Hide: A Child's View of the Holocaust

By Naomi Samson

Book Overview

In 1942 German Nazis and Polish collaborators drove nine-year-old Naomi Rosenberg and her family from the town of Goray, Poland, and into hiding. For nearly two years they were forced to take refuge in a crawl space beneath a barn. In this tense and moving memoir, the author tells of her terror and confusion as a child literally buried alive. Her family owed their survival to the reluctant and constantly wavering support of the barn owners, gentiles torn between compassion for Naomi's family and fear of a Nazi death sentence if the family was discovered. Naomi Samson lives in Baltimore. Kenneth Jacobson is the assistant director of the Anti-Defamation League. Joseph Samson, a practicing attorney, is Naomi Samson's son.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803292724
• ISBN13: 9780803292727
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

amazing

This is one of the most graphic novels I have read regarding children/families hiding in the Holocaust. I did not know such atrocities occurred in the ghettos of Poland. I have always thought they were reserved for the concentration camps. This memoir is amazingly well written. The courage this woman had to tell her excruciating story even after she was repeatedly reprimanded by her friends, family, neighbors, and even practicing members of psychiatry was inspiring. It makes me so angry to hear there was such discrimination against survivors attempting to tell their stories, even within the Jewish community of the US. I commend the author for putting her memories to page and allowing the world to see the horror she survived.

Best Holocaust Book yet

This was the best book about the Holocaust and its survivors and what they went through I have ever read. I could not put it down. I am taking a class on the Holocaust and needed a book for a report. Well I found the best book I could ever have found. It is full of suffering, bravery, love, and happiness. So if you want the real story of the Holocaust as it really happened this is the book. I will soon buy my own copy.

Unimaginable Reality

I couldn't stop reading this book. I was crying. I wanted to shout, to yell, to kick, to k.... I couldn't avoid the thought that if I was put in this hell, probably I wouldn't survive it.Born in Israel, I've learned a lot about the Holocaust but never before I felt the horror so strong. For example, Noami's description of the Nazis humiliating her grandparents shocked me stronger than all the many times I watched pictures of the Nazis cutting a Rabbi's sidecurls (PEYOT) hair and beard.The part telling how in the US every one refused to hear Noami's story made it even more terrible and hard to comprehand.I wanted to thank you Noami for telling your story which I promise to tell to my children.

A Real Page Turner - I Couldn't Put it Down!

This is one of the best books I have ever read - period. The author is a remarkable writer, and I can't understand why this book isn't number one on the best-seller list. It should be; it is truly that good. I felt like I was there. I got the book from the library, but I'm going to buy one for each of my adult children to read. No book or movie about the holocaust has touched me as much as this one, and I want the author, Naomi Samson, to know that this Irish Catholic and his family will never forget - because of her book. We will never forget.

Hide, by Naomi Samson

This book is an amazing story of fear, horror, despair and, ultimately, hope and survival under the most horrific conditions. Naomi Samson, as a young girl, watched most of her family be murdered by the Nazis in Poland. She and what was left of her family lived for 2.5 years under a barn, shielded by a Gentile Polish farmer's wife. Her harrowing ordeal is told in the first person - you feel as if you are there. Though it reads like a novel, you are reminded that these events were all too real. It is a thought provoking opportunity to see the evil that men are capable of. It also speaks to the goodness of people and the lengths to which human beings will go to survive, and yet maintain their dignity. In the end, we are left with the glow of witnessing good triumphing over evil, of hope winning out over despair. Mrs. Samson's legacy is not only this book, but her family, which has flourished in the United States. This is her ultimate victory over the Nazi cancer that spread over Europe from 1933-1945, and which continues to threaten freedom to this day. Her story is a tribute to holocaust survivors and all those who have been persecuted. Outstanding!