Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

2 reviews

sarahflanders's review

emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Infertility, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Excrement, Police brutality, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Deportation

kayladaila's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This is not a bad book. In fact, it is very well written. However, this book is incredibly problematic for some of the same reasons Boy in the Striped Pajamas is. Stefania Podgorska was a real woman who really did save 13 Jews during the Holocaust, and her story sounds amazing. Sharon Cameron chose to fictionalize this tale, and that is where the issues arise. 

The protagonist of The Light in Hidden Places is a Christian Pole who hides 13 Jewish people during the Holocaust. This is her story, and the Jews become a plot device to further that story, rather than its focal point. Throughout the novel, Stefania refers to the people she is hiding as “my thirteen,” removing any individual identity they have outside of how it relates to the nonJewish protagonist. These characters are truly hidden from the readers unless Stefania needs one of them. 

It is also evident that Sharon Cameron did quite a bit of research on everything Polish, but very little Jewish. At the beginning of the story, Stefania is taken in by a Jewish family and learns some Yiddish. Later on, she tries to provide the people she is hiding with a small Hanukkah celebration, she refers to a Hanukkah lamp. Not a menorah, not a hanukiah. It’s clear which culture Cameron paid attention to. 

I’d like to reiterate that if this was Stefania Podgorska’s nonfiction story, I would not have had these issues. It’s only with a fictionalized retelling, where the author could have made an effort to create three-dimensional Jewish characters and actively chose not to, that I take issue. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Infertility, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Murder, Abandonment, and War

Moderate: Child abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence