Courage, Anxiety, And All That Makes Us Human
In ‘The Light in Hidden Places’, Sharon Cameron highlights WWII hero Stefania Podgórska and the holocaust through a YA lens.
In 2014, I spent Easter weekend in Amsterdam. It was spring break in the U.S, Easter holidays in Western Europe and Amsterdam was crowded. I had a ticket to the Anne Frank House, a biographical museum where she once hid with her family from the Nazis during the holocaust. I stood in a long line outside the museum. In front of me stood a group of young American men.
“Why are we here?” groaned one of them.
“This is Anne Frank’s House!” exclaimed the other.
“Who is she?”
“She’s this girl who hid from the Nazis.”
“Why is she famous?”
“She wrote this diary.”
“A diary?” said the young man, confused. “I could write a diary.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised that there were people in this world who weren’t aware of Anne Frank’s legacy. But my bemusement came from the idea that it was the simple act of writing a diary that made her famous. We all could write a diary. What this man didn’t take into account is that Anne Frank’s diary detailed the everyday lives of people who were hiding from the Nazis. It was an astute look into the life of someone who was always in danger just for being born. I could feel the restrictions of the narrow halls and the shuttered darkness of the house. I couldn’t know what it was like to be in her shoes, to feel constantly under threat.
Sharon Cameron fictionalizes the account of the lesser-known Stefania Podgórska in The Light in Hidden Places. This time we see the holocaust from the perspective of a Polish woman who used her status as a Catholic woman to aid Jewish people fleeing persecution.
In Painstaking Detail
The Light in Hidden Places is the story of Stefania Podgórska, a Polish Catholic woman who hid thirteen Jewish people under her roof during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
As a young woman, Stefania was not only putting her own life in danger, but the life of her five year-old sister as well. The electrifying story is one of love, perseverance, anxiety, and unimaginable bravery. I will admit that when I began reading this book, I was not enthralled by the writing. It didn’t have any character or personalization, which was especially jarring given that it was a first-person account. It seemed like a retelling of facts, of incidents, rather than of a lived experience.
The beginning of the book sets us up to understand Stefania’s relationship with the Diamants and her relationship with her sister. It was written in detail, which usually gives me a sense of familiarity, but the lack of character development on Stefania’s end made the details difficult to enjoy. I was weighed down by all the context.
In the author’s note, Cameron mentions that she used details from Podgórska’s diaries, televised interviews, and her son’s account to write this book. The care behind the research is commendable, but it felt like Cameron was trying very hard to show us all of that research in painstaking detail. The details were more than necessary.
The Writing Shined in The Darkest of Places
What Cameron does well is explain the anxiety that Stefania felt. In World War II stories, it’s easy to strip the hero of their humanity. It’s almost like we expect them to stagnant figures. This is most notable in one-sided portrayals like that of Oskar Schindler, who was both a hero and a notorious womanizer and alcoholic. Everyone has imperfections. Everyone has anxieties, fear, and anger. We’re human. Under these circumstances, communicating these character complexities with tact is no small feat. For all of Stefania’s practicality and heroism, she was still allowed to be wonderfully human.
After watching many movies and reading many books about the atrocities of the holocaust, I would like to think that I am not surprised by any new stories but there were moments when I had to put the book down. One such occurrence was when Podgórska tried to get a sick letter but was instead given an injection that left her incapacitated. When reading, it’s easy to forget that Podgórska was a young woman when she went through this. At the end of the book, she is only nineteen. Yet, these nonconsensual experiments were a part of her and many other young women's experiences during the holocaust.
The perseverance, the steadfastness, the resourcefulness are those of a much older woman, not a young girl. But Podgórska, like many other young women in Poland during War War II, had to grow up much faster than anyone could’ve anticipated, making the moments when we’re reminded that she is young and human even more harrowing. She develops feelings for Max, one of her good friends, and a Jewish man she is hiding. After a long day’s work, she comes home and finds nothing but chores waiting for her. When she feels the frustrations of her youth coming up against the burden of carrying the whole world on her shoulders — these moments of real human emotions — it’s what made this book stand out. Even in the darkest times, we’re all human.
