Edith's Story

Since Velmans was a Jew hidden by a Dutch Christian family during the Holocaust, this memoir, which was first published in Europe and won the U.K.'s 1998 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Award, has been compared with The Diary of Anne Frank. However, Velmans's powerful account stands on its own, piercingly conveying the disbelief and horror she experienced as the Nazis clamped down. Through excerpts from her teenage diary, the author shows how her life changed over a period of years as Jews were forced out of schools, then prohibited from visiting public parks and, finally, were thrown out of jobs, rounded up and arrested. In 1942, Velmans went to live under an assumed name with a Protestant family who deceived their neighbors by claiming that she was a relative. While her parents were hospitalized with serious illnesses, they wrote letters to her, reproduced here, that express their love, their belief in her courage and the heartbreaking realization that they might not survive. For her part, Velmans channeled her energy into working hard for the family that was shielding her, in order not to let the isolation and anxiety about her family's fate destroy her. Velmans's father died in the hospital, and her mother, grandmother and one brother were killed in concentration camps (the author was reunited with her surviving brother after the war). Velmans's candid portrayal of herself as a feisty, loving, sometimes self-absorbed teenager is thoroughly engaging, and her story throws a new light on the plight of Jews who survived the war hidden in plain sight. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour; rights sold in Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan. (Dec.)