The image of a young girl looking back from a train is one of the iconic images of the Holocaust. She appears for seven seconds on a film of a transport bound for Auschwitz. Aad Wagenaar, a Dutch journalist, decided to discover the identity of the girl whose image had haunted him all his life.

His task took him two years, leading from the Westerbork transit camp in Holland, to war archives, and to Jews who had survived Auschwitz. It had always been assumed that the girl in the wagon was Jewish. But Wagenaar had been looking in the wrong place. His search led him to the Dutch Sinti (Gypsy) community where he could finally tell the world who the girl was.

The child was Settela, from a Gypsy family, murdered in Auschwitz. She was ten years old. This book is Aad Wagenaar’s account of his search.

Aad Wagenaar is a well-known Dutch press and TV journalist, and historian of WW11. Settela, his sixth book, was made into a Dutch television documentary.

Janna Elliot, who translated Settela, is the author of several books for children.

Ian Hancock writes on the Holocaust (Porrajmos — the Devouring — in Vlax Romani) as it affected the Romani and Sinti people. Dr Hancock teaches Romani studies at the University of Texas. He represents Romanies on the US Holocaust Memorial Council.