Best of
Dutch-Literature

2018

The Time Between: Love, loyalty and betrayal in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam


Bryna Hellmann-Gillson - 2018
    They print illegal newspapers and false documents, hide Jewish children, commit sabotage and murder. Their lives come together through Adrian, a young man risking his life in the resistance. He is Pam’s brother, Jo’s first infatuation and Hannah’s lover. “Isn’t this the between time?” he asks. “One day real life stopped, when the Germans came, and some day real life will start again.” For some of them, it did.

Amsterdam 1940-1945 The Shadow of My Life


Bep Gomperts - 2018
    At the age of two Bep and her family were trapped by the Nazis when Germany occupied Holland on the 10th May 1940. Under no illusions as to the fate of the Jews, they went into hiding with the help of relatives and political associates active in the Dutch Resistance. Bep was separated from her mother and lived undercover as a “Christian” child until they were reunited at the end of the war. The majority of Bep’s family perished in the concentration camps. The brutal years of occupation and famine left an indelible scar on the people’s psyche. In Bep’s life, it cast a long shadow, the painful ramifications felt decades later. Told with great candour, Bep Gomperts richly depicts the extraordinary courage of innocent civilians engulfed by Total War.

Summer Brother


Jaap Robben - 2018
    His older brother Lucien, physically and mentally disabled, has been institutionalized for years. While Lucien’s home is undergoing renovations, he is sent to live with his father and younger brother for the summer. Their detached father leaves Brian to care for Lucien’s special needs. But how do you look after someone when you don’t know what they need? How do you make the right choices when you still have so much to discover? Summer Brother is an honest, tender account of brotherly love, which will resonate with readers of "Rain Man."

I Am A Leftover From World War 2: A Memoir


Renee Antar - 2018
    For Renee Antar’s mother, the specter of Hitler and his Nazi’s followed her from Holland to New York City and was the defining feature of the next seven decades for her and her family’s life.In this brutally frank and candid memoir the author describes the personal hell of growing up under the shadow of a mother tortured by both mental illness and the recurring horrors of The Holocaust.