Real life stories are woven together with Ronald H Balson’s characters in A Place to Hide, a story about The Netherlands perspective of WWII. Theodore “Teddy” Hartigan is the scion of a wealthy Washington, D.C. family who place him into a comfortable job at the State Department and a placid diplomat’s career. In 1938, as Hitler’s inexorable rise continues, Teddy is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to replace fleeing staff.
Teddy feels completely safe in the knowledge that Holland has declared it’s neutrality in Hitler’s war on other European countries. As time goes on, Germany takes over more and more, forcing people like Teddy’s partner to live in fear.
I loved this story, I honestly didn’t know that much about the war’s affect on The Netherlands other than reading The Diary of Anne Frank when I was younger. This book is heartbreaking and beautiful as we watch the Dutch people pull together and try and fight for what is right. The way that Germany was able to bully it’s way across Europe and try to exterminate the entire Jewish race will always break my heart to read about. That level of hate will never make sense to me. I feel so incredibly sad for the families that were ripped apart, never to find each other again. Although our memoir writer Karyn is a fictional character, her story is all too real of the children that were secreted away from their parents to be hidden with Christian families so that they might escape being sent to the concentration camps.
I would like to thank St Martin’s Press for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. A Place to Hide is now available at your local library or book seller or you can click here to purchase through my affiliate link and support my blog. Thank you so much.
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