Overview

In her luminous and engrossing memoir, award-winning writer and teacher, Natalie Hess, takes us from a sheltered childhood in a small town in Poland, into, through, and after the horrors of the Holocaust. When her parents are rounded up and perish in the Treblinka concentration camp, a Gentile family temporarily hides six-year-old Natalia. Later, protected by a family friend, she is imprisoned in her city’s ghetto, before she is sent to a forced-labor camp, and finally, Ravensbrück concentration camp, from which, at nine, she is liberated. Taken to Sweden, by the Swedish White Cross busses, she adapts to and grows to love her new home, becoming a “proper Swedish School girl,” until, at 16, she is claimed by relatives and uprooted to Evansville, Indiana. There, she must start over yet again, mastering English, and ultimately earning a PhD in literature. As a married young mother, she and her husband move to Jerusalem where they and their three children experience life as Israelis, including the bombing of their home during the Six Day War. Back in the States, they settle into life in Arizona until Natalie’s husband dies unexpectedly when a teenager runs a stop sign and hits his car. In her grief, Natalie moves to Philadelphia to be with her daughter and discovers that life still holds surprises for her, including love. Hess’s compelling portrait in which terror is muted by gratitude and gentle humor, shares the story of so many immigrants dislocated by tyranny and war. Through her experience as a child separated from her parents, a teenager, young woman, wife, mother, college professor, and later a widow, Hess shows the power of the human spirit to survive and thrive.

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9789493056237

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Reviews

Natalie Hess's memoir provides an interesting read for a life filled with difficulties and overcoming. Throughout the book you are drawn into Natalie's experiences and it is impossible to put the book down until you are finished. Her journey from child to survivor to immigrant and into adulthood is a story that should be read especially in light of present day. Natalie has a story that is accessible for 8th grade to adults. I highly recommend reading this book for a glimpse into one person's experience in the Holocaust, but also what a survivor's life is like after, which is often overlooked. - Shannon Fleischman, Full Time Educator of Museum and Holocaust Education, Oregon Jewish museum and Center for Holocaust Education I finished your manuscript a couple of days ago and immediately went back to read the Holocaust section for the third time. You have a warm, comfortable style of writing. It seems to beckon the reader to come into your world. There are things about your life the world can never understand. But, there are also many things most can appreciate you verbalizing -- awkwardness as a teenager, only two dresses or how to dress, not feeling accepted, feeling there is no place where you belong, etc. These things drew me into you and made you a role model who triumphs in the midst of unimaginable circumstances, and yet, walks the same walk as though we were friends and grew up together. I don't know how long it took you to write this, but the world thanks you for every word and every hour dedicated. It is imperative that no Holocaust hell should be relegated to oblivion. - Diane McNeil, Unknown Child Foundation Within the vast, ever increasing Holocaust literature Natalie Hess's autobiographical account stands out. Following the chronological sequence of events and eloquently written, often in a dialogue form, it is compelling testimony of a child survivor. At the age of 82, Natalie Hess broke the prevailing code of silence and began to tell her life story. Intertwining history and memory early childhood images are presented and connected with post-war episodes and reflections. Natalie Hess remembers the horror of the Holocaust - the survival in the Polish ghetto of Piotrow Tribunalski, the cattle train deportation to and the treatment in the women concentration camp of Ravensbruck and the arrival of the white buses in April 1945 which brought her and other inmates to Sweden. She spends some years in Sweden, moves to Israel and finally settles down in America. Reconstructing her long journey she reveals the successful professional career as language teacher and happy family life with a loving caring husband and three adorable daughters, indeed, a child survivor who experienced the Holocaust and succeeded in rebuilding her life. - Emeritus Professor Dr Konrad Kwiet, Resident Historian, Sydney Jewish Museum The style made it very readable and the humor and down to earth approach made very heavy material palatable. I was especially appreciative of the footnotes and the student questions at the end. It makes the book both an enjoyable personal read and an educational tool. - Gary Hill

