Angels of Amsterdam

How a Band of Brave Women Outsmarted the Nazis to Save 600 Jewish Children

“A rare story that reframes the Holocaust narrative from victimhood to heroism”

— Mitch Albom, NYT bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Little Liar

Expected publication: March 9, 2027

Angels of Amsterdam

How a Band of Brave Women Outsmarted the Nazis to Save 600 Jewish Children

“A rare story that reframes the Holocaust narrative from victimhood to heroism”

— Mitch Albom, NYT bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Little Liar

Expected publication: March 9, 2027

One of the most daring rescue operations of World War II was spearheaded by an unlikely heroine: a Jewish daycare director.

When Nazis invaded the Netherlands and turned the theater across from her daycare into a detention center for Jewish families, Henriëtte Pimentel knew she had to act. Recruiting young women and teenagers from her staff, Pimentel became one of the linchpins in a bold, elaborate, underground network—one that smuggled Jewish children to safety right out from under the noses of the Nazis. Swapping dolls for babies, handing their wards over hedges, and bundling infants off in laundry baskets, Pimentel and her fellow Dutch resistors formed a rescue chain that prevented hundreds of children from meeting near-certain death in concentration camps. Her courage, and that of likeminded upstanders, lives on today through the survivors from her daycare and generations of their descendants.

Drawing on extensive research and original interviews with survivors and former teenage resistance workers, Angels of Amsterdam is an astonishing, true story of wartime solidarity and courage, immortalizing one of the most remarkable yet least known acts of anti-Nazi resistance ever recorded.

About the Authors

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Susan B. Katz

As the granddaughter of four Eastern European, Jewish immigrants—some of whom came through the Netherlands—Susan B. Katz is dedicated to keeping Holocaust stories alive. Katz is an award-winning author of more than 80 books, including a dozen biographies. Several of her titles have earned the distinction of being Amazon bestsellers, Junior Library Guild winners, Bank Street Best Books, and garnering SLJ Starred Reviews. A former teacher, Susan was drawn to this story because of the determination displayed by educators. She lives just north of San Francisco, California. 

Website: SusanKatzBooks.com

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Esther Shaya

Esther Shaya is an Amsterdam-based author of two previous books in Dutch—Harry & Sieny: Surviving in Resistance and Love and Henriëtte Pimentel. Director of the Daycare. Shaya has been interviewed on national radio and TV and has been a guest speaker about Henriëtte Pimentel's daycare numerous times in the Netherlands, United States, and Australia. Her own grandmother and great-grandparents took in one of the children from the daycare.