A Maplewood resident of more than 50 years, 86-year-old Rachelle Goldstein recently published her first book. Hidden Lives: Stories from Child Survivors of the Holocaust shines a light on the unique experiences of a group whose histories have often been neglected.
Child survivors have stories that are wildly different from those of their parents. Some 1.5 million children were murdered in the Holocaust. Many parents made the difficult decision to send their children alone into hiding for any hope of survival.
Goldstein was one of those children. Born in Brussels, she was hidden from the Nazis at the age of three. At the time, she did not understand that she was even in hiding, or that her childhood was different from anyone else’s.
Hidden Lives features the stories of some of Goldstein’s family members including her husband, Jack Goldstein, and her brother, Jacques Silberman, among dozens of child survivors. “There were so many that it was hard to pick. Each one is special in its own way, and tells a story that’s unique to that person,” Goldstein said in an interview with the Village Green.
Rachelle Goldstein with her book Hidden Lives: Stories from Child Survivors of the Holocaust. The page is turned to her family’s story told by her older brother Jacques and includes a picture of Rachelle while in hiding. (Photo by Laura Griffin)
“Nobody ever talked about children during the war,” she said. “We were sort of a nonentity, and I never thought of myself as a survivor. We had no place in the historical context of this whole thing.”
The stories in Hidden Lives were originally published in a newsletter that Goldstein has edited since 1991, when the Hidden Child Foundation was started with the Anti-Defamation League. Goldstein first connected with the ADL when she attended The First International Gathering of Children During World War II in May 1991 in midtown Manhattan. “It was an amazing, life-altering event. It was a point that changed our lives completely, because all of a sudden, we had a name for us,” Goldstein said. “We could find others who had the same oddities we had.”
Copies of The Hidden Child Newsletter from 1991, 2018 and 2019. (Photo by Ella Levy)
“The Hidden Child” newsletters, now stored in the National Holocaust Museum archives in Washington, are filled with personal accounts, photos, poetry, and in early editions, columns for people trying to find lost family, or those who had hid them. In the first edition of the newsletter, Abraham H. Foxman (now the ADL’s National Director Emeritus) said: “We need to tell our stories. We need to clarify why we see the outside world the way we do. We need to tell our children, and their children, about our long-hidden secrets. Facing this together will start the process of healing our long buried wounds.”
The reviews for Hidden Lives have been positive and Goldstein hopes that will help the book find its way into libraries, especially those in high schools and colleges.
The book was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards, presented by the Jewish Book Council, which says of Hidden Lives, “…the compilation of stories covering such a broad range of wartimes ages, situations, and locations powerfully conveys both the diverse experiences of hidden children as well as the similarities that bind such survivors together.”
In its review of the book, the Library Journal calls Hidden Lives a powerful collection of first-person stories. “The book’s literary quality is brilliant through authentic, genuine accounts that combine history with deep personal memories, inviting readers into these young survivors’ worlds… This work serves as an essential educational tool and a profoundly moving tribute.”
And Kirkus Reviews says, “This is a book of alchemy, a set of stories of young people who turned fear into faith.”
Inside the critical perspective these child survivors provide, the simplest of truths can be found.
“I want [the reader] to understand that humanity is one,” Goldstein said. “We must tell our stories so that people will understand we’re all alike under the skin.”
Editor’s Note: Rachelle Goldstein is Village Green Editor Laura Griffin’s mother-in-law.
Writer Ella Levy is a 12th grade student at Columbia High School and is working with Village Green as part of a grant from the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium.
