This is no doubt a story that needs to be told and needs to be learned from. It is not a form of entertainment, it's to be read carefully and thought about as soon as Jews start to be discriminated against. That, naturally, makes it a tough read .

There are places where your heart is in your mouth, but there are also a lot of very dull passages.

I have in recent months read a number of ‘Holocaust’ books written about the Second World War outside the Concentration Camps or about Jewish non-German nationals. They have given me an insight into how wide spread the terror was.

Edith’s story does bear some comparison with that of Anne Frank. They came from a similar background, they went into hiding and the self knowledge both show in their writings is perhaps a reflection of their upbringing and circumstances. The book identifies a vast array of characters which sometimes it is difficult to keep track of but there are often helpful footnotes to remind you of names and relationships. The descriptions of the normal life Edith enjoyed to begin with contrasts greatly with life after the restrictions on Jews began. This creates a poignancy. The bravery of all those who helped protect Edith is not understated. Indeed in some ways it is surprising that families could continue to visit Edith’s Mother and Father in hospital seemingly undetected, this gives the book an undercurrent of jeopardy regarding whether all will remain safe.

This is an important non-fiction story to balance the fictionalised accounts which have recently been published.

Excellent book. It is difficult reading it through Edith's eyes, the changes for Jewish people when Holland is invaded by Germany during WWII are gradual and she accepts them thinking things can't get any worse. The reader knows how bad the situation is going to become and that the lives of the Jews will be become unbearable, their very existence untenable. Edith's family is torn apart and it really is tragic to follow her story.
These stories must always be heard and never forgotten.

As expected, this was an emotional read, also fairly bittersweet. In the times we're living in currently, it felt quite a topical & important read too. Even though this is a reprint of the book that was originally released as Edith's Book in 1998, I hadn't actually heard of Edith Velmans before but she is considered the 'Anne Frank who survived' because of the similarities of their lives during the war & the fact both kept diaries throughout.

In the form of diary entries & letters to and from her family, Edith's resilience through the war was extraordinary to read about, but it was also heartbreaking to witness all the false hope she & everyone else going through the war were given constantly. It amazed me how positive & optimistic her & her family managed to stay, even when the war escalated, right till the end.

With not many survivors of the war still alive to recount their experiences, I think it's more important than ever to pick up books like this. Though they can & do highlight the depravity of humankind, they also note the good that can come out of people coming together to fight against evil & currently, that feels more poignant than anything.

Thank you to the publisher/s & Netgalley for my eARC!

I have a special interest in holocaust stories. I think resilience of people and how they can get through even the worst is what keeps making me come back to these books. Edith's Story is certainly one of those that will stay with me. She was just a normal girl, like anybody else, shoved into a tragic life. Thank you for sharing this personal story with us. This is a must read for those interested in WWII from a more human and less historical point of view.

Edith tells her story with compassion for herself, and an honesty that comes with age and wisdom. Told from her perspective as an adult reading her journals written as a teenager, and with excerpts from her writing, I feel as if I got to know Edith as if she lived next door. Her world was so different from many Jews in The Netherlands, How heartbreaking to think a world is possible where 94000 Dutch people can be sent to Concentration Camps, and only 519 survived. And knowing that your family were killed in such horrific circumstances must have affected Edith in ways we cannot imagine. Yet, her book is full of hope, and kindness.

I didn't realise when I first applied to read this book on NetGalley that it was a republication. Edith's Story was originally published in 1998 as 'Edith's Book'. I realised very quickly that I have read this book before, possibly in 1998 so a long time ago. I found it interesting that I remembered some parts with such clarity that it were as if I read it yesterday, and yet have spent rather a long time wracking my brains as to which book some of these events happened in.

I think this is such an important story to read, and it could almost be considered a companion book to the famous Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Both Anne and Edith were young, Jewish girls living in The Netherlands. Both kept diaries. Both went into hiding of a sort. But other than that, their experiences were vastly different. Edith was "hidden in plain sight", hiding her true identity rather than her physical self. Thankfully her diaries and letters survived, which, along with her memories, offer a fascinating insight into life not only under occupation, but also as a hidden Jew.

