Despite the fact that Oma and Opa attended school only until they were
12 years old, they developed a life-long love of reading. Books, of course,
were important to Cor's family, who ran a book shop, library, and bindery
in Overschie. Opa's Dutch copies of The Pickwick Papers still remain,
and we know he delighted in novels like Jules Verne's Five Weeks in
a Balloon. During our research, we were intrigued to find other books
among their collection: Anne Frank's diary; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The
Gulag Archipelago; Antonia Ridge's For Love a Rose, and Bart
Rijnhout's Het Mysterie van de L7788, which explores the events
around a crashed Wellington bomber. We knew, too, that they'd owned several
books of Louis de Jong's multi-volume work Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden
in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (The Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Second
World War). So they may not have talked much about the war, but it was very
much a part of their personal library. During and since the writing of our
own book, we've come across many stories that examine the Dutch war experience
in a variety of ways. Here is a sampling of some of them. The list is a
work in progress:
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan
Simon and Schuster, 1995
From the publisher: “A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan's
masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshalled the greatest
armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly
twice as many casualties as D-Day. In this compelling work of history, Ryan
narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping
the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German
lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing
on a vast cast of characters – from Dutch civilians to British and
American strategists to common soldiers and commanders – Ryan brings
to life one of the most daring and ill-fated operations of the war. A
Bridge Too Far superbly recreates the terror and suspense, the heroism
and tragedy of this epic operation, which ended in bitter defeat for the
Allies.”
Captured Hearts by Melynda Jarratt (includes
some stories from Dutch war brides)
Goose Lane Editions & New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, 2008
From the publisher: “Imagine you're a young British or European woman
caught up in the dramatic reality of war. You fall in love with and marry
a soldier from a foreign country. When the war ends, you leave behind all
you've ever known - family, friends, and way of life - for a new life in
Canada. This is the story of nearly two thousand war brides who made their
way to New Brunswick to join their servicemen husbands at the end of the
Second World War. Arriving in a mainly rural province, these city girls
faced culture shock, and social, religious and linguistic differences that
would have tested the mettle of many relationships. More than sixty years
later, their stories paint a compelling portrait of love, passion, perseverance,
and hope in a world torn apart by war.”
Visit the Canadian
war brides website.
Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web
by Lynn H. Nicholas
Knopf, 2005
From Publishers Weekly: “Starred Review. Nicholas …
looks at the effect of Nazi policies on children as a recounting of the
nonmilitary story of WWII. Casting a wide net, Nicholas examines such phenomena
as the Kindertransports—in which Jewish children were brought from
central Europe to England on the eve of the war—and the transport
of supposedly ‘Aryan’ Norwegian girls to Germany to breed. Nicholas
shows how the Nazis tried, with varying degrees of success, to export their
eugenic theories and racist ideology to the educational realm throughout
occupied Europe. And focusing on the homeland of the Third Reich, she delineates
how German children were socialized into Nazi culture. Relying on a prodigious
amount of primary and secondary sources as well as interviews, she emphasizes
the resilience of the young. ‘Most of Europe's children would, in
the next few years, develop a self-protective shell of voyeurism and casualness
toward the monstrous events around them.’ But as she notes in conclusion,
the horrors of the war years stayed with those who saw them through young
eyes.”
The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank
First published in 1947, it has since become one of the most-read books
in the world. Here is a review found on the
Anne Frank House website. “I had been told that The diary
of a young girl - Anne Frank was a book for children, but I think that
everyone should read it. It shows you how beautiful your life is. Personally,
I have learned a lot from it and I consider Anne Frank to be an example
for everyone.” Adriana, 31-08-2004.
Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943 and
Letters from Westerbork
Henry Holt & Company, 1996
From the publisher: “Etty Hillesum's diary and letters appear together
to give us the fullest possible portrait of this extraordinary woman. In
the darkest years of Nazi occupation and genocide, Etty Hillesum remained
a celebrant of life whose lucid intelligence, sympathy, and almost impossible
gallantry were themselves a form of inner resistance. The adult counterpart
to Anne Frank, Hillesum testifies to the possibility of awareness and compassion
in the face of the most devastating challenge to one's humanity. She died
at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of twenty-nine.”
