The N.C. State Bookstore will have a signing by Frieda E. Roos-van Hessen today from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. She was a survivor during the time the Nazis occupied Holland and has lived to tell her story.

Hessen said she wants her story to be considered a story of bravery rather than of despair. Her book Life in the Shadow of the Swastika, was written in hopes that future generations will be aware of the dangers of anti-Semitism.

In her book, Hessen gives a perspective on the war that many people have never seen. She tells tales of those who fell to the brainwashing of the Nazis, but she also tells about the brave souls who risked their lives to save Jewish people in Holland. She writes about hiding, escaping and never giving up hope. She didn’t give up her hope for survival, and according to Hessen, she, as well as other survivors, built a new generation in hopes that “this new generation shall use its intelligence for enlightenment, rather than the destruction of mankind.”

Hessen grew up in Amsterdam and said her childhood was idyllic and filled with cherished memories. According to Hessen, she had a close family life held together by love, music, art and sports.

She was one of Holland’s foremost concert and opera singers. She sang the lead in the Dutch version of Walt Disney’s Snow White at the age of 19. She won the Grande Diplome at the World Contest in Geneva, Switzerland, where she was judged one of the eight best singers in the world.

She was forced into hiding when the Nazis invaded Holland during World War II. Hessen would escape from the Nazis a grand total of eight times.

In a letter to her daughter, Felicia, Hessen said, “I don’t know what kind of day it was when I was born. It must have been a day with blue skies and dark clouds with silver linings behind which were blue skies again. This would justly symbolize my life as it turned out in the future — how God, in His mercy, saw me through the Holocaust, and how I found Jesus as my Messiah.”