Hiding in Plain Sight: how a Jewish girl survived Europe's heart of darkness

Pieter van Os

Jan 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Suzanne Toren

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16 hr 16 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

Polish Catholics believed she was one of them. A devoted Nazi family took her in as if she was their own daughter. She fell in love with a German engineer who built aeroplanes for the Luftwaffe. What none of these people knew was that Mala Rivka Kizel had been born into a large Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1926. By using her charm, intelligence, blonde hair, and blue eyes to assume different identities, she was the only member of her family to survive World War II. When Dutch journalist Pieter van Os stumbled upon Mala's story, he set out to revive the world through which she had made her way from war-ravaged middle Europe to the nascent state of Israel, before finally settling in the Netherlands. With her memoir and their interviews as guide, van Os physically retraced Mala's steps, stopping in at local archives and remote villages, searching for anyone who might have known or helped her seventy-five years before. At times sounding like an erudite detective story, this poignant, rich book is an engrossing meditation on what drives us to fear the 'other', and what in turn might allow us to feel compassion for them.

About the author

Pieter van Os writes for NRC Handelsblad and De Groene Amsterdammer. His published works include the books The Netherlands in Focus, and We Understand Each Other Perfectly, about his years as a parliamentary journalist. After having lived in Warsaw for four years, he now resides in Tirana, Albania.

Suzanne Toren is an actor who has appeared on and off Broadway, in regional theaters, and occasionally on TV. Over a period of several decades, she has narrated close to 1000 audiobooks for most major publishers. She has received multiple Audie nominations and many industry awards, including Narrator of the Year.

David Doherty studied English and literary linguistics in Glasgow, before moving to Amsterdam, where he has been working as a translator for over twenty years. His literary work includes novels by award-winning authors Marente de Moor, Peter Terrin, and Alfred Birney.

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