A Time to Hide
Based on a True Story of Survival in the Holocaust
Told through images and passed-down memories, Marion Seidemann Fredman’s tense family memoir A Time to Hide is about her German Jewish parents’ flight from Nazi persecution.
Fredman’s parents, Julius and Grete, met in a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah in 1937. They married weeks later. But then Germans began to boycott Julius’s clothing stores because he was Jewish, and one of his shops was seized. The couple’s home was also ransacked while they were in Holland visiting Julius’s brother. Faced with these circumstances, they decided to go into hiding abroad; Dutch sisters, Tinie and Truss, hid the family in their attic for three years. Their daughter was conceived during this time, and a doctor praised Grete’s bravery in facing an unexpected pregnancy: “Bringing a new Jewish life into the world is the greatest act of resistance against what the Nazis are doing.”
Sixteen days after Grete gave birth, Nazis arrived to search the house. Truss claimed the newborn in the bassinet was hers with an Italian soldier. The sniffer dog didn’t give away Julius and Grete’s location behind the attic wall. Later, after Holland was liberated, Julius and Grete reconnected with his sister, Hannah, and joined her in emigrating to Missouri.
Family photographs complete the chronology, which is covered via text and collages featuring illustrations. Like a scrapbook, the spreads employ textured paper and various backdrop colors. Select pages imitate a gallery, assembling people’s portraits against wallpaper. Maps, documents, and letters also appear, with stamps enhancing the period authenticity.
Declaring that “acts of love and courage keep paying forward for generations,” the illustrated family memoir A Time to Hide covers an escape from death during the Holocaust.
Reviewed by
Rebecca Foster
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
