After buying so many books by authors like Madeline Martin and Jennifer Nielsen, Audible’s AI was constantly recommending Rebecca Connolly’s new book, Hidden Yellow Stars about the WWII Belgian Resistance to me. The AI was not wrong. This was an exceptionally good read! And perfect for the “hopeful stories from WWII” mood that I am in right now.
“I was one of the hidden children by the Belgian resistance. Andree Geulen and Ida Sterno are Rebecca Connolly’s heroes, but they were also my saving team who risked everything to intervene. This magnificent book is not to be missed.” – Professor Shaul Harel, author of A Child without a Shadow
Hidden Yellow Stars is the account of the true efforts of Belgium’s resistance movement to hide Jewish children from the Gestapo, in plain sight, throughout Belgium. This historical novel follows the work of school teacher Andree Geulen and Jewish Ida Sterno. Together with a team of resistance workers, Ida would convince Jewish families to let their children be removed from the home and safely hidden under new identities. When the arrangements were settled, Aryan-looking Andree would collect the children and transport them, right under the noses of the Germans, into safe hiding places in Belgian farms, convents, boarding schools, etc. By rescuing these children and hiding them, it freed the parents to go into hiding themselves much more easily.
The resistance team developed a complex but easy-to-use notebook system to catalog the names and addresses of the children with their new names and hiding addresses. The goal was not just to save their lives, but to preserve their identities with the hope of reuniting them with their families one day. Amidst the everyday tragedies around them, the team worked diligently to not only protect the children but to live in expectation of a happier future.
This story falls into the mostly hopeful category. Most of the children are saved, and most of the resistance workers survive to reunite the children with whatever family is left at the end of the war. When one of our heroines is captured and sent to Mechelen (in French, Malines), we hear of the horrors of life in the camp – but never is it told without hope. When she arrives in her bunk room, she is greeted by the room captain who assures her that it is not as awful as she presently fears it to be. He then offers to show her where she can wash herself. That simple offer of hope and dignity encourages not only our heroine but the reader as well. What follows is hard, but nothing like most of the holocaust books I have read.
This story is too good to be fiction. My heart bursts with pride for the Belgian people who dared greatly to protect their children from the evil and hate of the Gestapo. There were so many accounts of families claiming Jewish children that they had never met as “country cousins” and doing it with little to no financial or material support. And, when the war was over, so many orphaned children were adopted by their Belgian protectors. This story is one of great humanity and hope.
I wish to share one of my favorite stories, but it will be a bit of a spoiler. If you do not wish to know anything else about this book, know this: this story is true, it is clean, it is exciting, and it is hopeful even when it is hard. Hidden Yellow Stars would be excellent for teens and adults.
My favorite story happens early on when a Jewish traitor (Fat Jacques) brings the Gestapo to a convent that was hiding a dozen girls. Mother was hiding more girls than Jacques knew, and so the Gestapo was unprepared to transport so many children. Mother convinces the Germans to let the girls stay with her that night, and that she will have them ready for transport the next morning – packed, well-fed, and well-rested. The Germans underestimated the little nun and did as she bid. The next morning, when the Gestapo arrived at the convent, they found Mother and all of her sisters bound and gagged and the girls missing. Mother had arranged for the resistance to “kidnap” the girls in the middle of the night and consented to her and her sisters being restrained so they could honestly tell the Gestapo that they had no ability to stop the kidnappers. Oh, how I love the creativity of good people who refused to let darkness win!