Clara Schwarz was a quiet, shy 14-year-old living with her parents and lively younger sister in a Polish town during WWII. Jews like Clara and Christians had lived there side-by-side for three centuries. Then the Nazis came. Clara’s father owned a small factory. The only people Clara’s father can find to hide the family are their housekeeper and her husband. Julia is a kind woman. However, her husband, Valentin Beck, is a heavy- drinking womanizer with a bad temper. Clara’s father feels his family has no choice. They must hide or be taken into a concentration camp. The Schwarzes and fourteen other Jews dig a shallow bunker beneath the Becks’ house. German soldiers move into the room above them. For eighteen months Clara lived in the bunker and survived. This book is compelling, with no idealization of the Jews or their rescuers. If you read this memoir you’ll never forget Clara Schwarz Kramer.
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