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By: Ella Johnson
February 14th 2023
The Holocaust already sounds like something out of a fictional book. Along with the heroes who suffered significant losses and attempted daring rescues. But the heroism of Stefania Podgórska is no fantasy, she was one of the many survivors and icons of WWII. The Light in Hidden Places is a book that remembers one of the heroic holocaust stories by Sharon Cameron. This article is a review of that book and why there are so many reasons you should read this book.
The book begins by telling you who the main character is and her backstory. Her name is Stefania Podgórska and she was a 12-year-old Polish girl who once lived in a small farm village with her 8 siblings and her single mother before moving to Przemyśl. She lived with her sisters and worked for a family in a small shop in Przemyśl. Even though the Diamants (Who were the family) were Jewish and Stefi was Catholic they treated her as one of their own. And when her sisters moved away and the Holocaust began she lived with the Diamants. They had to move into the ghettos and Stefi would sneak food and blankets into the borders. Things get worse and trains start taking others away to concentration camps. Stefi is in love with one of the Diamant sons and he gets taken to a concentration camp. Then the rest of the family goes and another brother jumps off the train surviving the fall and making his way back to Stefi's home. Stefi goes back to her childhood home and finds her little sister starving to death she takes her back to her house and cares for her with a few earnings she makes at a factory. A little while later Stefi hides 13 Jews in her attic while German Nazis are in the room below the attic where she is hiding them. After two and a half years of torture, Przemyśl was liberated. She and her sister (Helena) Were honored as Righteous Savers and Survivors of the Holocaust. Since this is just a summary, you should get the entire book in our school library to find out more.
This book was one of the best books I have ever read. It had great sadness and many horrible losses of dear people, but it was also mixed with a beautiful sense of hope. I think that this book was a very good read because it kept me interested until I finished it. The way it was written was beautiful, it flowed so well together and every single paragraph made absolute sense so could finish it in one or two days. Overall I think that this book is one of the best books I have EVER read.
Emily6456 on commonsense.com says, "This book is a very great novel about a 16-year-old girl who hides Jews in her attic." She also talks about how the age rating would probably be 10+ if they already know about the holocaust, but 13+ if not. I disagree with this statement. I believe that the age should be 11 and older. It gives great information about real things that happened, but is also is written at a level that most kids can understand. The reason why I think this book shouldn't be for kids younger than 11 is because of the violence. It can get very descriptive in some parts of the book when it is talking about death or starvation. It also has a scene in the book that may be too inappropriate for younger audiences.
Unfortunately, Stefania got very bad PTSD and had dementia in the years leading up to her passing at years old. If you are looking for a good book to read either for enjoyment or for AR I would greatly recommend this book to you. It is 15 AR points and it has a Lexile Level of HL650L. This book is easy to read and a very good read for a 6th, 7th, or 8th grader. I hope you take my word and read this book.
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