My thoughts
I've never read any of this author's books. I've also never read about Holland during WW2. This author did a great job of capturing my attention and holding it throughout this sad story. Based on actual events that happened during the Nazi's occupation of Holland and what happened to the Jewish people who had lived there peacefully up until this point.
There are a few major characters in this book: Theodore "Teddy" Hartigan, Karyn Sachnoff, Sara Rosenbaum, Julia Powers, and Saul and Deborah Rosenbaum. A few secondary characters.
Teddy is telling this story to Karyn. He lived it and she is writing it for him. Teddy promised to help Karyn look for her sister Annie. Karyn and her sister were separated when the Nazi's started taking people. Some children were adopted by good and decent people and their names changed. Karyn and her sister Annie were among the adopted children. Teddy is a very old man of 92 living in an assisted living facility who wants his story told. His grandchildren and other people need to know what he did and what happened during the time he worked in Amsterdam in the US Consulate.
This story is set in 2002 Silver Spring, Maryland, but the story being told is set back in 1938- and set in Holland. Teddy is telling this story. It is a setting that I've not read before and I've read quite a few historical books. While this is a fiction book it is based on actual events that happened during this time. You get to know Teddy and Sara. They become a couple. Sara is a Jewish woman. They met when Julia, a coworker of Teddy's, talks him into going out one New Years to celebrate. He had lost who he thought was the love of his life when he took the job. He is a U. S. citizen.
This is a very emotional story in many places. A love story also. The love between Teddy and Sara. How they worked to help save Jews from being sent to camps. Rounded up and taken from their homes. And the children. Oh my what they did to these children. I haven't read about this part either. The Nazi's hated Jews so bad that they sent children to death camps because they were useless. Loud and cost to much to keep. The ones old enough to work were spared. Old people were sent to the death camps also. In this story you learn about a group that helped place many of these children in homes. They were adopted and saved from slaughter. They never saw their biological families again though. It was tough I'm sure on the parents and the children but they loved their babies enough to give them up. To let them live.
Teddy tells a story here that will definitely make you weep in places. The love between he and Sara is so strong. The friendships they make are unforgettable. Teddy was a strong man who only wanted to help. Now he tells his story.
This book is fiction but based on actual facts. Well researched and written. I'm so glad I read this one. I learned things and that is always good.
Thank you #NetGalley, #StMartinsPress, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.
Five big stars.
About
From the winner of the National Jewish Book Award
Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat’s career. In 1938, as Hitler’s inexorable rise continues, Teddy is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff
Teddy’s job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria, and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. As Hitler sweeps through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Holland, the screws tighten and law after virulent law is passed to threaten the lives, indeed the very existence of the Jewish people. When Teddy and his girlfriend Sara are introduced to an orphaned young girl named Katy, who has been abandoned on the grounds of a nursery school, they agree to adopt her. Teddy comes to realize that he holds the key to saving lives, whether five, fifty, or five hundred—and makes the dangerous and selfless decision to join with underground groups and use his position at the Consulate to rescue those with no other avenue of escape.
Powerful and dramatic, National Jewish Book Award winner Ron Balson’s A Place to Hide explores the deeply-moving actions of an ordinary man who resolves, under perilous circumstances, to make a difference.
Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat’s career. In 1938, as Hitler’s inexorable rise continues, Teddy is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff
Teddy’s job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria, and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. As Hitler sweeps through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Holland, the screws tighten and law after virulent law is passed to threaten the lives, indeed the very existence of the Jewish people. When Teddy and his girlfriend Sara are introduced to an orphaned young girl named Katy, who has been abandoned on the grounds of a nursery school, they agree to adopt her. Teddy comes to realize that he holds the key to saving lives, whether five, fifty, or five hundred—and makes the dangerous and selfless decision to join with underground groups and use his position at the Consulate to rescue those with no other avenue of escape.
Powerful and dramatic, National Jewish Book Award winner Ron Balson’s A Place to Hide explores the deeply-moving actions of an ordinary man who resolves, under perilous circumstances, to make a difference.
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