her older cousin Jeannette warns her, "your name is Renee and you are French!"
A deeply personal book, this true story recounts the chilling experiences of a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust. The Kapp family flees one home after another, helped by simple, ordinary people from the French countryside who risk their lives to protect them. Eventually the family is forced to separate, and young Ruth survives the war in an orphanage where she is not allowed to see or even mention her parents. Without the trappings of lofty language or the faceless perspective of history, this first-person account poignantly recreates the terror of war seen through the eyes of an innocent child. Your Name Is Renee is a tale of suffering and redemption, fear and hope, which is bound to stir even the most hardened heart.

About this title

About the Author

Stacy Cretzmeyer lives in Pawley's Island, SC. She is a counselor and is a founder and Coordinator of the Women's Advocacy Center in Counseling Services at Coastal Carolina University. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of South Carolina.
Ruth Hartz was her French teacher at the Springside School in Philadelphia. She lives in Elkins Park, PA, and is a member of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Task Force.

Reviews

Cretzmeyer, with Hartz, graphically documents the plight of Jews who were living in unoccupied southern France during WWII; French Jews were pursued not only by the German Gestapo, but also by the French Vichy government. The atrocities and effects of anti-Semitism are seen through the eyes of the four-year-old who was then Ruth Kapp; she was given a new French identity, as Rene Caper, so that the villagers wouldn't know she was Jewish. The details are unflinching: daily roundups of men, the capture of her Uncle Heinrich by French police and his deportation, finding refuge with a caring Catholic family called the Valats, hiding in their cellar for days to evade discovery, and living in constant fear that her parents would be arrested while she was away at school. It is heartwrenchingly evident that a childhood was stolen; what also becomes apparent from Ruth/Rene's testimony is that there was a strong resistance movement of Protestants and Catholics who provided safe havens in their own homes or in nearby convents. She was placed in a convent where she assumed the identity of a Christian orphan, keeping silent not only about her religious affiliation but the existence of her parents. This account makes clear to readers how the Vichy government collaborated with the Nazis, but also makes obvious the power of individuals to make a difference despite personal danger. (b&w photos, maps, notes, further reading, appendix) (Biography. 11-15) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 5-8-Because Ruth Kapp's relatives were German Jews, they were the targets of French as well as German anti-Semitism. Forced to hide their religion, they suffered many hardships, living meagerly and often fleeing from the Gestapo. They were aided by the French resistance as well as by ordinary men and women who took great risks to help them. As the danger increased, Ruth (called Ren?e during her years in France) was sent to an orphanage run by Catholic nuns; in an effort to shield her from German police, she was told to forget her family and faith. The family was eventually reunited, although even after the war, their troubles as Jews were far from over. Although the facts of the story are gripping, and the child's ordeal is heart wrenching, the telling is less so. Frequent flashbacks and attempts to weave in historical information make the story hard to follow, and the narrative is sometimes overly detailed, slowing the pace. However, those who are already interested in Holocaust accounts will find enough here to make this a worthwhile read.
Cyrisse Jaffee, formerly at Newton Public Schools, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Business Information.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ruth Kapp's story supplies another piece of the history of the Holocaust. It concerns both the Jews who fled Germany for France and her family's struggle to evade not only the Nazis but the French police as well. Ruth was only four years old when she and her mother settled in Toulouse and awaited the return of her father, who had joined the French Foreign Legion to ensure that he and his family would not be deported. The French police made no distinction, however, and upon his return he and his family spent the remainder of the war in hiding. In an effort to conceal her German Jewish identity, the young Ruth went by the French name Ren?e. Her story is told by her former student, Cretzmeyer, who was interested in learning what Catholics and other Christians did or did not do to help Jews during the war. Cretzmeyer interviewed Kapp as well as her parents, friends, and the families who hid them during the war years. This is a compelling story, recommended for all collections. [Originally published in a small edition by Biddle Pub. Co. in 1993, this book has been reedited and contains a new introduction; for a related video, see the review of Legacy of Goodness, Video Reviews, LJ 1/99.AEd.]ARoseanne Castellino, Arthur D. Little, Cambridge, M.
-ARoseanne Castellino, Arthur D. Little, Cambridge, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ruth Kapp was four years old when, in 1941, she and her mother moved to Toulouse, France. Her father and an uncle were serving in the French Foreign Legion in what proved to be a futile attempt to protect their German-Jewish families. On August 26, 1942, they were warned of a roundup of Jews; they avoided capture with the help of non-Jewish friends and the underground Resistance network. Later, Ruth was placed in a convent, where the mother superior protected her and other Jewish children from the raids of the German police. Hartz (Kapp's married name) immigrated to the U.S. in 1958. The author was able to interview Hartz's parents as well as relatives of rescuers who had sheltered Hartz and her family. This remarkable memoir is a testimony to the few righteous Gentiles who risked so much to save the Jews in their midst. George Cohen

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195132599
• ISBN 13: 9780195132595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 240