August 31, 2000

The hiding places in the title of Daniel Asa Rose\’s new memoir refer to the haylofts and cellars where his relatives hid from the Nazis during the war years, and also to the suburban tool sheds and coat closets where the author crawled into during his childhood in a mostly gentile Connecticut town. The title also alludes to the author\’s efforts to avoid his Judaism. Traveling to Europe to find his family\’s hiding places in Belgium and France with his two young sons, Rose comes to see that hiding places are \”not merely dark holes of concealment\” but also \”places of revelation.\” The trip leads him to understand the links between present and past, his own connections to his family\’s past and to the Jewish future.