Born in Bel­gium and raised in Ams­ter­dam, where her fam­i­ly moved in 1931, the author tells a true, can­did, hor­rif­ic and chill­ing sto­ry of her life from 1941 – 1945. Orig­i­nal­ly interned at West­er­bork, the fam­i­ly is lat­er trans­ferred to Bergen Belsen. Ini­tial­ly fam­i­lies are allowed to be togeth­er. Short­ly after first Hetty’s father and then her moth­er are sent on trans­ports, Het­ty at age four­teen is left in charge of her two younger broth­ers, and quick­ly takes charge of a group of forty-four chil­dren whose par­ents had been tak­en away. On a reg­u­lar basis she for­ays for food and sup­plies for the child pris­on­ers. She is pro­tect­ed and aid­ed by Luba (lat­er known as the ​“Angel of Bergen Belsen”), to whom she becomes very close. Through her words, we feel the pain of fam­i­lies being sep­a­rat­ed, of the reg­u­lar uproot­ing of pris­on­ers from one famil­iar bar­rack to a new and unfa­mil­iar one, and the uncer­tain­ty and feel­ing of pow­er­less­ness cre­at­ed as a result. Hetty’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy is well-writ­ten, and is par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive as its point of view is that of a very young girl, wise beyond her years, strong and coura­geous. Orig­i­nal pho­tographs illus­trate and enrich Hetty’s sto­ry. The orig­i­nal ver­sion of this mem­oir, writ­ten for adults, was pub­lished in 2000 as ​“The Children’s House of Belsen”, and was the win­ner of the Christi­na Stead Award from the Fel­low­ship of Aus­tralian Writ­ers; this book is an abridg­ment of that work. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 11 to 16.