Natalie Hess's memoir provides an interesting read for a life filled with difficulties and overcoming. Throughout the book you are drawn into Natalie's experiences and it is impossible to put the book down until you are finished. Her journey from child to survivor to immigrant and into adulthood is a story that should be read especially in light of present day. Natalie has a story that is accessible for 8th grade to adults. I highly recommend reading this book for a glimpse into one person's experience in the Holocaust, but also what a survivor's life is like after, which is often overlooked. - Shannon Fleischman, Full Time Educator of Museum and Holocaust Education, Oregon Jewish museum and Center for Holocaust Education I finished your manuscript a couple of days ago and immediately went back to read the Holocaust section for the third time. You have a warm, comfortable style of writing. It seems to beckon the reader to come into your world. There are things about your life the world can never understand. But, there are also many things most can appreciate you verbalizing -- awkwardness as a teenager, only two dresses or how to dress, not feeling accepted, feeling there is no place where you belong, etc. These things drew me into you and made you a role model who triumphs in the midst of unimaginable circumstances, and yet, walks the same walk as though we were friends and grew up together. I don't know how long it took you to write this, but the world thanks you for every word and every hour dedicated. It is imperative that no Holocaust hell should be relegated to oblivion. - Diane McNeil, Unknown Child Foundation Within the vast, ever increasing Holocaust literature Natalie Hess's autobiographical account stands out. Following the chronological sequence of events and eloquently written, often in a dialogue form, it is compelling testimony of a child survivor. At the age of 82, Natalie Hess broke the prevailing code of silence and began to tell her life story. Intertwining history and memory early childhood images are presented and connected with post-war episodes and reflections. Natalie Hess remembers the horror of the Holocaust - the survival in the Polish ghetto of Piotrow Tribunalski, the cattle train deportation to and the treatment in the women concentration camp of Ravensbruck and the arrival of the white buses in April 1945 which brought her and other inmates to Sweden. She spends some years in Sweden, moves to Israel and finally settles down in America. Reconstructing her long journey she reveals the successful professional career as language teacher and happy family life with a loving caring husband and three adorable daughters, indeed, a child survivor who experienced the Holocaust and succeeded in rebuilding her life. - Emeritus Professor Dr Konrad Kwiet, Resident Historian, Sydney Jewish Museum

"""Natalie Hess's memoir provides an interesting read for a life filled with difficulties and overcoming. Throughout the book you are drawn into Natalie's experiences and it is impossible to put the book down until you are finished. Her journey from child to survivor to immigrant and into adulthood is a story that should be read especially in light of present day. Natalie has a story that is accessible for 8th grade to adults. I highly recommend reading this book for a glimpse into one person's experience in the Holocaust, but also what a survivor's life is like after, which is often overlooked."" - Shannon Fleischman, Full Time Educator of Museum and Holocaust Education, Oregon Jewish museum and Center for Holocaust Education ""I finished your manuscript a couple of days ago and immediately went back to read the Holocaust section for the third time. You have a warm, comfortable style of writing. It seems to beckon the reader to come into your world. There are things about your life the world can never understand. But, there are also many things most can appreciate you verbalizing -- awkwardness as a teenager, only two dresses or how to dress, not feeling accepted, feeling there is no place where you belong, etc. These things drew me into ""you"" and made you a role model who triumphs in the midst of unimaginable circumstances, and yet, walks the same walk as though we were friends and grew up together. I don't know how long it took you to write this, but the world thanks you for every word and every hour dedicated. It is imperative that no Holocaust hell should be relegated to oblivion."" - Diane McNeil, Unknown Child Foundation ""Within the vast, ever increasing Holocaust literature Natalie Hess's autobiographical account stands out. Following the chronological sequence of events and eloquently written, often in a dialogue form, it is compelling testimony of a child survivor. At the age of 82, Natalie Hess broke the prevailing code of silence and began to tell her life story. Intertwining history and memory early childhood images are presented and connected with post-war episodes and reflections. Natalie Hess remembers the horror of the Holocaust - the survival in the Polish ghetto of Piotrow Tribunalski, the cattle train deportation to and the treatment in the women concentration camp of Ravensbrück and the arrival of the ""white buses"" in April 1945 which brought her and other inmates to Sweden. She spends some years in Sweden, moves to Israel and finally settles down in America. Reconstructing her long journey she reveals the successful professional career as language teacher and happy family life with a loving caring husband and three adorable daughters, indeed, a child survivor who experienced the Holocaust and succeeded in rebuilding her life."" - Emeritus Professor Dr Konrad Kwiet, Resident Historian, Sydney Jewish Museum The style made it very readable and the humor and down to earth approach made very heavy material palatable. I was especially appreciative of the footnotes and the student questions at the end. It makes the book both an enjoyable personal read and an educational tool. - Gary Hill"

Author Information

Born in Poland, Natalie Hess Is a Holocaust survivor who has lived and worked in Sweden, the United States, and Israel. She spent many years as a high school teacher in both the U.S. and Israel. She has also worked as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and teacher-educator in England, Mexico, and Taiwan. She is the author and co-author of several textbooks and teacher resource books, including Finding Family (University of Michigan Press, 2011), Teaching Large Multi-level Classes (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Stories With a Twist (Alta Book Center Publishers, 1999). Hess earned a Master of Arts Degree in Education from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Arizona, and she has worked on the faculties of Arizona University in Tucson, as well as Northern Arizona University in Yuma, Arizona where she earned a distinguished teaching award. She was married to John Hess for 54 happy years and is a proud mom of three splendid daughters and grandma of six outstanding grandchildren. At present, she is a volunteer docent at the Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. She reads and writes both prose and poetry, loves talking with friends, and taking long walks in her adopted city.

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