A Beautiful Resistance

Until 1989, Bronia had not known of anyone who had been hidden, like herself, as a child in Nazi occupied Europe. The term Hidden Child was only coined when the first World Gathering of Hidden Children was planned to take place in New York in 1991, inspired by a documentary 'As if it were Yesterday ' about Belgian Rescuers. Bronia attended this Gathering where she was one of 1,600 hidden children whilst another 1,500 had been unable to attend. In this book, which she has written in homage to the Rescuers who saved her and thousands of others at the peril of their lives, Bronia tells of the exceptional Civilian Resistance rescues in Belgium. Ninety-four per cent of the 58,000+ Jews in Belgium at the invasion in May 1940 were not Belgian citizens but Eastern European immigrants in the 1920's and refugees from Germany in the late 1930's. They were mainly working class and Yiddish or German speaking; yet over 34,000 survived, through the courage and loving kindness of their Rescuers.