Visit the
Etty Hillesum Research Centre website.
A Hidden Life by Johanna Reiss
Melville House Publishing, 2009
From the publisher: “For years, Johanna Reiss’ American husband,
Jim, encouraged her to return to Holland to chronicle the two years, seven
months, and one day she had spent hiding from the Nazis in rural Usselo,
Holland. In 1969, she finally made the trip. Accompanied by Jim and their
two young children, Reiss intended to spend seven weeks researching the
book that would eventually become The Upstairs Room, her Newbery
Honor-winning account of her time hiding in the attic of a farmhouse in
which for a time a contingent of Nazi soldiers was billeted. But unknown
to the millions of people who went on to read her beloved classic, behind
the dark and painful story of the book was a still darker tale: Reiss’
husband returned to America early and committed suicide at age thirty-seven,
leaving no note. For Reiss, an ongoing reckoning with universal tragedy
becomes particular: she is forced to reckon, too, with Jim’s death—and
explain it to her children. Subtle and disturbing, the book is a powerful
consideration of memory, violence, and loss, told in a stunning and sparse
narrative style.”
Also by Johanna Reiss: The Upstairs Room and The Journey Back,
books for young adults.
The Homecoming Man by Hugh Cook
Mosaic Press, 1989
From the publisher: “Paul Bloem, 44, returns to southern Ontario from
Vancouver after the breakup of his marriage in order to visit his 73-year-old
Dutch-immigrant father. He moves into an apartment in an old brick house
overlooking his father’s apple orchard. Paul begins to notice odd
things in his father’s behaviour. Most puzzling is a room in the cellar
which his father keeps perpetually locked. Whatever is there may provide
a clue to his father’s behaviour. He tries to find a way to open the
room without his father’s knowledge. The Homecoming Man is
about mystery, understanding, forgiveness, guilt and love.”
Also by Hugh Cook: Cracked Wheat and Other Stories revolving around
the Dutch-Canadian community.
Hunger in Holland by Cornelia Fuykschot
Prometheus, 1995
From the publisher: “What was life like in occupied Holland during
World War II? What was it like for a nation to find itself overwhelmed by
a foreign power? How did people survive the repressive Nazi occupation?
This compelling first-person account is an eye-opening experience. As seen
through the eyes of twelve-year-old Cornelia, Hunger In Holland
chronicles the steady deterioration of normal, everyday life; the loss of
freedom and security; and the role of the law as food and many of life's
amenities became scarce.Young Cornelia takes on the responsibility of begging
for food and helping to hide her father from the Nazis, who had shipped
every man they could find to the munitions factory to work for the Nazi
war effort. She captures the day-to-day struggle for survival and vividly
illustrates the strength, ingenuity, and dogged determination needed to
carry on. Fuykschot sketches the changing lives of ordinary people; their
efforts to go to school, to work, to clean house, to find food, to maintain
some semblance of normalcy against a backdrop of bombing raids and the daily
terror of the Nazis. Hunger in Holland is a moving description
of a horrific period in world history, a testament to those who survived,
and a valuable lesson for those who have never known the terror of war.”
The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland 1944-1945
by Henri van der Zee
University of Nebraska Press, 1998
From the publisher: “Germany invaded the Netherlands in the spring
of 1940. Life in occupied Holland was hideous enough, but for the Dutch
the worst was yet to come. After the Western Allies lost the Battle of Arnhem
in September 1944, the Dutch provinces north of the Rhine and Waal Rivers
were in the hands of the Germans, and to the south fighting raged for months.
In the winter of 1944–45, just as other parts of Europe were being
liberated, the Dutch seemed forsaken by the Allies, who bypassed Holland
on their drive to Berlin. That last winter of the war, with its severe food
and fuel shortages, was a terrible one for the Dutch people, who also suffered
from episodes of Nazi terrorism. In some provinces there was nothing to
eat but tulip bulbs and sugar beets, and eighteen thousand Dutch civilians
actually starved to death. Henri van der Zee, who was ten years old that
winter, remembers what happened to his people.”
Also by Henri van der Zee with Barbara van der Zee, A Sweet and Alien
Land: The Story of Dutch New York.
