Johanna Reiss ( ; born 4 April 1932) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-American writer whose work focuses on her experiences as a Jewish child during the Second World War. Her books have been compared to the writing of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

Early life

Johanna Reiss was born Johanna "Annie" de Leeuw on 4 April 1932 in

Winterswijk Winterswijk (; also known as ''Winterswiek'' or ''Wenters'') is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. It has a population of and is situated in the Achterhoek, which lies in the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland in th ...

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, one of three sisters. Reiss was from a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family and survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, along with her older sister Sini, by hiding in the attic of a farming family (Johan and Dientje Oosterveld, and his mother, Opoe) in the rural village of

Usselo Usselo ʏsəloːis a Dutch village in the municipality of Enschede in the eastern Netherlands region of Twente. It is located just west of Enschede and east of Boekelo. It has existed for over 800 years. Archaeology shows that the region was in ...

for three years. Her mother was in hospital, where she died from causes unrelated to the conflict, and her father and oldest sister Rachel were in hiding, separately. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Reiss graduated from college and taught elementary school. In 1955 she moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, where she married Jim Reiss and brought up two daughters. Her husband encouraged her to write about her experiences during the war, which resulted in the young adult novel, '' The Upstairs Room''.

Professional life

Reiss's YA novel '' The Upstairs Room'', which outlined her experiences during the Second World War, was published in 1972. It won several awards, including a

Newbery Newbery is a surname. People *Chantelle Newbery (born 1977), Australian Olympic diver *David Newbery (born 1943), British economist *Eduardo Newbery (1878–1908), Argentine odontologist and aerostat pilot *Francis Newbery (disambiguation), sev ...

Honor Book, an

American Library Association Notable Children's Book American Library Association Notable lists are announced each year in January by various divisions within the American Library Association (ALA). There are six lists, part of the larger ALA awards structure. * ''ALA Notable Books for Adults'' (est ...

, and a Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book. It also won the

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Buxtehuder Bulle The Buxtehude Bull (German: Buxtehuder Bulle) is an award for youth literature, established in 1971 by Winfried Ziemann, a local book merchant from Buxtehude, a Hanseatic City located in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. The town council took over ...

, a German children's book award.

Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...

commented that The Upstairs Room was "as important in every respect as the one bequeathed to us by

." The Upstairs Room's success led to Reiss writing a sequel, ''The Journey Back'', published in 1976. This tells the story of Reiss and her family's attempt to rebuild their lives after the war. In 2009, Reiss wrote '' A Hidden Life'', a memoir about her childhood memories, as well as her husband's suicide. Reiss regularly visits schools in both the US and Europe to talk about her experience of the Holocaust in The Netherlands. In May 2018, she was awarded the Knight of Order of Orange-Nassau in recognition of her speaking efforts by the Dutch government.

References

External links

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Spotlight on Johanna Reiss

Johanna Reiss was Knighted in Holland in the Spring of 2018. She is a Knight (Ridder) in the Ordre van Oranje-Nassau (Order of Orange-Nassau).
(Dutch language) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reiss, Johanna 1932 births Living people People from Winterswijk Dutch Jews Dutch emigrants to the United States Jewish American writers Dutch children's writers Dutch women children's writers Newbery Honor winners Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau 21st-century American Jews