Edith's Story: The true story of how one young girl escaped the Holocaust

(Paperback)

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'I never realised that there could be such suffering in the world, and that anyone could live through it' - from Edith's diary, 1st July 1945

In 1940, while the Germans occupied Holland, fourteen-year-old Edith van Hessen was filling her diary with the intimate, carefree details of a typical teenager's life. By 1942, as Edith was contemplating her first kiss, the Germans had begun to escalate their war against the Jewish population. Caught in the cross fire of the Holocaust, Edith began a bitter struggle to survive.

This extraordinary memoir weaves together entries from Edith's diaries with letters smuggled between family members during the occupation, and her own memories. Edith's Story stands as a profoundly important addition to the literature of the Holocaust: a story of one girl's grief, loss, courage, and belief in human goodness in the face of despair. Hidden in plain sight by another Dutch family, Edith bargained with, and finally faced, the horrors of war - and survived to become an extraordinary woman.

'It holds you with the same intensity as The Diary of Anne Frank and leaves you heart-broken, illuminated, and amazed at the capacity for courage' Esther Freud

'One of the best and most moving memoirs I have ever read' Ruth Rendell

'It's impossible to get through this inspiring and great-hearted volume dry-eyed' The Washington Post

'Both memoir and meditation, it is moving and wise . . . neither sanguine nor sentimental about the Holocaust and man's capacity for evil' Linda Holt, The Independent

A VIRAGO MODERN CLASSIC

Author Bio

Edith Velmans took a degree in Psychology at the University of Amsterdam after the war and was Director of the War Orphanage there until 1948. In 1951 she left The Netherlands with her husband Loet Velmans and two baby daughters. She studied with Piaget in Switzerland and received a Masters of Education from Columbia University in New York City in 1977. Mrs. Velmans was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1996. She died aged 97 in 2023.