Hidden Gold

True account of a family's survival during occupied Poland of the Nazi's.The perils they encountered, knowing who, if anyone to trust, in helping keep their identities hidden, was truly an amazing reading experience.

Heartbreaking yet inspiring, a true account of a family's survival during one of the darkest periods in human history.

Essential reading for young adults.

I'm generally not a memoir person. But if I'm going to read a memoir (or even nonfiction), I'll choose anything about the Holocaust (I find that time period sadistically interesting).

Hidden Gold deserves about as much praise as Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. A story set in another part of Europe (Poland) during Hitler's reign, Burakowski tells us her family's survival, hidden away from society in the hopes that they won't be found out.

For two years, the Golds hid with the Lanskis in a small part of a barn in Kolkow, surviving with very little sustenance. During that time, their hope dwindles little by little, but the two families still cling on to their pasts, even if that life will be impossible to get back to after everything blows over.

I loved how Burakowski introduces us to her family and the people that the Golds were involved with, giving us lots of background information on how Leib met Hanna and how the Golds lived their life in the early parts of the war. Burakowski also gives us insight on the growing hypocrisy and horrors among society as Hitler's power and anti-Semitism grew, giving us visuals on how life was like for the Jews back in the late 1930s and early 1940s. We're also shown the inner turmoils going on with those who had good relations with Jews and now having to choose whether or not they should help Jews, or give in to the propaganda.

Shoshana, Hanna's daughter, is extremely admirable. She's willing to go out to the Germans, pretending to be one of them, to buy her family time. She is also willing to risk her life a few times to get her family's money from Pińczów, and going back again while she felt ill. If I were in her place, I'd probably continue to curl up in a fetal little ball. (Despite the fact I'm considered living in "poverty," I'm pretty much a lucky duckling. Also, being an only child, I'm probably a little spoiled.)

David is perhaps one of those where all the feels will come. Like any little kid, he's full of mischief and mayhem, but going through such a dark time at a really young age, he's extremely brave, confident, and has the most hope for the family getting out alive.

Although most of Hidden Gold is focused on the Gold's survival during Hitler running rampant with the final solution, Burakowski finalizes the story from David's viewpoint with how each of the family members were impacted years later in the future. For those interested in what happened in other parts of Europe or a survival story outside of concentration camps, Ella Burakowski's Hidden Gold makes a fantastic contribution depicting the horrors of the Holocaust.