Hidden Yellow Stars

Hidden Yellow Stars by Rebecca Connolly 304 pages

 

Andrée Geulen. Ida Sterno. The world should know these names, but like many stories from World War II, they have been forgotten. Until now. Hidden Yellow Stars is not just another novel about Jewish people fighting in the Resistance. These two women, along with a cadre of undercover operatives, saved hundreds of Jewish from certain death by hiding them throughout Belgium.

 

The novel begins in 1942. Andrée is a young schoolteacher whose Aaryan features allow her to move about freely. Ida recruits Andrée to join her in her work with the Committee for the Defense of Jews (Never having heard of the CDJ, that was an interesting rabbit hole to go down!). Andrée immediately says yes and begins what is a fulfilling and harrowing journey.

 

The CDJ works with a complex variety of Belgian citizens, convents, schools and monasteries who can safely hide the Jewish children. Each child is given a non-Jewish name and their whereabouts are tracked through an elaborate coding system, that if ever seized by the Gestapo will certainly mean death, or something worse. Andrée vows to reunite as many families as she can once the war is over. She memorizes their true names, original place of residence and their parents’ names.

 

When Andrée is assigned a new child/children to relocate, she does her best not to stick out to the Nazis. A woman on a train with five children, for example, will certainly cause scrutiny. There are many harrowing, barely escaping episodes where Andrée was only one step ahead of the Gestapo.

 

The story is nail-biting. Will they be captured? And if so, what will happen to the children?

 

For some reason, when I was started reading, I wasn’t sure if this was based on a true story or not. But in reading the Author’s Notes, I understood more of the story behind the story. There were many acronyms used that I kept forgetting their meaning and had to turn back several pages to remember them. That is why Hidden Yellow Stars receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world instead of 6 out of 5.