“Every hidden child has a story.”
—Professor Shaul Harel
The journey that was the process and evolution of Hidden Yellow Stars is one that was heaven-sent, and there is no question in my mind about that. It all started when my father was reading the news online and found an article about the death of Andrée Geulen, a Belgian woman who had just turned one hundred and had hidden Jewish children from the Gestapo during World War II. Knowing I am always looking for good stories in history, he sent the article to me to read.
I read it, and I loved it. So, I began looking into her story even more, learning about the life she had led and the people she had worked with. I learned about Ida Sterno, how she had been captured in the end and forced to endure all manner of torment in the barracks in Mechelen. I learned how deeply Andrée loved the children she worked with and how she remembered them for the rest of their lives.
And the rest is history.
To say that the research for this project was difficult is an understatement. To learn of the specific suffering of these children and their families, the fear that they lived with constantly, and the losses many of them faced was harrowing. There were many tears shed on my part as I struggled to comprehend how such horrors could have happened in the first place, and my gratitude for and appreciation of brave figures like Ida and Andrée soared. I had to tell the story of these children and of those who saved them, and I had to do them justice.
One of the most extraordinary opportunities I had throughout this project was to visit the Dossin Barracks, now the Kazerne Dossin, in Mechelen, described in this book by its French name, Malines. There is a remembrance museum there as well as the original barracks, where a memorial has been created, and what I learned and felt in that hallowed space will stay with me for life. The very walls seem to echo with the cries of those who passed through there, as well as those who stayed. I could watch Ida’s procession from room to room upon her arrival in my mind as I walked that space myself, feeling the humiliating and harrowing experience in a new and profound way.
During my research and writing process, I was fortunate enough to make contact with one of the surviving hidden children, Professor Shaul Harel, who provided me with extraordinary details beyond what his own account in A Child without a Shadow says, and who remained friends with Andrée Geulen for the rest of her life. He became a symbol of hope for me as I worked through this project, illustrating the goal that Ida and Andrée, as well as the others in the CDJ, had for their work.
The barracks at Malines (Mechelen) today.
What was still more extraordinary in my research is that, thanks to the work of the incredible souls at Yad Vashem, I was able to identify extended members of my own family that had suffered death in the camps at the hands of the Nazis. We had always suspected that there were some distant relations who had died in the Holocaust but had never found names or details to prove it, due to the loss of records in the region throughout the years of destruction and persecution.
I found the details for the aunt and uncle of my great-grandfather, their children, and, in some cases, their young grandchildren. For a family as loving and inclusive as mine, the identification of so many that had been lost not only from this world, but from our own knowledge and awareness was humbling. I hope to honor them with this book and to tell the story of their people—of my own heritage through that family line.
When Professor Harel learned of this discovery of mine, and my partial Jewish heritage, he told me, “So you’re in this book, too.” Those powerful words have stayed with me ever since. Though my family was not part of the Jewish community in Belgium, though I myself am not Jewish, Professor Harel sees this story as part of my own. He, who lived through this, believes this is the story of me and my people as well. What an honor and tribute that is!
The names of the children rescued by the CDJ throughout their work are kept private, both in record and in this book. Any names given and used are fictional, but their stories come from real accounts. The same applies to the families that gave them up, the families that housed them, and the majority of the nuns mentioned. Sister Marie-Aurélie, however, is a real figure in the story.
All accounts of the treatment of children in their fostering homes, for good or for ill, come from real records, either from the children themselves or from those who worked with them.
The story of the baby being saved from the camp at Malines was spoken of by Andrée Geulen often, although the gender of the baby and the social worker who rescued them is now unknown. The baby did indeed go on to live through the war.
The ingenious system of coded notebooks set up by Esta Heiber and maintained by Ida Sterno and Andrée Geulen was set up as follows:
- Notebook 1: The child’s real name and their assigned number.
- Notebook 2: The child’s number and the new false name with their date of birth.
- Notebook 3: Numerically ordered name code with the true parent address.
- Notebook 4: The locations hiding children, each location having an assigned code.
- Notebook 5: The code name of the child next to the location code number.
The account of Ida Sterno’s treatment after her arrest comes from her own accounts. The names of those she was in a cell with, apart from Jenny, have been created here, as their true identities are unknown.
The VNV soldier known in this book as Horse Head was indeed a real individual whose real name is not recorded. He made an appearance in reports from three separate individuals who had been interned at the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen. In their reports, he was known by the German version of that name: Pferdekopf.