Ida Hoffmann Firestone (1929–2010) was a pianist, painter and dedicated Holocaust educator. Ida spoke frequently to students throughout the Philadelphia metropolitan area, teaching compassion and tolerance by sharing her personal story of survival. Dr. Jerry L. Jennings lives near Philadelphia and is a clinical psychologist and award-winning screenwriter and writer. He has published over thirty articles in the fields of psychology and philosophy in journals such as The American Psychologist, Psychotherapy and The Journal of Mind and Behavior. Dedicated to preserving and honoring the personal stories of Holocaust survivors, Dr. Jennings has also researched and written Stella’s Secret: A True Story of Holocaust Survival (2005) and I Choose Life: Two Linked Stories of Holocaust Survival and Rebirth (2007). A screenplay, named Stellunia, based on the first book, has been a winner, semi-finalist and quarter-finalist in five national screenplay competitions.
Darkness Hides the Flowers is the true-life adventure story of a Jewish teenage girl running from the Gestapo. An artistic girl who dreams of being a pianist, young Ida is unexpectedly thrown into the wilderness of rural France, and must survive alone. Ida’s narrative is illustrated with her original paintings and the poems that she wrote to endure an ordeal of loneliness, fear, abuse and starvation. Readers of all ages will be gripped by this suspenseful tale as they wander beside Ida and wonder, with each new encounter, which stranger might be trusted and which might betray her to the Nazis.
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