Shelter Island Historical Society -- "Don't Ask My Name", New Book by Local Author, Erika Hecht

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NEW BOOK BY LOCAL AUTHOR!

Purchase the book here

Born Jewish in Hungary in the 1930s, little Erika became a “hidden child,” one of the many Jewish children who were provided with false identities and survived World War II as Christians. The lies she had to tell and the secrets she was forced to keep sent her on a lifelong search for identity, until she was finally ready to tell her gripping true story.

Erika Hecht was born in Budapest in 1934. After World War II, she fled communist Hungary for Vienna. Erika attended medical school, married, moved to Canada, and became a highly successful interior designer. A quest for her true identity led her to other “hidden children” and involvement in their movement for recognition. She organized the “Child Survivors/Hidden Children of the Holocaust” conference in Montreal in 1994 and appeared in the award-winning documentary Remember Us: The Hungarian Hidden Children. Erika moved to the United States in 1998 and currently lives in Sag Harbor, NY.

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