Tamar by Mal Peet
Candlewick Press, 2007
From Booklist: “Starred Review. It was her taciturn but beloved
grandfather, William Hyde, who gave Tamar her strange name. But in 1995,
when she was 15, he committed suicide, leaving her to wonder if she knew
him at all. Later, when she opens the box of War II memorabilia that he
left her, she's struck by the need to find out what it means, who he really
was, and where she fits in. Tension mounts incrementally in an intricate
wrapping of wartime drama and secrecy, in which Tamar finds her namesake
and herself. Forming the backbone of the novel are intense, sometimes brutal
events in a small Dutch town in Nazi-occupied Holland and the relationship
between the girl's namesake, a member of the Dutch Resistance; Dart, a code
operator assigned to help him; and Marijke, the love of his life. Peet's
plot is tightly constructed, and striking, descriptive language, full of
metaphor, grounds the story. Most of the characters are adults here, and
to some readers, the Dutch history, though deftly woven through the story,
will seem remote. But Peet's sturdy, emotionally resonant characterizations
and dramatic backdrop will pull readers forward, as will the secret that
gradually unravels. Despite foreshadowing, the outcome is still a stunner.
Winner of Britain's 2005 Carnegie Medal, this powerful story will grow richer
with each reading.”
To All Our Children: The Story of the Postwar Dutch Immigration
to Canada by Albert VanderMey
Pandeia Press, 1983. A richly illustrated coffee table book full of personal
stories.
From the jacket: “In the fifteen years following the end of World
War II, thousands of Dutch people waved goodbye to their families, friends,
past lives and possessions, boarded a ship and made the long voyage to Halifax,
Quebec City, or Montreal, where they disembarked as landed immigrants to
Canada. Most of them had little or no idea of where they were going or what
they would find when they got there. Still, they came. Between 1946 and
1982 more than 180,000 people emigrated from The Netherlands to Canada.
That enormous tide peaked in 1952, when almost 21,000 Netherlanders made
Canada their home. The movement rose out of a long-occupied country whose
citizens considered Canadians their liberators, out of tiny Holland's limited
capacity for growth, and out of the uneasy political situation in Europe.
The real result of the movement, the lives of the ordinary people who uprooted
themselves to immigrate, is the subject of this overwhelming documentation.”
Waiting for Death: A Diary by Philip
Mechanicus
Calder and Boyars Ltd., 1968
From the
Digital Monument to the Jewish Community
in the Netherlands: “Philip Mechanicus was born from a mixed marriage.
He was forced to resign from the newspaper staff immediately after the Nazis
invaded and briefly wrote under an alias. On 27 September 1942 he was arrested
in the rear compartment of a tram in Amsterdam. He was not wearing a star.
He was taken to the camp at Amersfoort via the house of detention on the
Amstelveenseweg and was tortured there. On 7 November 1942 he was transferred
to Camp Westerbork, where he was admitted to the infirmary. Philip Mechanicus
kept a diary at Westerbork from 28 May 1943 through 28 February 1944. After
the war the diary was published in the book 'In dépôt' [the
English title, Waiting for Death]. On 8 March 1944 Philip Mechanicus was
deported to Bergen-Belsen, from where he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau
as part of a transport of one hundred and twenty convicts on 9 October 1944.
All were executed upon arrival.” Note: Philip Mechanicus and Etty Hillesum were at Westerbork at the
same time, and had long talks together as they walked the camp grounds.
Each mentions the other in their letters and diaries.
The Way of a Boy: A Memoir of Java by
Ernest Hillen
Penguin, 1994
From the publisher: “On a sunny day in 1942, Ernest Hillen's peaceful
and comfortable childhood on a tea plantation in Java came to an abrupt
end -- forever altered by the Japanese invasion of Indonesia. Forcibly removed
from their homes and separated from their relatives and friends, the Dutch
colonists in Java were interned in Japanese prison camps where filth, disease,
starvation, overcrowding, and brutality soon became a way of life. For three
and a half years, Ernest lived the life of a prisoner of war. Told through
the eyes of a seven-year-old child, The Way of a Boy is the moving
account of the struggle of civilian POWs to endure, with dignity, humour
and courage, the humiliating and debilitating conditions of war.”
Also by Ernest Hillen, Small Mercies.
