Description
Book SynopsisAn extraordinary story about a Jewish woman who pretended to be Catholic to survive the Holocaust.
Catholics believed she was one of them. A devoted Nazi family took her in. She fell in love with a German engineer who built aeroplanes for the Luftwaffe. But no one knew that Mala Rivka Kizel had been born into a large Orthodox Jewish family. She survived World War II using her charm, intelligence, blonde hair, and blue eyes to assume different identities.
Journalist Pieter van Os retraces Mala’s footsteps through Europe to uncover her extraordinary journey and the stories of those who helped her. This poignant, rich book is an engrossing meditation on what drives us to fear the Other, and what in turn might allow us to feel compassion for them.
Trade Review‘In almost every sentence, van Os compels admiration with his elegant prose, demonstrating his erudition but never showing off or taking away from the gravity of the subject matter … Hiding in Plain Sight is more than a survival narrative. It is a history of Eastern European mentality.’
* de Volkskrant *
‘I couldn’t stop reading. A stunning book.’
-- Geert Mak, author of
In Europe‘Based on the survival story of one woman, van Os wrote a poignant and disconcerting book about the terrible fate of the Jews, and at the same time about current obsessions with national character and identity.’
-- Judges’ comments from the Libris History Prize
‘You rarely see a journalistic book of this narrative-literary level. A unique book that reveals every page how much careful research and great writing power lies behind it … Van Os shows the value of dwelling longer on a side path or a detail. In this way he knows how to paint a broad and multicoloured image of the blackest pages of recent European history. You are reading this book in one breath.’
-- Judges' comments from the Brusse Prize for Best Dutch-language Journalistic Book
‘Hiding in Plain Sight is an utterly immersive book, bringing readers into lives and places and communities, into their loss and (re)building. It is a hard book to read. As it should be.’
-- Jordana Silverstein * The Conversation *
‘Hiding in Plain Sight is, at times, a detective story and at others, a poignant reminder that there were good people who helped, and others who lied to survive, remembering each step of the way that lying, and in turn surviving, was the best revenge of all.’
-- Jessica Abelsohn * Australian Jewish News *
‘Hiding in Plain Sight [is] a meticulous, engaging, and thoughtful book.’
-- Yelena Furman * Foreword Reviews *
‘Journalist van Os delivers an intense and intriguing portrait of Holocaust survivor Mala Shlafer née Kizel (1926–2021), a Polish Jew who survived the Nazis by passing as an ethnic German Catholic …The result is an immersive study of survival.’
* Publishers Weekly *
‘Brings a different take to the well-worn genre of WW2 literature.’
* DutchNews.nl *
