Meet a Holocaust survivor

LIEN de JONG last saw her parents when she was collected at the door of their home in Holland by a stranger working for the resistance, and taken to a family far away to be hidden from the Nazis in August 1942.

Her Jewish parents had made the heart-breaking decision to save her in the only way they could — by sending her away.

The yellow star identifying Lien as a Jew was unpicked from her clothes and, until the end of the German occupation, she was spirited away into an underground network and kept safe. The only keepsake she had from her parents — who died in the Holocaust — was a note that implored: ‘May you, with the best will and wisdom, look after her.’

Lien will discuss her struggle to survive Nazi persecution and the powerful love — and challenges — of foster families, with Bart van Es, a grandson of her foster parents, who turned her story into a book, The Cut Out Girl, which recently won the prestigious Costa Prize.