About the Book
What would it be like to lose your home, your family, and even your name?
Eva and Lisa Zilverstijn find out. When they go into hiding from the Nazis during World War II, they lose everything but each other.
As they move from attic to attic, Eva and Lisa must rely on their courage, their imaginations, and the compassion of strangers to survive.
Based on the author's own experiences in Wartime Holland, The Key Is Lost is a moving, understated story about the will to live and how two girls triumph against tremendous odds.
Best of the Year Holocaust Books for Youth (Booklist)
About the Author :
As a child, Ida Vos went into hiding in her native Holland to avoid Nazi persecution during World War II. Like Eva and Lisa, she and her younger sister had everything taken away from them, including their family, their home, and their names.
Mrs. Vos has written several award-wining novels based on her experiences during the war. A starred review in ALA Booklist praises Hide and Seek (Houghton Mifflin) for its lack of "exploitation or sentimentality." The Horn Book calls Anna Is Still Here (Houghton Mifflin) "a striking and, ultimately, hopeful account of how the human spirit survives and recovers." Ida Vos lives in Rijswijk, Holland.
Terese Edelstein lived in Leiden, Holland, for several years. When she isn't translating the works of Ida Vos into English, she teaches violin in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan.
Review :
"Gr. 5-9. Like the classic "Hide and Seek" (1991), this Holocaust survivor story is based on Vos' own experience as a child in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Holland. The immediate, present-tense narrative tells it from the child's bewildered viewpoint as she and her sister are separated from their parents and forced from one secret hideout to another. They must change their names and deny who they are. Always they depend on the kindness of strangers, who risk their own lives, even starve themselves, to save the children. The ending is happy but still realistic: the children are reunited with their parents after the war, yet the celebration is muted by the loss of all those relatives and friends who have not come back. This is a good book to introduce the Holocaust to middle-grade readers, who will identify with the terror in the home, but will not be ready to confront the violent details of the genocide. Connect this with escape stories of the Underground Railroad."-- "ALA Booklist""Although this new Holocaust survivor novel tells much the same story as some of the other books about a family's trials during WWII, the style is slightly different, It's told from the point of view of 12-year-old Eva Zilverstijn, and is in the present tense. But it is told "about" Eva, as though the subject is also the observer. The result is that the narration captures the inner thoughts of the child while remaining somewhat distant. Eva and her sister Lisa, nine years old, were born in Groningen, Holland, the great-great-grandchildren of Polish-Jewish emigrants. Now it's 1940, the Germans have invaded Holland, and the lives of the Jewish residents will never be the same. Eva and Lisa must now thinkof themselves as Marie-Louise and Marie-Jeanne Dutout, Huguenots. They will spend the next five years in hiding, fleeing from one house to another, never really sure whom to trust. The people who hide them are ordinary citizens who ahve no special feelings one way or the other about Jews, but will 'do whatever it takes to go against those Nazis.' The girls are separated from their parents soon after they begin to hide, and they won't know what happened to them until the war ends. Living through experiences that would certainly destroy them if they did not have a tremendous amount of inner strength, by the end of the war they have proven themselves unusually resourceful as well as brave. On the other hand, they are still children, and find that when they are finally free to go outside, they can't. Not for a day or two, anyway, it is still too scary. Outside, and without a star! Two poems included in the book were written by Vos's mother, and Vos and her sister carried them from one house to another, much as Lisa and Eva do in the story. This is a compelling tale, interestingly told, and will be a useful addition to the growing body of children's literature about the Holocaust."--"Kirkus Reviews""As in her previous work ("Hide and Seek; Dancing on the Bridge of Avignon"), Vos bases this revelatory series of vignettes on her experiences as a Jewish child in Holland during WWII. This time her protagonist, 12-year-old Eva, goes into hiding with her whole family, but no place is truely safe. Their first refuge is shared with another family; the protectors worry that having so many people poses too great a risk, and it is Eva's family that must leave. Their next hosts are a man who tellsanti-Semetic jokes (he takes Jews only because he hates the Germans), and his wife, who is having an affair. The wife's lover, hoping to have the husband arrested, plans to inform the Germans about the Jews in the house, and Eva's family flees in the nick of time. Soon Eva and her younger sister are seperated from their parents and forced to cope with acutely frightening circumstances. The precariosness of hiding places, the dangers of moving from one to another and the girls unnatural existence within them are thrown into sharp relief as Vos distills each scene into its most telling moments. She has a particular talent for demonstrating the protective powers of the fantasies the girls slip into and for re-creating their private world. As usual the author eschews description and exposotion, instead relaying the action through her characters' observations and exchanges. Ultimately hopeful, this book brings home the sorrow and terrors of the hidden children."--"Publishers Weekly" starred review..".Vos effectively introduces the Holocaust through the experiences and childlike voices of the sisters...clearly etched and believable developed characters."--"School Library Journal"
