Hiding in Plain Sight

Eluding the Nazis in Occupied France

By: Sarah Lew Miller, Joyce B. Lazarus

Narrated by: Kristin Price

Hiding in Plain Sight: Eluding the Nazis in Occupied France is an unusual memoir about the childhood and young adulthood of Sarah Lew Miller. Born in a large Orthodox Jewish family in Dereczyn, Poland, Sarah's family moved to Paris in 1937 to escape poverty.

The German Occupation of France just three years later threatened her family's existence with repressive anti-Jewish laws and massive deportations of Jews to death camps.

With the help of Christian neighbors, they evaded arrest for several years in Paris by living undercover beginning in July, 1942. After Sarah’s mother was arrested and then rescued, Sarah's parents went into deep hiding, while their eight children found refuge in rural villages scattered around France.

Through the help of a French Resistance organization, the Sixime, Sarah escaped to Switzerland in May, 1944 and her entire family was reunited in Paris after the Liberation in 1945.This personal and historical account of an era conveys the day-to-day life of a teenage girl living in Nazi-occupied France with the ever-present threat of death.

Despite her loneliness, hardships and the derailment of her childhood dreams, she kept her strong family ties and maintained her faith in humanity.

This memoir demonstrates the qualities of resilience and courage that enabled individuals and families such as Sarah's to survive.

By reliving one family's way of coping with a social and political crisis, we learn about ourselves and our own society.

©2012 Sarah Lew Miller and Joyce B. Lazarus (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

the way they survived in pre-war times, during the war, and then thankfully their recovery and new lives after the war ended

anytime I get a chance to read autobiographical history, I love it. this is no exception. I highly recommend it.

Narrator why bother to learn French pronunciation?

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

1. Editing of the text to eliminate wordiness, elimination of endless adverbs, trite, repetitive phrases

2. Reasonable effort on the part of the narrator to learn pronunciation of common French words & names. Most grating:
Petain (she pronounced like PehTON instead of PehTahn)
Milice (she pronounced like Millis instead of Milees)

3. This book was written on the basis of the memories of an adolescent. It's perhaps a book for young adults but too simplistic for adults. She's no Anne Frank

What do you think your next listen will be?

Another book on European history

What didn’t you like about Kristin Price’s performance?

1. Mispronunciation of French words/names (she could have checked the correct pronunciation easily)
2. Hearing her draw her breath before phrases (I had to set the speed at 1.25x to drown it out.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not for me, a waste of $

Any additional comments?

This needs to be classified as young adults book