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Looking for Strangers: The True Story of My Hidden Wartime Childhood
Dori Katz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who thought that her lost memories of her childhood years in Belgium were irrecoverable. But after a chance viewing of a documentary about hidden children in German-occupied Belgium, she realized that she might, in fact, be able to unearth those years. Looking for Strangers is the deeply honest record of her attempt to do so, a detective story that unfolds through one of the most horrifying periods in history in an attempt to understand one’s place within it.
In alternating chapters, Katz journeys into multiple pasts, setting details from her mother’s stories that have captivated her throughout her life alongside an account of her own return to Belgium forty years later—against her mother’s urgings—in search of greater clarity. She reconnects her sharp but fragmented being sent by her mother in 1943, at the age of three, to live with a Catholic family under a Christian identity; then being given up, inexplicably, to an orphanage in the years immediately following the war. Only after that, amid postwar confusion, was she able to reconnect with her mother. Following this trail through Belgium to her past places of hiding, Katz eventually finds herself in San Francisco, speaking with a man who claimed to have known her father in Auschwitz—and thus known his end. Weighing many other stories from the people she meets along her way—all of whom seem to hold something back—she attempts to stitch thread after thread into a unified truth, to understand the countless motivations and circumstances that determined her remarkable life.
A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. It is a book in which the past, through its very mystery, becomes alive, immediate—of the most urgent importance.
In alternating chapters, Katz journeys into multiple pasts, setting details from her mother’s stories that have captivated her throughout her life alongside an account of her own return to Belgium forty years later—against her mother’s urgings—in search of greater clarity. She reconnects her sharp but fragmented being sent by her mother in 1943, at the age of three, to live with a Catholic family under a Christian identity; then being given up, inexplicably, to an orphanage in the years immediately following the war. Only after that, amid postwar confusion, was she able to reconnect with her mother. Following this trail through Belgium to her past places of hiding, Katz eventually finds herself in San Francisco, speaking with a man who claimed to have known her father in Auschwitz—and thus known his end. Weighing many other stories from the people she meets along her way—all of whom seem to hold something back—she attempts to stitch thread after thread into a unified truth, to understand the countless motivations and circumstances that determined her remarkable life.
A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. It is a book in which the past, through its very mystery, becomes alive, immediate—of the most urgent importance.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 16, 2017
A woman's search for the facts about her family and childhood during WW2. That sense of what it is like not to be able to find all the answers comes through very clearly. And the mixed feeling of wanting to forget painful things and yet know the truth as well.
September 29, 2017
freeEbook UofC cell read.
November 9, 2017
Honest and intense account of being a hidden child. Brings home the long-term impact of childhood trauma on adult life. There are often no 'neat endings' in life.
October 6, 2018
A very emotionally evocative account of the history of a Jewish family in Belgium during the Holocaust, the terrible toll on those that were killed, and the memories of the survivors.
August 11, 2021
In the mid 1980s, a woman went looking for the Belgian family who had sheltered her as a tot, despite her mother's disapproval.
January 10, 2017
Good story. Would have been enhanced substantially by pictures.
April 14, 2014
I was reading about a pending publication in Publisher's Weekly and did a double take; it was by my college professor Dori Katz at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She was my professor senior year in Translation but I had also heard her poetry and knew of her in the Modern Languages Department. I put in a request for Seattle Public Library to order the book, and before I had time to wonder if they would it was in my hands on a Friday afternoon, finished by Sunday evening. A fascinating, riveting memoir. I vaguely knew that she was a Holocaust survivor but didn't realize that she had been hidden during World War II. I started reading the work, in which she sees a documentary in which she almost thinks she will see her own face as a child hidden with non-Jews during the war, thinking it was very recent. Then I learned it was in 1982; the year I was still at Trinity.
I read the memoir as someone interested personally, interested as someone helping students write their own memoirs and as an engrossed reader. Then I promptly passed it to someone else who is trying to write a memoir, but with no personal connections. It was as riveting for her.
