German-Jewish four-year-old Ruth Kapp went to the south of France with her mother in 1940 while her father was in the Foreign Legion. They ended up in several different hiding situations during the war, helped by local townspeople. Descriptions of episodes such as roundups of Jews and obtaining false identification are terrifying in both their simplicity and their child's-eye view. Eventually Ruth, renamed Renee and commanded to speak only French, was spirited away to a convent orphanage. There she was instructed to pretend that her parents were dead, and she began to wonder whether it was actually true. The account of postwar occurrences--including open anti-Semitism by the French and the discovery that many of her relatives had perished in camps--has an appropriately surreal feeling. Freelance writer Cretzmeyer relates Kapp's story in the first person from Kapp's point of view, and she evokes the changeable world from a child's perspective in a clear voice. Family photographs add personal flavor, just as historical appendices on the Nazi occupation of France and the French Resistance, lend a helpful frame to this touching narrative. (Feb.) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information