Synopsis
The true story of Lore Baer who as a four-year-old Jewish child was placed with a Christian family in the Dutch farm country to avoid persecution by the Nazis.
School Library Journal
Gr 2-4The young daughter of German-Jewish refugees must be given into hiding when the Nazis invade Holland and persecution of the Jews escalates. The child forms deep attachments to her hosts, a Christian farm family, especially to their eldest daughter. When her parents come for her after the war, she refuses to leave and a difficult adjustment period ensues that has emotional ramifications for the family into the future. Adler has effectively related a story often recounted in adult memoirs and other nonfiction accounts about rescuers in the resistance movements during World War II. The necessity of using brief sentences and the limitation on the number of pages makes it difficult to impart a true sense of the trauma suffered by parents and children, although Adler does try and several, although not all, of Ritz's painterly watercolors add to the emotional impact. This is an important book to introduce the Holocaust in Holland and the heroic role of the Dutch Resistance in rescuing Jews and others in danger through hiding. Shulamith Oppenheim's The Lily Cupboard (HarperCollins, 1995) is a fictional treatment of a similar story, but it is much simpler.Marcia W. Posner, Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, Glen Cove, NY