We All Wore Stars: Memories of Anne Frank from Her Classmates

“A wonderful chance for readers to learn more about Anne Frank as well as to meet other children who survived.” —Jewish Book World

In 1941 Theo Coster was a student at the Amsterdam Jewish Lyceum, one in a class of twenty-eight children segregated by the Nazis form the rest of the Dutch gentile population. Among his fellow students was Anne Frank, whose diary would later become one of the most important documents of the Holocaust. In this moving group portrait, Coster and his fellow classmates remember the girl they knew and share their own remarkable stories. Their accounts offer rich and often surprising insights about Anne. She is remembered at various times as both vain and compassionate, generous and rebellious, by turns an ordinary child and a precocious girl seemingly destined for greatness. Taken together, they reveal the vitality, resilience, and complex humanity of children living through one of the darkest chapters in history.

“A marvelous book, which beautifully compliments Anne Frank’s diary. A must-read for anyone interested in the lives of Anne’s Jewish contemporaries in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II.” —Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Chief Nazi-hunter, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and author of Operation Last Chance: One Man’s Quest to Bring Nazi Criminals to Justice

“Coster managed to track down several surviving classmates for reminiscing, revealing stories as freshly searing as when they first occurred . . . The moving lore around the life of Anne Frank remains inexhaustible and eternal.” —Kirkus Reviews

© 2024 St. Martin's Press (Ebook): 9780230340596

Release date

Ebook: 4 September 2024