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Hidden Yellow Stars

Audiobook
30 of 30 copies available
30 of 30 copies available

Based on the true story of two World War II heroines who risked everything to save Jewish children from the Gestapo by hiding them throughout Belgium.

Belgium, 1942.

Young schoolteacher Andrée Geulen secretly defies the Nazis in Belgium, who are forcing Jews to wear a yellow Star of David. Andrée is not Jewish, but she feels a maternal connection to her students, who are living in constant fear, and decides to take action. No child should have to suffer under such persecution. But what can one woman do against an entire army?

Ida Sterno is a Jewish woman who works with the Committee for the Defense of Jews in Belgium, a clandestine resistance group tasked with hiding children from the Gestapo. She wants to recruit Andrée because her Aryan appearance can provide crucial security measures for their efforts. Andrée agrees to join and begins work immediately by adopting a code name: Claude Fournier.

Together, Andrée and Ida, and their undercover operatives, work around the clock to move Jewish children from their families and smuggle them to safety through the secret channels established by the resistance. As each child is hidden, Andrée commits to memory their true name and history. Someday, she vows, she will help reunite as many of these families as she can.

But with the Gestapo closing in and the traitorous Fat Jacques who has turned from ally to enemy and is threatening to identify and expose any Jew he meets, Andrée and Ida must work even harder against increasingly impossible odds to save as many children as possible and keep them safely hidden—even if it might cost them their own lives.

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    • Booklist

      January 1, 2024
      This historical-fiction novel tells the story of real people of the Committee for the Defense of Jews (CDJ) in Belgium. During the Nazi occupation of Belgium, oppression of Jewish people began with forcing them to display yellow stars on a coat and quickly escalated to detaining people and then deporting them out of the country. No one with Jewish heritage is safe, not even the children. Alarmed by the new regime, Andr�e feels helpless as she sees her students and neighbors victimized by the Nazis. When the opportunity to join the CDJ presents itself, she'll risk her own safety to help hide children from a fate she cannot even fathom. This novel is a heartwarming display of humanity in the bleakest of times, written from the perspective of the social workers who arranged for hundreds of Jewish children to be separated from their parents in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis. The story makes for an emotional but ultimately uplifting read.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      July 26, 2024

      In a historical novel inspired by real events, Connolly (A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice) introduces readers to Andr�e, a schoolteacher in Belgium who is appalled by the Nazis. When Andr�e is invited by her Jewish friend Ida to join a secret movement helping Jewish parents hide their children in safe places until the war is over, Andr�e is eager to pitch in. The group faces many obstacles, however, from the difficulty of identifying where the children will truly be safe to the ever-present risk of being noticed by Nazi informers. As Andr�e and Ida usher child after child to safety, they live in constant fear of one mistake ruining everything. The novel's narrative momentum often slows due to the characters' lengthy and repetitive inner monologues, frequently used by Connolly to catch readers up on events that have happened off the page and to needlessly restate the women's easily understood motivations. Connolly's admiration of her subjects is clear, however, and she vividly captures the psychological and emotional impact of doing such dangerous and seemingly unending work. VERDICT World War II fiction buffs eager for new reads may appreciate the chance to learn about these lesser-known real-life heroines.--Mara Bandy Fass

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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