A profoundly moving and beautifully written memoir by Edith Velmans, a Dutch woman who as a fifteen year old went into hiding with friends of friends during the German occupation of Holland in the 1940s. A bright light of hope shines through the growing darkness of persecution as her happy family life changes forever. A poignant memoir with excerpts from her diary and from family letters that makes you feel each loss and yet also never gives in to despair. A book I would reread, and which deserves to be read alongside Anne Frank’s more famous account.

A powerful memoir of living through the Holocaust, told through the diaries, letters and recollections of Jewish teenager Edith Van Hessen, who is hidden from the Nazis by a Gentile family during war-occupied Holland, under the false name of Nettie. The book follows Edith from being a confident and somewhat self-absorbed teenager, living a happy and privileged life, to having to facing the horror of being wrenched from her loving family for her own protection, as the Nazis increasingly rounded up and persecuted the Jewish population.

A harrowing and courageous account of one of the darkest periods in history, Edith’s account of her life through these terrible years also offers the reader some hope, as her strength of spirit, resilience, and determination shine through.

Books such as this are never easy reads, but they are important, and I did enjoy following Edith’s story. A 5 star read for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for the ARC.

#EdithsStory #NetGalley

Lest we forget…..4

It seems more than ever crucial in these dark days, watching the rise of the far right, and particularly its escalation and normalisation post the re-election of Trump, to remind ourselves of the potential slippery slope which history can reveal, showing how easily our worst selves can be duped, mobilised and encouraged.

We might think that WE would not be the ones to allow freedoms to be eroded, to turn a blind eye or deny that our worst selves could stand by and watch evil be done, or even to participate in it ourselves.

So, I think these kind of accounts as Velmans gives here, is, for readers, a kind of continuing ‘bearing witness’

Velmans who died in 2023, aged 97, was known as the ‘Anne Frank who lived’ Like Frank, she was a young Jewish girl when Germany invaded Holland. That she survived, when the rest of her family – bar her oldest brother, Guus, who had gone to America before the invasion – didn’t was due to a Dutch Christian family who arranged to hide the young girl, with a fake identity, passing her off as their own daughter’s best friend who had come to stay because her parents were in hospital.

Young Edith kept hidden diaries, and hidden letters from her parents who pretended not to be her parents, but family friends of the couple who took her in. Edith seemed to be extraordinarily in denial, for a long long time, that things could get as bad as they did, believing that ‘it couldn’t happen here’ She seemed to have an almost pathological ability to maintain optimism, in the face of the most despairing evidence of the direness of the time, and the brutality of some.

I always find it hard to summarise a survival story; the book is un-put-downable, I can't call it enjoyable but it's a compulsive read. Edith's story is one of complete normality, until it wasn't. As a young girl, in her liberal Jewish Family, she lived a sheltered life - full of fun, frivolity and boys! But slowly, her world began to change until eventually, 'Edith' went into hiding and she lived as Nettie, to survive the remainder of the war.

Told through the authors diary entries and then through letters written by her loved ones interspersed with her thoughts, this is a heartbreaking tale and an important one. It's shocking really, how slowly the world changed initially and this is the first story of its kind that I have read. I've read other holocaust survivors accounts and Anne Frank's diary but this is the first instance of someone hiding 'in plain sight'. It's crippling; you feel her loneliness and experiences first hand. There's a quote in particular from Edith's Father about poison that really resonates.

We must remember history, so that it isn't repeated.

'One can live without pleasure, but one can not live without hope.'

This is the story of Edith Van Hessen, a Jewish girl from The Hague, sent to live in hiding in Breda during the Second World War.

Filled with joy, sorrow, and strength that knows no bounds, this book was a thought-provoking and heart-breaking read.
We get to know Edith before the war in the Netherlands begins through diary entries, which show us a popular and rambunctious girl with her whole life ahead of her. But soon, this changes, and through letters sent to and from family members, we learn of the hardships faced by both Edith and immediate members of her family.

Re-publishing on 27th February 2025 by Little, Brown books, UK.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to receive a copy of this book via Netgalley.