That human element, and that innocence, is what is going to haunt me about the book. Slier also took a camera with him. He took several pictures and sent them back home to his parents and friends, and those people managed to hang onto them throughout the blackest days of World War II. I saw his face, and I saw how much of a kid he still was. He aged decades in months, and he finally got killed.
That’s one side of the story, but the authors added a tremendous amount of historical materials to further the reader’s understanding of what was going on in this area at this time. More pictures and maps fill the book. On one hand, Hidden Letters is a short journal of tumultuous times in a young man’s life, but on the other hand the book is a great historical record. I love history, and I equate it with the story of people rather than names and dates. But Philip Slier’s story truly brings home the fact that history is made up of people more than dates or events.
Hidden Letters is going to satisfy the armchair historian’s perusal of the time period, and will give some sense of people and what was going on to genealogists who have discovered they’ve got family members in these camps at the same time. For either of those groups, I’m sure the book would be a beneficial addition.
The parents saved those letters all those years. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to pull them out every so often and read the last words of their lost son.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication on Boston.com. Nice work!
2 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Hidden Letters seems like an affecting and evocative must-read, Mel, and your expressive and poignant review has really done it justice. Thanks.