Chapter 4, Escape to Holland Summary and Analysis

The Blumenthals arrived in Rotterdam with almost nothing, like many other German refugees who left Germany in the late 1930s. At first, they were shifted from refugee center to refugee center. Marion was frightened by all the other children. But after three months they moved to Gouda, Holland, to a camp for Jewish refugee children. The work was hard, Ruth said, but they lived as a family and Marion wasn't afraid. During this time, Hitler attacked and conquered Czechoslovakia on March 15th, 1939 and then declared war on Poland on September 1st, 1939. Two days later Great Britain and France declared war and World War II began. The Dutch wondered how long their neutrality would be respected. In the fall of 1939 a permanent Jewish refugee camp called Westerbork was formed and the Blumenthals moved there in December...