Surviving the Holocaust: The Inspiring True Story of One Family's Courage Amidst the Reeds

Kathryn Spurgeon: This carefully told story broke my heart. However, the second half recounts much of its history, which was, of course, interesting. But way too much back matter to finally reach the end.

United States on Aug 17, 2023

SavannahMJ: After visiting Belgium with my family this was an incredible first hand account of the history and situations for these very “real” people during a inhumane time in the world. Knowing where the areas pointed out gave me a very special feeling of gratitude for the few that were humane enough to help the families survive.
Also the family being at different stages of life and the toll it took on future generations speaks to a much broader sense of their recovery and attitudes for moving forward.
Thank you Tammy for your gift of wanting to understand and sharing your story!

United States on Jun 11, 2023

Kathy Kuhn: I have a hard time putting this book down , this book is so well written in my opinion. I love Melly , she is so honest & says how it is .
Thank you for this book ! I love seeing pictures of who the book is about - I always flip & look at them —- of course with tears .
Everyone needs to read this book ❤️
Absolutely a book to own & read more then once & share with friends & family.

Canada on Mar 30, 2023

Dickie: I like this book because I was rather ignorant of the effect of WW2 on beautiful Belgium and the fate of the Jewish people who fled there from surrounding Nazi occupied Countries seeking refuge.
This story was both gripping and heart wrenching.
The author does a great job of describing the sad stress ridden and ruined lives of a Jewish family trapped in hiding. She follows up documenting the way that once happy settled families became transient and unable to find a place in the world after the war following their dramatic dangerous ordeal.

United Kingdom on Mar 06, 2023

Jean38no: I am always interested in Holocaust survivor stories .
I applaud the author for finding the historical stories of her family. It was good that so many of her relatives were still alive and were able to relate a first hand account of what happened to them in Hitler’s hate filled Europe. It was so interesting in the aftermath of the war. The British did the same thing to the Jews trying to go to Israel. The locked them up on the island of Cyprus in concentration camps. Just without the brutality it seems pretty much the same as the German camps. I particularly like the part of certain genes being altered due to the unusual stress. I have always seen a correlation between the Holocaust and the slavery of the South in the United State. I believe Hitler took a page out of the slave owners playbook. Very interesting read. Thank you for this account of the Holocaust.

United States on Aug 13, 2022

Kindle Customer: As a psychologist, I have always been interested in how men can be driven to inflict the most terrible acts upon other human beings. These memoirs are well written and describe the horrors most of us, thank goodness, can only imagine. I hope the process was cathartic for those involved. We should always remember them!

United Kingdom on Nov 23, 2020

Gina NETHERWAY: I loved that this horrific story had a happy ending for many in the family. The Attention to details, the heart wrenching sacrifices of giving your children up in the hope of saving their lives and the ungodly atrocities forced on the Jewish people ....unforgivable acts of violence! Recommend reading to all ...hopefully nothing the demonic will ever be seen again.

Canada on Sep 27, 2020

bam: This is the story of a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust by fleeing Germany to Belgium. Some family members were able to pass as Gentiles and others went into hiding, including an infant girl and a toddler boy. The author of the book is a daughter of the boy who was known as Bobby and who was hidden in a convent basement where he existed without love or light or warmth. The infant girl was "adopted" by a middle aged couple who knew nothing of her Jewish heritage and who were deeply shocked when the parents showed up to reclaim their child. The reunited family is badly damaged by the years of terror, endless fear and terrible loss. The author dabbles in the concept of epigenetics, postulating that the horror of the Holocaust is imprinted in the DNA of survivors and then passed on to future generations. This concept awaits scientific validation. The author also describes what she and others have considered as the basic passiveness of the Jews in the face of Nazi persecution, sort of cooperating in their own destruction. However, those with this viewpoint fail to take into account the fact that if governments with armies and navies and soldiers and weapons hadn't just given up...

United States on Aug 27, 2018

HearTheirHeartbeat: Having read many books written by Holocaust survivors I was very interested to read this account of events in Belgium. The book is very well written and is easy to follow. I felt though that there was a lack of gratitude shown in the book to the extremely courageous members of the Belgian resistance who risked their own and their families’ lives to save others, including members of Tammy’s family. Perhaps Andree Geulen and The Bouchats should have been included in the book’s dedication? Also, at the end of the description of the desperate lack of nurturing given by the nuns it might have been added that they did still help to hide the children which allowed Bobby to survive and be reunited with his parents. Unfortunately, a lack of understanding of child psychology was evident across the board.

United Kingdom on Aug 03, 2018

servalan: This is one of the most interesting Holocaust biographies I've read. It was even more interesting because, out of habit, I read it the way I read books in high school, skipping prologues or forwards and getting to the main story as quickly as possible. If you like to read that way too, stop reading this review, order the book, and do the same thing. Otherwise what follows is a spoiler, though that's what the prologue is in a sense consciously meant to be.

Reading the book the way I did, I thought the people in it must have been interviewed by a ghost writer. Their voices seemed absolutely true, though sometimes a little too poetically descriptive, given their backgrounds. But their brutal frankness about their feelings, their disappointments, their regrets is unnervingly palpable - I say this as someone who spent 25 years as a family therapist listening to people's pain. One feels the rigidness of the society they live in, in which a mother's response to the near rape of her 17 year old daughter is to marry her off to a complete stranger whom the daughter seems to detest, yet who she stays with for over four decades, bitter all the way. A man who, though they are in hiding...

United States on Oct 22, 2017