Hiding in the Spotlight, by Greg Dawson, is a biograhpy of the author’s mother, Zhanna. Zhanna and her family were Jews living in the Ukraine during the start of World War II. Already suffering under Stalin’s brutal communistic policies, the people’s torment increased as the Germans swept into Russia. Soothed by false promises of kindness from both the Soviets and the Germans, Zhanna’s parents decide not to flee from the swiftly moving German army. Once the Germans reach their town, the Arshanskys soon realize their terrible mistake. Unable to save themselves, Zhanna’s parents manage to save their two daughters. Through the kindness of strangers, and using their amazing musical talents, the girls are able to survive the war in plain sight, by entertaining the Nazis. ( )

The story of two sisters, Russian/Ukrainian Jewish piano prodigies, who survived the war under false identities playing the piano for Nazi officers. Written by the son of one of the girls. The section on the war is not as detailed as I would like, and it covers only about half the book -- the rest of the pages are devote to the girls' childhood and the beginnings of their musical careers, and then to the post-war period. I was fascinated by the character of the American officer who recognized their talent and actually adopted them just so he could bypass the immigration quotas and get them into the United States.

Piano enthusiasts as well as people interested in the Holocaust would find this well worth reading. ( )

This book was fascinating. Offering details of the life of a Ukranian Jew who escapes the death march at Drobitsky Yar only to find herself the musical darling of the German SS performing at Nazi programs throughout Germany.

Although a memoir, it is written in a casual narrative tone which makes for easy reading and page turning drama.

This title offers both a unique perspective of the lives of Jews both before and after the war, with interesting insights into the nuances associated with being a Russian Jew amongst Polish and German Jews - I was unaware that US Repatriatization of Jewish citizens did not include ANY quota for bringing Russian Jews to the United States.

A great history lesson, a great humanitarian lesson and a great read. ( )

This remarkable tale of Holocaust survival is told by the son of one of the two women who are the focus of this story, Zhanna and Frina Arshanskaya.

In January, 1942, the Jews of Kharkov in the Ukraine were being marched to Drobitsky Yar, one of the huge pits in which the Einsatzgruppen from Germany (assisted by Ukrainian collaborators) massacred Jews. [The Einsatzgruppen were a special auxillary group that followed the German Army into Russia. Their job was to liquidate the Jews. For an excellent and eye-opening look at the activities of the Einsatzgruppen, the book Babi Yar by Anatoly Kuznetsov is unparalled. (Yar means pit or ravine.) At Babi Yar, in the course of two days - September 29-30, 1941 - the Einsatzgruppen murdered some 34,000 Jewish civilians. The Babi Yar massacre was the largest single mass killing of the Holocaust. At Drobitsky Yar, approximately 16,000 Jews were killed.]

Zhanna and Frina were young musical prodigies, aged 14 and 12. During the death march to Drobitsky Yar, their father bribed a Ukrainian guard to let Zhanna run off. Frina soon followed. As far as is known, they were the only survivors of the massacre.

Zhanna’s son - the author, Greg Dawson, describes how the girls disguised themselves as Russian orphans and survived through the war, even being taken to Berlin to perform! After the war, Greg’s uncle Larry Dawson heard the girls play, and successfully arranged to adopt them so he could bring them to Julliard for further training. (Quotas made it difficult, if not impossible, for them to enter the United States any other way.) Zhanna eventually married Larry’s brother David. When she and David were raising their family in Bloomington, Indiana, she did not even tell her children that she was Jewish, let alone a Holocaust survivor. “How can I tell a story so horrifying to my little children?” she asks now.

I noted two factual errors in the book: it is not true that Hitler himself was part Jewish. Plenty of reputable historians have debunked this myth. Secondly, Dawson asserts that “Allied war planners studiously avoided bombing Auschwitz and other camps for fear of killing prisoners or inciting Nazi reprisals…” This point is not so clear in the historical record. The Roosevelt Administration, particularly the State Department, was notably besmirched by anti-Semitism. The motives for Roosevelt’s refusal to authorize bombing of the camps and/or railroad lines used for the deportations, in spite of pleading by Jewish leaders, have not yet been clarified to the satisfaction of historians. Roosevelt knew about the mass execution of the Jews as early as 1942.

These points aside, the book is well worth reading, especially because most survivor stories involve Western Europeans (not too surprising, since more of them actually survived). It is difficult to describe stories of Holocaust survivors without resorting to a plethora of clichés: amazing, touching, beautiful, awe-inspiring, but this story has all of those qualities. Highly recommended. ( )

Hiding in the Spotlight tells the true story of two young Jewish sisters from the Ukraine. When their family is removed from its home and sent on a Nazi death march in the winter of 1941, piano prodigies Zhanna and Frina Arshankaya are spared through an exchange brokered by their father and a Ukrainian guard: the two girls are allowed to escape for their father's pocket watch. Left without family, Zhanna and Frina reinvented themselves as orphans of a Red Army soldier and joined a troupe of entertainers. The sisters survived the war by performing for German soldiers and officers and living in constant fear of discovery of their Jewish ancestry.

After the war, Zhanna and Frina were liberated but homeless. They were sent to a displaced persons camp near Munich where they avoided boredom by staging shows on a "bare stage" and a "creaky piano." The camp's American director, recognizing the sister's prodigious musical talent, committed to adopt the sisters. He sent them to safety in America, where Zhanna and Frina struggled to adapt to a new language, culture, and family on a farm in Virginia.

Perhaps due to his forty years as a journalist, Dawson writes this story with a keen eye for historical accuracy and describes the horrors inflicted by the Nazis in vivid detail. But the narrative is not without a personal connection. Dawson is Zhanna's son, and this link gives him great access to the emotional side of the story. My only wish is that Dawson had continued the story beyond 1946 to cover the sisters' new life in America. I may be a bit biased, however, because the camp director who adopted the sisters, Larry Dawson, was my grandfather. And the grand piano I learned to play during summers spent with my grandmother on her farm in Virginia is the same piano that greeted Zhanna and Frina on their first night in America. ( )