OPEN TURNS

De Vries’ memoir recounts her childhood in World War II–era occupied Holland and her teen years in Australia.

The de Vries acquitted themselves heroically in occupied Holland: Henrika’s (“Henny”) mother was part of the Resistance, and her father spent time in a German POW camp. When the war was over, the family accepted an offer to emigrate to Australia. Henny was not happy to leave Amsterdam, her friends, or her life as a very promising young swimmer. The family first fetched up in the Outback in a hovel, leading an existence that was just a cut above camping. But a couple of years on, they got to move to Adelaide, a city crazy about swimming; Henny began to fit in, make friends, and establish a name for herself as a formidable competitive swimmer—possibly Olympic material—until what was likely an undiagnosed iron deficiency blunted her winning edge. This was a crushing disappointment, but she was becoming more and more an Australian girl, a true “Sheila.” (“I belonged here in these waters Down Under, exactly at this time of my life.”) Henny later met and married a good man, and they (and their kids) moved to the USA. That marriage ended, but today she is a happily remarried Californian; it’s a wonderful arc of a life. This is a good book in so many ways: It is well written and tightly focused. Readers learn many details about life Down Under—Henny has an almost mystical moonlight encounter with a kangaroo. Other, less benign elements include endemic male chauvinism and casual xenophobia. In the author’s memories of Australia, women were meant for marriage and motherhood and were cloyingly patronized. And the de Vrieses would always be “New Australians”; decent people, perhaps, but not children of the heroic Australian past. But this little family survived the horrors of the Third Reich and a year of near starvation—they were made of sterner stuff.

A deeply felt memoir by a talented writer.