Pearls of Childhood

The memories of Vera Gissing, first published in 1988, tell the story of Jewish children who were evacuated from Czechoslovakia to England in June 1939, saving them from the Holocaust. Vera was not yet eleven years old when her parents put her on a train, sending her to a foreign country in the hope that she would be safe there. For six years, the girl endured all the hardships of war, being in Great Britain, far from her mom and dad, who remained in occupied territory. She kept a diary where she recorded her daily observations, worried about her relatives, and prayed for the liberation of her country. She was able to return to Prague only after the defeat of fascism. But what awaited Vera in the ruins of her beloved Czechoslovakia? Were there any survivors? Her deeply felt confession unfolds into a present reflection on the strength of human will, a guiding beacon of hope, and the nature of good and evil.