Frida Scheps Weinstein (born November 1934) is a French author. Her book A Hidden Childhood: A Jewish Girl's Sanctuary in a French Convent was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Biography
editScheps Weinstein was born in 1934 to immigrant Jewish-Russian parents in Paris, but was teased for looking German.[1] By the age of six, she was sent away to live in the care of the Red Cross at the Château de Beaujeu, a convent school.[2] As she grew up safe from The Holocaust, Scheps Weinstein began to forget her Jewish background and asked to become baptized as a Catholic. That never happened as her mother objected. .[3] Upon the conclusion of the war, she reconciled with her father in Jerusalem, where she received her education and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces.[4]
Once Scheps Weinstein completed her army service in 1960, she moved to the United States and worked for Agence France-Presse.[4] While in America, she published a memoir of her memories from The Holocaust, written in French and published by Balland,titled #J'habitais rue des Jardins Saint-Paul". Rights were bought in America by Hill and Wang, translated by Barbara Loeb Kennedy, and published as A Hidden Childhood: A Jewish Girl's Sanctuary in a French Convent 1942-1945";it then was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.[5]
References
edit- ^ Schwertfeger, Ruth (2012). In Transit: Narratives of German Jews in Exile, Flight, and Internment During "The Dark Years" of France. Frank & Timme GmbH. pp. 167–168. ISBN 9783865963840. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
- ^ Burnly, Judith (September 8, 1985). "MEMOIRS OF A WOULD-BE CATHOLIC GIRLHOOD". New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
- ^ "Frida Scheps". museumoftolerance.com. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
- ^ a b Patterson, David; Berger, Anne L.; Sarita (2002). Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 209–210. ISBN 9781573562577. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
- ^ "Finalist: A Hidden Childhood: A Jewish Girl's Sanctuary in a French Convent, 1942-1945, by Frida Scheps Weinstein". pulitzer.org. Retrieved February 11, 2020.