Edith's Story: The True Story of How One Young Girl Survived World War II - Softcover

Velmans, Edith; Velmans, Hester

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0983550565 ISBN 13: 9780983550563

Publisher: van Horton Books, 2014

Synopsis

FOR READERS WHO WERE MOVED BY ANNE FRANK'S DIARY, THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, and THE CHOICE. When Hitler invaded Holland in 1939, Edith van Hessen was a popular Dutch high school student. She also happened to be Jewish. In the same month that Anne Frank's family went into hiding, Edith was sent to live with a courageous Protestant family, took a new name, and survived by posing as a gentile. Ultimately one-third of the hidden Dutch Jews were discovered and murdered; most of Edith's family perished. Velmans's memoir is based on her teenage diaries, wartime letters, and reflections as an adult survivor. In recounting wartime events and the details of her feelings as the war runs its course, Edith's Story ultimately affirms life, love, and extraordinary courage. "The most vivid evocation of the experience of Nazi Occupation that I have ever read." - The Independent (London)

About this title

From the Inside Flap

le the Germans occupied Holland, fourteen-year-old Edith van Hessen was filling her diary with the intimate, carefree details of a typical teenager's life — thoughts about boys, school, her family, her friends, her future. By 1942, as Edith was contemplating her first kiss, the Germans had begun to escalate their war against the Jews. Soon this bright, fun-loving girl was grappling with one of the most unfathomable events in human history. Edith's family — assimilated Dutch Jews — were caught in the cross fire of the Holocaust, and Edith began a bitter struggle to survive.

In this extraordinary work, Edith Velmans weaves together revealing entries from her diaries with reminiscences and letters smuggled between family members during the occupation. Edith's Story stands as a profoundly important addition to the literature of the Holocaust, documenting one girl's grief, loss, courage, and ultimate triumph over devastating tyranny and despair. For as Edith is h

From the Back Cover

"I never realized that there could be such suffering in the world, and that anyone could live through it."
-- from Edith's diary, July 1, 1945

"It holds you with the same intensity as The Diary of Anne Frank and leaves you heart-broken, illuminated, and amazed at the capacity for courage."
-- Esther Freud, The Guardian (London)

"Edith's Story, the memoir of an Anne Frank who lived, reminds us of the old horror all the more effectively bu not being a horror story. Evil and grief, without being scanted, are outshone by sweetness, freshness, and pluck."
-- Roy Blount Jr.

"One of the best and most moving memoirs I have ever read." -- Ruth Rendell, Sunday Times

Edition details

• Publisher: van Horton Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0983550565
• ISBN 13: 9780983550563
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 276