Sarah Miller gave testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation in 1997 about her family’s experiences hiding in France and Switzerland during the Holocaust – but she wasn’t finished telling her story just yet.

Now retired and living in Boston, Miller has won prizes for her autobiographical writing and last year published a memoir, Hiding in Plain Sight: Eluding the Nazis in Occupied France.

Miller and her seven siblings were born in Poland. Her father left Poland went to Europe looking for work, and setled in France, where he became a chicken slaughter. After five years, he had saved enough money for the family to join him. The family went into hiding during the war, and Miller’s sister arranged for young Sarah to escape to a safe house run by the French resistance movement La Sixième.

However, it became too dangerous to stay there, so Miller fled, with other youth, to Switzerland for the remainder of the war. Miraculously, Miller’s parents and all her siblings survived the war.

Miller lived in Israel for seven years after the war before joining her parents and siblings in the United States. She married and settled in Stamford, Conn., where she raised her two children, Rebecca and Gabriel.

Miller said she first heard about the Shoah Foundation from the Holocaust survivor group she participated in.

“I had a dedicated husband who said, ‘You should leave your memories for history, so that people will know the truth,’” Miller said. “I also had a wonderful mother and people need to know who she was.”

She already knew the woman who would interview her, Agnes Vertes, so Miller said it was “no problem” to tell her story on camera for the Shoah Foundation.

Years later, Miller was taking a creative writing course (“I had a need to write,” she says) at the Jewish center in Stamford when her teacher assigned the class to write about “something real.” Even though she didn’t consider herself a writer, she suddenly knew very clearly what she wanted to write about: the young man from La Sixième who escorted her to the safe house in France and saved her life, and thousands of other lives, during the Holocaust.

Miller was shocked to win first prize for her story. She donated her prize money – $50 – to the Jewish center.

When she wrote again, a 12-page story about her family, Miller won second prize.

She had thought about writing a book, but doesn’t think she would have gotten started if she hadn’t met writer Joyce B. Lazarus. Miller contacted Lazarus out of curiosity after noticing that a story Lazarus had written was similar to a book Miller had read before, Michel, Michel by Robert Lewis.

“Fate sometimes plays a role in your life,” Miller said.

They hit it off, and after reading Miller’s writing, Lazarus suggested they work together on a book about Miller’s childhood. Miller jumped eagerly into the project.

“I was addicted, but don’t ask me to do it again,” Miller said.

Today, Miller said she hears from children all over the world who love her book. Because it’s written from a child’s perspective, young readers feel like she’s sitting next to them as they read it, she says.

Miller is modest about her contribution to the USC Shoah Foundation and the effect her story may have on future generations.

She says simply, “It’s historical fact, and I want people to know.”