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

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.

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.