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August 27, 2014 11:06 am
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Surviving the Holocaust by Hiding Their Faith (REVIEW)

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avatar by Steve Wenick

Bunk beds in a barrack at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Photo: wiki commons.

“Jews Out!” was just the name of a child’s game that three little girls played in World War II Europe. But all is not as it seems because the three girls were Jewish, but hiding their true identities. In award-winning author R. D. Rosen’s riveting non-fiction work, Such Good Girls, “Jews Out!” wasn’t a game; it was a struggle for survival.

The girls, Sophie, Flora, and Carla, grew up at a time and a place that did not allow them to be children. The time was the Holocaust, the place was Europe, and the humanity of too many ‘good’ people was hidden – just as three girls were.

The accuracy of the histories of the three young girls interviewed was validated by Rosen’s series of personal in depth interviews with each of the women, and bolstered by painstaking cross-verifying research. Even though the years had buried their memories in the far recesses of their psyches, Rosen was able to cast off the shrouds of denial and forgetfulness and prod the women into recalling events that defined their secret lives.

The story of Such Good Girls is presented in three parts that recount the milestones of the women’s lives: The Children, The Gathering, and The Ghetto Inside.

Part One: The Children, delves into the lives of the young girls and how the quality of their lives was wrenched from them with the rise of fascism. Although all three girls survived their steady descent into the abyss of Nazi occupied Europe, they did so at the expense of being who they were. It was during their young and most formative years that they learned how to hide from the Nazis and their all too eager collaborators, as well as from themselves.

Sophie was born Selma Schwartzwald in Lvov, Poland, and escaped the Jewish ghetto along with her mother who sought sanctuary for her daughter by having her genuflect as a Catholic under the protection of the church.

Flora was born Flora Hillel in San Remo, Italy, but she was later given the Christian sounding name of Marie Hamon by convent nuns, sworn to silence, as they diligently toiled to protect and save her.

Carla was born Carla Heijmans in Holland where 75 percent of its Jews were lost, but unlike those victims of the accident of their birth, she was hidden and survived, thanks in part to the labors of a courageous but stern Jesuit priest.

After the war, Sophie, Flora, and Carla came out of hiding, struggled with their past on their journey to the present, and as adults finally rejoined the living and reunited with their Jewish roots.

Part Two: The Gathering, explores breaking the silence, which were survival techniques employed by hidden children in order to reach the next chapter of their lives as adults. Although the hidden children could neither hide from their memories nor escape their nightmares, the psychotherapeutic treatment they underwent as adults helped give voice to the silence.

In 1991, tthe First International Gathering of Hidden Child Survivors was convened in New York City to give additional support to those who sought it. More 1,600 hidden children worldwide joined as one family to help one another heal the scars of soulless memories.

It was during their recovery and discovery from a past marred by a childhood that never was, that the girls grew into adulthood and emerged as respected women in their communities. Flora, in spite of her own demons, had managed to become a psychologist who was instrumental in advancing the study of hidden child survivors. Sophie became a successful radiation oncologist in Manhattan, and Carla, a social worker, helped run the Hidden Child Foundation in New York.

Part Three: The Ghetto Inside breaches the walls of repressed memories. It is said that the dead and buried are oft forgotten, but as Rosen so aptly puts it, “One buries a memory, remembered in great detail, and finds, on digging it up, quite another.”

Sophie, once exhumed from her interment of silence, discovered that her conscious identity was largely confederate. As an adult she learned how difficult a task it was for her to say goodbye to the little girl she could have been but never became.

But Flora could not forget, nor did she think that she should. Neither could she ignore her past, so in the 1990s she volunteered to go into high school classrooms and teach teenagers about the consequences of racism, anti-Semitism, and prejudice. Although her narrative challenged the boundaries of credibility it resonated as authentic with the students because it was her story.

Carla’s life fortunately followed a path that led to a place looking much like the American dream; though one could never imagine it could happen due to the horrors of her childhood. Her Jewish identity and dignity were stripped from her at an early age to preserve her life. Today, in her 70s, she has emerged from the shadows of her past to become an advocate and helping hand for so many like her, by serving as a social worker and vice-president of the Manhattan Office of the Hidden Child Foundation.

Rosen’s literary style is easy to read, but his portrayals of the cruelty inflicted upon millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their willing collaborators are difficult to fathom. Rosen’s narrative of the girls’ accounts of the brutality they witnessed and experienced are so descriptive and so intense at times one cannot help but wince.

So the child’s game, “Jews Out,” was not really just a game. It was a metaphor for the mistreatment of Jews during the most shameful days of Europe’s history. And now, after more than seventy years, their stories are no longer concealed, lost, or forgotten because the moments and memories of their lives have been faithfully recounted in the pages of Rosen’s book.

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