Guest Post

It’s the Little Things: An Exclusive Guest Post from Sharon Cameron, Author of The Light in Hidden Places

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

The Light in Hidden Places

The Light in Hidden Places

Paperback $11.49 $12.99

The Light in Hidden Places

By Sharon Cameron

In Stock Online

Paperback $11.49 $12.99

I never meant to be a writer.
I was an avid reader, and an amateur historian. I might have been a frustrated anthropologist. But foremost, I was a classical pianist, telling stories with the keys. I loved music and I loved teaching. I loved it for twenty-two years. Until an obscure piece of history grabbed my imagination. Until I walked past my computer with forty-five odd minutes to spare. Until I sat, on a whim, and for the first time, wrote.
Such a small decision. And it changed my life.
I did another small thing, long before my love affair with the written word. I turned on a television. And the woman on my screen told me her about her life, about being a young Catholic girl from rural Poland, sent to work for a Jewish family in the city. How she looked at their skin, and looked at her own skin, and decided that really, there was no difference in skin. She described being sixteen during the Nazi occupation, on her own, destitute, becoming the sole caretaker of her six-year-old sister. About the midnight knock on the door, risking her life to hide the young Jewish man on the other side. She hid another, and another, until there were thirteen men, women, and children in a secret space in her attic. Until it was the Nazis knocking on her door, commandeering her house. And the Nazis moved in. Four Nazis in the bedroom directly below thirteen hidden Jews, and only a teenage girl to stand in between them.
Her name was Stefania Podgórska. Her sister was Helena. And it was such a little thing, for me to perch on the edge of my seat, listening to an unimaginable story of bravery and sacrifice from the comfort and safety of my home. But I would never be the same after.
Two small decisions. One led me to a career as a novelist. The other took me to California, to a nursing home in Los Angeles, where I sat at the feet of my hero, Stefania Podgórska. It led me to her unpublished memoir, to a deep and lasting friendship with her son, and then across the world to Poland, to hold the hand of Helena, sharing her most difficult memories. I stood in the gas chambers. I listened to the painful recollections of the hidden. I put my feet on the floor of the attic. Two little things that took me on an extraordinary journey. That led me to THE LIGHT IN HIDDEN PLACES.
Stefania Podgórska never meant to be a hero any more than I meant to be writer. But she made a small decision, too. She looked at her skin. And she decided that skin was only skin. And that was the choice that changed the lives of thirteen people. The choice that changed me. It was a decision that ultimately changed the world.
Forty-five minutes. One click of the television. A glance at an arm. Opening to the nighttime knock on a door.
The small decisions matter. Every day. For all of us.

I never meant to be a writer.
I was an avid reader, and an amateur historian. I might have been a frustrated anthropologist. But foremost, I was a classical pianist, telling stories with the keys. I loved music and I loved teaching. I loved it for twenty-two years. Until an obscure piece of history grabbed my imagination. Until I walked past my computer with forty-five odd minutes to spare. Until I sat, on a whim, and for the first time, wrote.
Such a small decision. And it changed my life.
I did another small thing, long before my love affair with the written word. I turned on a television. And the woman on my screen told me her about her life, about being a young Catholic girl from rural Poland, sent to work for a Jewish family in the city. How she looked at their skin, and looked at her own skin, and decided that really, there was no difference in skin. She described being sixteen during the Nazi occupation, on her own, destitute, becoming the sole caretaker of her six-year-old sister. About the midnight knock on the door, risking her life to hide the young Jewish man on the other side. She hid another, and another, until there were thirteen men, women, and children in a secret space in her attic. Until it was the Nazis knocking on her door, commandeering her house. And the Nazis moved in. Four Nazis in the bedroom directly below thirteen hidden Jews, and only a teenage girl to stand in between them.
Her name was Stefania Podgórska. Her sister was Helena. And it was such a little thing, for me to perch on the edge of my seat, listening to an unimaginable story of bravery and sacrifice from the comfort and safety of my home. But I would never be the same after.
Two small decisions. One led me to a career as a novelist. The other took me to California, to a nursing home in Los Angeles, where I sat at the feet of my hero, Stefania Podgórska. It led me to her unpublished memoir, to a deep and lasting friendship with her son, and then across the world to Poland, to hold the hand of Helena, sharing her most difficult memories. I stood in the gas chambers. I listened to the painful recollections of the hidden. I put my feet on the floor of the attic. Two little things that took me on an extraordinary journey. That led me to THE LIGHT IN HIDDEN PLACES.
Stefania Podgórska never meant to be a hero any more than I meant to be writer. But she made a small decision, too. She looked at her skin. And she decided that skin was only skin. And that was the choice that changed the lives of thirteen people. The choice that changed me. It was a decision that ultimately changed the world.
Forty-five minutes. One click of the television. A glance at an arm. Opening to the nighttime knock on a door.
The small decisions matter. Every day. For all of us.