Yehuda Nir / Juliusz Gruenfeld (M / Poland, 1930-2014), Holocaust survivor

Yehuda Nir / Juliusz Gruenfeld (M / Poland, 1930-2014), Holocaust survivor.

• KEYWORDS : <Hidden Children>
• MEMOIRS : The Lost Childhood (1989)

Biography

Yehuda Nir (1930-2014) was born Juliusz Gruenfeld in Lwów, Poland. Nir and his family posed as Roman Catholics and learned Latin to escape Nazi persecution in Poland during World War II. Nir's ordeal led him to a career as a psychiatrist, specializing in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and severely ill children. He immigrated to the United States in 1959.

Book : The Lost Childhood (1989)

• The Lost Childhood (San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989)

"The story of six extraordinary years in the life of a Polish Jewish boy who, along with his mother and sister, survived World War II through cunning, deceit, and guile ... This compelling memoir takes readers through the eyes of a child surviving World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a nine-year-old, the author witnessed his father being herded into a truck—never to be seen again. He, his mother, and sister fled to Warsaw to live in disguise as Catholics under the noses of the Nazi SS, constantly fearful of discovery and persecution. A sobering reminder of the personal toll of the Holocaust on Jews during World War II, this book is a harrowing portrait of one child's loss of innocence. This edition contains previously unpublished content from the original text."--Publisher description.