The Hiding Place

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill and John Sherrill

A Dutch family lived in Haarlem shortly before World War II. The father was a clockmaker and stressed service and work in the community. There were conflicts breaking out in Europe. However, it seemed that the Netherlands would remain neutral as before. The family occasionally saw Jews in need and had helped them out. After the Dutch army capitulated, the Netherlands came under Nazi occupation. The family helped out more Jews. They became involved in the Dutch underground. At one time a sympathizer proposed they kill a Dutch informer. They would not go that far. They were eventually caught and brought to a concentration camp. The author's sister was also keeping her faith and looking positive. She was even grateful for the fleas they had. (It would later turn out that the guards had let them meet in peace because they didn't want to go to the flea-infested room.) They would maintain their faith in the camps until they were freed. The later half of the book emphasizes Christian thought and maintaining love and faith even under difficult circumstances.

The Upstairs Room

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

This has a number of similarities to the "Diary of Anne Frank". Both were written by Jewish girls in the Netherlands who went into hiding during the Holocaust. Upstairs Room is a retrospective story, written by the author much later in life. This it can expected to be much more influenced by later events. The author also survived the experience, She was able to live with caring families outside of the city. It remains scary that modern culture can carry off such atrocities towards certain groups.

Jews in the Garden: A Holocaust Survivor, the Fate of His Family, and the Secret History of Poland in World War II

A farmer hid a group of Jews in his farmhouse. They survived almost until the liberation of Poland. However, a group came and and sought out the Jews shortly before the liberators game. This group was not made up of Germans, but instead local Poles. They killed the Jews and attempted to take their riches. Only one young girl survived. Little is known about her fate. This book covers the quest ( a half decade later) to find this missing relative. In process it also unearths details about Poland's past and current conditions.

Poland had a huge Jewish population before World War II. Jews had lived in Poland for centuries and numbered more than 10% of the population. In Warsaw, they made up one third of the population. Now there are just a few thousand Jews in the country. Many were killed during the Holocaust. Poles continue to look down on Jews even though very few remain in the country. Poland also feels that it was victimized in World War II and does not want to admit complacency in killing of Jews. Digging into details of the history of Polish atrocities can be quite the challenge.

Night

As World War 2 was breaking out, people didn't regard the warnings that were given of bad things to come. They thought the Germans would continue to let them live in peace. Even when Jews were moved to Ghettos, there was still general contentedness with Jew self governance. However, that soon changed when they were hauled off to concentration camps. Survival often depended on lucky decisions. One had to be healthy enough to work, but not too healthy to have to put one's family in the furnace. The author jumped out of the infirmary when their camp was soon to be captured by the enemy, thinking all the sick would be killed. However, in that case, the sick were set free. (One can never know what will happen.) Sometimes small "bribes" given to a bully end up being for naught as the bully is soon chased away.
The book has a feel somewhat like Schindler's list. The concentration camps were part of the "coming of age" of a youth. It was the horror he lived through. He feels some regret about the poor decisions he made, as well as guilt about being a survivor when others did not. He was deeply involved in religious training before. He desires that we acknowledge the history to prevent it from happening again. It didn't seem possible when it happened. We should be careful to spot the signs before they happen again.