“Flory – A Miraculous Story of Survival“, by Flory Van Beek, is an incredible and compelling memoir. Flory Van Beek speaks from her heart, her soul illuminating each page, creating word-imagery filled with life survival in Holland during the Holocaust.

I could not put “Flory” down, and read it straight through, memsmerized by the incredible depiction of daily life endured during the German occupation of Holland. From her childhood years, before World War II began, through her marriage as a young adult, during the Holocaust, Flory Van Beek speaks volumes within each line, in her emotional descriptions of the minutes, hours, days, and unbelievable five-year ordeal endured in hiding.

Her detail to the historical aspect is infused by a collection of diaries, letters, newpaper articles, documents and other items, that she saved for their importance in documenting Holocaust events and the German occupation of Holland. The collection was saved in metal boxes and hidden in the ground of the yard of their “benefactors” . Flory and her husband were hidden by more than one special family. These families were not Jewish.

They were not the only Jews hidden during that five-year ordeal, as the citizens of Holland were outraged by the Nazis and did their best to hide all Jews living in Holland. It is amazing to read the determination of not only a country, but a group of individuals who felt it their duty to save Jewish lives, without expecting any monetary gain, or without even expecting acknowledgement of their kind deeds.

Not all Jews were able to be saved, and Flory Van Beek’s own mother was sent to the gas chamber, along with other relatives. “Flory – A Miraculous Story of Survival” is based on Flory Van Beek’s memory and based on all the documents that Flory Van Beek managed to save and hide. She wrote the testimonial book as a “sacred memory of my beloved mother and all family members who perished at the hands of the German Nazis in the greatest human tragedy the world has ever known”.

We the reader are better off for having read this amazing memoir and testimonial, written through the eyes, diaries, memory, and the voice of Flory Van Beek, a witness to the historical events of the Holocaust and German Nazi occupation of Holland. Her voice is often emotional, and always articulate, and her story is one that had to be told. “Flory – A Miraculous Story of Survival“, is just that, miraculous, indeed, on many levels. It is a memoir I will remember, and never forget.

I personally own and have read this book.

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Jew Wishes…Peace to you all.
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