Author/illustrator Isaac Millman and his family were living in France, where they’d emigrated from Poland, in the late 1930s. They were Jewish, and the German invasion of France in 1940 marked the start of frightening and traumatic times for young Isaac. After his father is arrested, his mother makes plans to flee the country. She and Isaac almost make it to the border before they are arrested. After a week or more in jail, Isaac sees his mother give a guard her money and jewelry and whisper something to him. “Isaac . . . go with this nice man,” she tells him later. It was the last time he saw her. His mother had arranged for his escape back to Paris, where she’d made prior arrangements with a neighbor to hide him if the need arose. But when Isaac and his escort arrive back in Paris, the fearful neighbor turns Isaac away. The escort abandons him, and the little boy is alone. Isaac survives the war thanks to several kind, courageous strangers who become like family. He dedicates this book in part to one of them, Héna Sztulman, who found him on that Paris street and took him in. Héna then found a place in the country where Isaac was sheltered and loved by a widowed countrywoman for the duration of the war. Millman’s gripping, emotional story is illustrated with both black-and-white family photographs and his own paintings, scrapbook-like pages that visually document many of his experiences. (Ages 8–12)

A powerful story of survival, loss, and hope

Isaac was seven when the Germans invaded France and his life changed forever. First his father was taken away, and then, two years later, Isaac and his mother were arrested. Hoping to save Isaac’s life, his mother bribed a guard to take him to safety at a nearby hospital, where he and many other children pretended to be sick, with help from the doctors and nurses. But this proved a temporary haven. As Isaac was shuttled from city to countryside, experiencing the kindness of strangers, and sometimes their cruelty, he had to shed his Jewish identity to become Jean Devolder. But he never forgot who he really was, and he held on to the hope that after the war he would be reunited with his parents.

After more than fifty years of keeping his story to himself, Isaac Millman has broken his silence to tell it in spare prose, vivid composite paintings, and family photos that survived the war.