Review: Beryl Eichenberger
A Place to Hide – a novel, by Ronald H Balson (St Martin’s Press)
Identity. A word on so many lips today – something more tangible than ever with the movement of people across the planet, with the plight of refugees and of course, those who survived World War II.
For the European Jews who lived to see May 1945, finding their kin was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Where did they start?
For many it was to find and uncover family secrets that included siblings who had been adopted – hidden in plain sight from the viciousness of Nazism. The taking on of a new identity, new religion, new families saved many lives but for those who came looking for them post war – many were lost.
A Place to Hide by Ronald H Balson is the revealing, intimate and intricate story of those children who were saved from the camps by adoption into Christian families in 1940s Netherlands.
Whole families were also hidden in barns, attics (like Anne Frank’s) or cellars. It is the story of a very old man reliving that time, finally able to speak of his part in a scheme that created new dynasties defying the Nazi’s “Final Solution”.
This work of historical fiction reminds us of the good people who risked their lives to save so many – highlighting once more the actions of the brave and true. I don’t think there can ever be too many reminders. Balson, in his notes, explains his fictional characters and the trigger for this novel – “a true story relayed to me by a woman whose grandmother is a celebrity and a survivor of the Nazi occupation of Holland, who lectures at Jewish events and is a docent in Los Angeles”.
From that basis comes a novel that is memorable, haunting and ultimately inspiring. Creating a context that resonates and remains in our minds, the much-awarded Balson has crafted this story amid heartbreaking research and an uncovering of secrets.
We meet the redoubtable Karyn Sachnoff in Tel Aviv in 2002, in a chance encounter with American Burt Franklin, who recognises her Dutch accent and asks her about her family name.
She reveals that she was one of the children adopted during the war by families willing to “hide” Jewish children. Her real family? She cannot remember their surname but can remember her sister Annie, whom she has searched for since the end of the war.
Burt suggests that journalist Karyn meet his curmudgeonly elderly cousin, Theodore (Teddy) Hartigan, whose war story is a mystery but who may be willing – and able – to help.
Karen and Teddy make a pact – she will write about his wartime activities so his family might know of his legacy. In exchange he will try and locate her sister through his network. And as the story unfolds Karyn finds some of the answers to her lifelong quest.
Rewind to before 1938 as Hitler is advancing in Europe. The young Teddy, who works for the US State Department, is smarting from a manipulative love affair. He is rather naïve, enthusiastic, sometimes obtuse but well intentioned and honest.
However, when he is sent to the US Consulate in Amsterdam in 1938 to process visa applications, his innocence is shattered by the realities of the Nazi regime. Demand for visas far outstrips supply as the queues of desperate families grow longer daily, and the quotas cannot be exceeded.
As the Nazis impose more and more draconian laws on the Jews, Teddy becomes involved with the people of the city, joins the underground movement and, through his new girlfriend Sara, sees the work of the Jewish creche run by Henriette Pimentel – a real person whose heroism is well recorded.
What follows is the daring story of how the children were smuggled out of what had been the local theatre via the creche. The theatre, run by director Walter Sϋskind, had been appropriated by the Nazis as holding cells for the Jews who were to be transported on the Westerbork trains to the death camps.
Although Sϋskind had little choice but to be seen to cooperate, he defied the regime and worked with part of the underground movement to save those children that they could. What follows is the daring story of how the children were smuggled out of holding cells, via the creche, thus avoiding the death trains.
There is so much to this story and Balson draws his characters well – they are rounded, courageous and believable and the fictionalised ones blend seamlessly into this haunting story.
I found the pace a little pedantic as Teddy relays his story in detailed flashbacks to Karyn. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised this was perhaps a deliberate ploy on the part of the author – to emphasise the dangers, the people both daring, the dastardly and also the intricacies of US policies.
It also brought me right back to present day, the plight of refugees and the question of quotas – a question that hovers like a thundercloud.