Author's Note

So often I am asked, “what inspired you to write this story?” So often I have to shrug and say that my thoughts take many directions and are swayed by a great variety of things. For this book, however, I can say, unequivocally, that my grandparents and their heroism inspired me. Their story would have remained unknown to me if I hadn’t always been fascinated by all things to do with World War II. My parents grew up in occupied Holland, and their memories are painful and sketchy. But I, nevertheless, pressed for more stories of the war whenever the topic came up.

I knew my grandparents only briefly, as a child, for they lived in Holland and only short trips overseas acquainted me with them. It was only after their deaths that I learned the truth. My grandparents had been silent warriors, for they hid Jews from the Nazis in their chicken coop, of all places, during the German occupation. At the time, my mother knew nothing about it, because she was young, and might unknowingly blurt out the truth, endangering everyone involved. Only later did she discover the risk her parents had taken—something that could have led to her own family’s deportation or deaths. It was upon hearing this that I realized that I had to explore aspects of this story, however fictionalized. It is the heroics of ordinary people taking a stand for what is right—sometimes at great personal risk—that should inspire us all.