The story is fascinating. The portrait of her mother is objective and yet searing. Imagine if you learned that your mother had "hidden" you with another family during the war and then also left you in an orphanage, but never wanted to speak of it. Katz's search for her past is, as I said, fascinating, but always unresolved in some ways. This is the harshest of realities told honestly, starkly.
It is a model of how to write about trying to uncover one's past and attempt to sort out the truth. I would recommend this for anyone who is trying to reconcile the secrets of their parents and their past with their own lives. Unlike in some works of fiction there are not always tidy endings and this memoir vests the reader in the quest itself. I really need to pull out the thesaurus because I want to just keep repeating the word fascinating.
I read the memoir as someone interested personally, interested as someone helping students write their own memoirs and as an engrossed reader. Then I promptly passed it to someone else who is trying to write a memoir, but with no personal connections. It was as riveting for her.
The story is fascinating. The portrait of her mother is objective and yet searing. Imagine if you learned that your mother had "hidden" you with another family during the war and then also left you in an orphanage, but never wanted to speak of it. Katz's search for her past is, as I said, fascinating, but always unresolved in some ways. This is the harshest of realities told honestly, starkly.
It is a model of how to write about trying to uncover one's past and attempt to sort out the truth. I would recommend this for anyone who is trying to reconcile the secrets of their parents and their past with their own lives. Unlike in some works of fiction there are not always tidy endings and this memoir vests the reader in the quest itself. I really need to pull out the thesaurus because I want to just keep repeating the word fascinating.
January 7, 2017
What I loved most about this book was its frankness about life in dire circumstances. It is a recount of the tragedy of an entire family and it provides us with a glimpse of the consequences of living through violence and discrimination. Even though it's seen through the eyes of the youngest of the family, its message of loss and its transparency at depicting conflicting emotions made it a wonderful reading.
This is a story of life without any trace of Hollywood-esque sugar coating. While we don't get the closure or perfect happy endings we crave from a story, we get to see life as it is. It might not be what we want but it may be what we need in order to start embracing our own lives as they unfold naturally and stop embellishing them in social media.
This is a story of life without any trace of Hollywood-esque sugar coating. While we don't get the closure or perfect happy endings we crave from a story, we get to see life as it is. It might not be what we want but it may be what we need in order to start embracing our own lives as they unfold naturally and stop embellishing them in social media.
January 27, 2014
I only gave this book two stars because of the amount of misspellings, missing words, wrong punctuation, etc. The author praised her editor but I found the editing to be shoddy with too much repetition. The book is badly in need of a copy editor/proofreader. After a while, the author got on my nerves, too. I found the subject matter quite interesting and liked the first part of the book but after a while, I couldn't wait to finish. It's a good thing that there weren't that many pages.
August 8, 2014
Dori Katz grew up in Belgium during World War II. After her father was arrested, her mother sent her to hide with a Christian family. It wasn't until about forty years later that Dori decided to search for the family that had cared for her. She gives us an honest, moving account of her mixed feelings: about her mother; about her adoptive family; about the dual identity she was forced to assume.
January 8, 2014
I thought this book was near perfect. The only thing that would've made it better is more detail, but I can understand how she had forgotten many things over the years. I also would've liked to see some pictures.
February 18, 2015
The author is trying to resolve her past of being "hidden" as a very young child with her lack of memories and facts. She runs into blocks all along the way and there isn't a very satisfactory resolution to her story.
December 19, 2016
A beautiful red door invites readers on a journey to a past few could imagine. Dori Katz searches for a past that was hidden for decades in an attempt to discover if her memories are her own or pieces she has collected over her life.
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March 7, 2014I knew I would be glad I had read Looking for Strangers. I did not know I would enjoy it! Dori Katz is a skilled writer and storyteller.
December 27, 2013
This was a very difficult book to read. There was no resolution to the author's question about how her father died? And her relationship with her mother was antagonistic.
January 11, 2014
Nice short read. Enjoyed the story
January 31, 2017
Moving narrative.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews