Reviews and Comments
Avrumele: Recollections of a Hidden Child has garnered many positive reviews and comments as both a book and a video. Here are a sample of those remarks.
"I couldn't put this memoir down—it has the sort of immediacy and intensity that
can only come from firsthand experience. That you, almost a century later, have been able to
remember and report so vividly your experiences as a child of the holocaust is remarkable."
Cheryl Berger, High School Teacher
"A beautiful work. Everyone should see this to understand history and human nature. Very
powerful."
Stephen Kahofer
"I read this memoir in one sitting. It makes you reevaluate yourself and appreciate
your life a little more. Once you start this heartbreaking journey, it is impossible to put the book
down until you've taken all the trains and buses, and shared the bunkers and experiences with Hepner
in Belgium through the 1940s. I both respect and admire him. I'm so proud to say that I was
taught English by this man back when I started college, and he is one of the main reasons I started
to love reading. This memoir also gave me the opportunity to learn a little more about the war by someone
who really faced the hardships presented at the time. Those years discussed by many but only
understood by a few. I will definitely keep this memoir in my bookshelf as long a I live! An
impressive, and devastating story."
Kingberli Capellan
"Not only does this moving book remind us of a horrible part of our history which must
never be forgotten, and teach us about the reality at the time, but we also witness the war
and its atrocities first hand through the eyes of this little blond, Jewish five-year old boy with
blue eyes. . . This is a very important book, that everybody should read, young and old, especially
today, when there is so much discrimination and hate in the world. It is not only their existence
in so many shapes and forms that is scary, but above all [their] acceptance.
"
Elisabeth Oosterhoff
"
[This book] offers the voice of a child not only hidden, but also caught in a series of events
without any framework of reference. His recollections offer a soulful set of insights into a childhood
pockmarked by loss after loss. The writing conjures up unforgettable and visceral imagery."
Kindle Customer
"
With near total recall, the author expresses in exquisite visual and sensory details his wartime struggle
to understand his bewildering surroundings. The voice is that of a child, the perspective is of an adult.
Shortly after Belgium is invaded, Albert's father dies of natural causes, leaving him and his widowed
mother to fend for themselves as the situation for Jews becomes increasingly perilous. Ultimately, to
increase their chances of survival, mother and son must separate. They are helped by two heroic Jews—his
mother's physician cousin Maurice (Motl) Globerson, and his father's longtime friend, Abraham Winnik—plus
a long list of courageous Belgians who provide one sanctuary after another. Throughout the book, Albert
deals with fears of discovery and with the question of identity, a familiar quandary for many former
hidden children."
Rachel Goldstein