Suzanne Leal

What happens when you hide?

You've got to do your ablutions.

You've got to wash.

You rely on everyone to eat.

You've got to keep a five-year-old quiet.

She can't even talk.

Like a bird, she can't even sigh.

I think the expressions of the mother seizing up when they see guards coming to the farm just at the sound of her daughter's swallow.

So I think what she does very well is to capture that.

the fear of any noise and the need for absolute silence in hiding.

So what happens is this.

The little girl, Shira, is taken by the farmer, Christina's sister, to an orphanage.

And there she is given a new name that's not a Jewish name.

And she is made to look as though and act as though she's a young Polish Catholic girl.

Her hair is bleached, so she's blonde.

She's taught the rosary, she's taught Catholic hymns and she's encouraged to behave as though she's never been in hiding and she's never been a Jewish girl.

Meanwhile, Rosa, her mother, flees into the forest where she finds a group of resistance fighters but also Jewish people and it's there that she begins

to have a relationship with a man called Aaron.

I thought it was very moving.

I thought it was thoughtful and insightful.