Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust's Hidden Child Survivors

Book Reviewed: Such Good Girls - The Journey of the Holocaust's Hidden Child Survivors by R. D. Rosen

These real-life stories are absolutely fascinating!

This is truly a fascinating story of three women who survived the holocaust and lived to tell their stories. The author coins the phrase "Such good girls," to describe these women who were brave enough to live through one of the greatest genocide that ever occurred in modern civilization and tell the rest of the world what happened during the reign the Third Reich. Sophie Turner was raised by a Catholic family to protect her Jewish identity; Flora Hogman was also protected and raised by several members of Christian faith, and Carla Lessing struggled to live through the war and atrocities of gestapo with her family concealed by Dutch strangers when Holland was under occupation. All the three women grew up under terror, later migrated to United States and excelled in education and in their field of study to help the hidden child survivors. Finally it looked like the American dream came true, but it was built on the foundation of nightmares, tragedies and un-healing wounds. This book tries to re-create the event that took place, and as seen through the eyes young women who did not know that there is such an evil that lurks in this world.

Sophie, born as Selma Schwarzland in Lvov, Poland, lived in the Polish ghetto before escaping with her mother has the most vivid and frightening experience of the three women. She lived through scenarios where German shot and killed almost 5,000 Jews who were sick and elderly on Janowska Street in Lvov ghetto. 15,000 more Jews sent on their way to Belzec not far from Lvov for extermination. In the following few week almost 150,000 women, children and elderly lost their lives. Sophie under the constant protection of her mother lived with the imminent threat of death, and despaired to understand the cruelty perpetrated in the name of ethnic cleansing.

Over the years I have read many news stories and editorials about the struggle of Jews in German occupied Europe and this is one of the best books I have read and it is truly fascinating. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history and the survival of Jewish people, especially children.