This schol­ar­ly but very acces­si­ble work is based upon exten­sive research, direct­ed by the expe­ri­ences of the author’s par­ents, who were teenage refugees from Ger­many sent to pre­sum­ably safe Bel­gium on a Kinder­trans­port. Gillick recounts their com­par­a­tive­ly hap­py days in La Hille, the children’s first place of refuge in Bel­gium; the hero­ic efforts of the adults super­vis­ing them to save their lives by spir­it­ing them out of their next stop, the intern­ment camp of Le Ver­net; and their dan­ger­ous escape to Switzer­land, which was no haven. Their ordeal there, to which a large por­tion of the book is devot­ed, took place in an inhos­pitable series of camps, but where, how­ev­er, one was not des­tined for the ovens and if lucky, might be host­ed in a Swiss home. After the war, the young sur­vivors scheme their way to the Unit­ed States, where they strug­gle to assim­i­late and suc­ceed. The author says that although her par­ents essen­tial­ly dis­claimed their Judaism due to their expe­ri­ences, they lived the basic pre­cepts of Judaism: tsedakah; gemi­lut chasadim, and tikkun olam; and that she, her hus­band and their chil­dren remain firm­ly in Judaism’s sphere. The author, who is a clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor in the depart­ment of pop­u­la­tion med­i­cine at Har­vard Med­ical School, writes, ​“It is no acci­dent, I think, that I have devot­ed my career as a physi­cian to car­ing for the old­est and frailest of patients, some of the most vul­ner­a­ble and need­i­est peo­ple.…”
I learned much that was new in this well researched and insight­ful­ly nar­rat­ed work. Index, notes.