Publication Date: March 5, 2024
Based on the true story of two World War II heroines who risked everything to save Jewish children from the Gestapo by hiding them throughout Belgium.
Belgium, 1942
Young schoolteacher Andrée Geulen secretly defies the Nazis in Belgium, who are forcing Jews to wear a yellow Star of David. Andrée is not Jewish, but she feels a maternal connection to her students, who are living in constant fear, and decides to take action. No child should have to suffer under such persecution. But what can one woman do against an entire army?
Ida Sterno is a Jewish woman who works with a clandestine resistance group tasked with hiding children from the Gestapo. She recruits Andrée because her Aryan appearance can provide crucial security measures for their efforts. Andrée agrees to join and begins work immediately by adopting a code name: Claude Fournier.
Together, Andrée and Ida work tirelessly to move Jewish children from their families and smuggle them to safety through the secret channels established by the Committee for the Defense of Jews. As each child is hidden, Andrée commits to memory their true name and history. Someday, she vows, she will help reunite as many of these families as she can.
But with the Gestapo closing in along with the traitorous Fat Jacques, who has turned from ally to enemy and is threatening to identify any Jew he meets, Andrée and Ida must work against increasingly impossible odds to save as many ch
As the Nazis invade Belgium and Jewish students start to disappear, school teacher, Andrée Geulen decides to join a resistance group hiding Jewish children in Hidden Yellow Stars by Rebecca Connolly.
Based on the true story of Andrée Geulen, Ida Sterno, and other brave Belgium resisters, Ms. Connolly weaves a captivating tapestry of events surrounding the Nazi occupation and the urgency behind conveying the children to safety before the Gestapo can round up entire families for the death camps. Depicting the difficulties parents had letting their young children go with the resisters, knowing they were going to safety but wondering if they would ever see their children again. It was genuinely heart-wrenching both for the parents and for the resisters getting those children to safety.
I have read numerous WWII-era novels, many of which revolved around the Holocaust. While I found this story of rescuing children very compelling, so much of the emotional appeal was lost in the repetitive inner dialogue of the characters. Rather than drawing out the emotions of the readers, it served to beat a dead horse instead. Much of the emotional elements could have been derived from action rather than inner dialogue, giving the readers the “see” rather than the “tell.”
I felt lost not having a timeline in the headings or the text in order to know where the story was in the scope of the war—Was it 1943? 1944? Were we at the end of the war? However, I did enjoy the headings with the horrible quotes from Nazi propaganda highlighting what the Jewish people were subjected to daily.
The story and writing were solid, and the historical elements were well done. However, the ending was rushed, and if some of the repetitive internal dialogue had been cut down, the ending could have been fleshed out more and brought to a more emotional climax.
Heart-wrenching, emotional, and inspiring Hidden Yellow Stars depicts the true story of resisters who risked everything to save Jewish children from the evils of the Nazi occupiers. 
Rebecca Connolly is the author of more than two dozen novels. She calls herself a Midwest girl, having lived in Ohio and Indiana. She’s always been a bookworm, and her grandma would send her books almost every month so she would never run out. Book Fairs were her carnival, and libraries are her happy place. She received a master’s degree from West Virginia University.
While doing research for this book, she discovered information about her own family history, including the fates of several unknown family members who perished in the concentration camps of World War II.
