Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland - Softcover

Wolf, Diane L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520248104 ISBN 13: 9780520248106

Publisher: University of California Press, 2007

Synopsis

The image of the Jewish child hiding from the Nazis was shaped by Anne Frank, whose house―the most visited site in the Netherlands― has become a shrine to the Holocaust. Yet while Anne Frank's story continues to be discussed and analyzed, her experience as a hidden child in wartime Holland is anomalous―as this book brilliantly demonstrates. Drawing on interviews with seventy Jewish men and women who, as children, were placed in non-Jewish families during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Diane L. Wolf paints a compelling portrait of Holocaust survivors whose experiences were often diametrically opposed to the experiences of those who suffered in concentration camps.

Although the war years were tolerable for most of these children, it was the end of the war that marked the beginning of a traumatic time, leading many of those interviewed here to remark, "My war began after the war." This first in-depth examination of hidden children vividly brings to life their experiences before, during, and after hiding and analyzes the shifting identities, memories, and family dynamics that marked their lives from childhood through advanced age. Wolf also uncovers anti-Semitism in the policies and practices of the Dutch state and the general population, which historically have been portrayed as relatively benevolent toward Jewish residents. The poignant family histories in Beyond Anne Frank demonstrate that we can understand the Holocaust more deeply by focusing on postwar lives.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"Beyond Anne Frank is so beautiful and thoughtfully written that I couldn't put it down. Diane Wolf's voice is human and humanistic, without glossing over any painful realities. She probes the subject from an impressive array of angles, considering a wide variety of types of experiences. This book is extraordinarily fine and I enthusiastically recommend it."―Lynn Davidman, author of Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism and Motherloss

"A deeply moving testimony to the experience of Nazi violence as embedded in the everyday life of children hidden in Gentile homes in the Netherlands. In finding the child's voice within the adult's narrative, this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the vulnerability of children to the politics of hate."―Veena Das, author of Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary

"A remarkable piece of work. Beyond Anne Frank is sensitively researched and told, morally important, and politically consequential."―Jeffrey K. Olick, author of In the House of the Hangman: The Agonies of German Defeat, 1943-1949

"Beyond Anne Frank stands on its own as a humanistic engagement with a tragic moment in twentieth-century European history, written by a demonstrably gentle, compassionate witness to the tragedy."―Jeffrey Prager, author of Presenting the Past: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Misremembering

About the Author

Diane L. Wolf is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis, and the author of the award-winning Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization in Java (UC Press). She is the editor of Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork and coeditor of Sociology Confronts the Holocaust: Memories, Identities and Diasporas (2007).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0520248104
• ISBN 13: 9780520248106
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 406