Occupation as recorded by the victims—an often depressing yet useful historical document.
A collection of firsthand accounts of wartime experiences in the Netherlands.
After the 1945 liberation, Dutch officials, anxious to document what happened during the war, pled publicly for writing, which resulted in an avalanche of several thousand journals and letters now housed at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. With few exceptions, such as Anne Frank’s diary, they possess little literary value, but journalist Siegal’s excerpts provide a vivid portrait of the daily lives of “victims and collaborators, bystanders and participants.” Three of her leading diarists were Jews, two enthusiastic Dutch Nazis, one a member of the resistance, and one a teenager with no political views. She also includes shorter dispatches from a dozen others. Hitler considered Holland a quasi-Nordic nation, so, after the bloody 1940 conquest, Nazi occupation was relatively benign. During the first year, there were anti-German demonstrations and strikes to protest German exactions, and when local antisemitic gangs began their attacks, many young Christian men fought alongside Jews. Matters settled down once the Nazi grip tightened, whereupon, although there was a modest resistance, most citizens and police cooperated in handing over Jews. When it became clear that the Nazis intended to kill them, about 15% went into hiding. Ultimately, 75% of the 140,000 Dutch Jews were killed in five years. Nazi policy deteriorated in the fall of 1944, when the Dutch welcomed the failed Allied invasion. Food deliveries were stopped, and a famine followed; thousands died of starvation. Siegal’s emphasis on the Holocaust makes for painful reading, but these are private writings, so much of the text records repetitious, day-to-day concerns, some of which readers may skim. Fortunately, the author steps in frequently to summarize events and describe her own life (she is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors), and she concludes with an insightful account of how postwar Holland recalled the experience, a section that includes a surprising number of interviews with survivors and their descendants.
Occupation as recorded by the victims—an often depressing yet useful historical document.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780063070653
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
This is not an easy account to read, but it is important enough not to be forgotten.
A story of ordinary people, both victims and survivors, thrown into extraordinary history.
Pellegrino says his book is “simply the story of what happened to people and objects under the atomic bombs, and it is dedicated to the hope that no one will ever witness this, or die this way, again.” Images of Aug. 6, 1945, as reported by survivors, include the sight of a cart falling from the sky with the hindquarters of the horse pulling it still attached; a young boy who put his hands over his eyes as the bomb hit—and “saw the bones of his fingers shining through shut eyelids, just like an X-ray photograph”; “statue people” flash-fossilized and fixed in place, covered in a light snowfall of ashes; and, of course, the ghosts—people severely flash-burned on one side of their bodies, leaving shadows on a wall, the side of a building, or whatever stood nearby. The carnage continued for days, weeks, and years as victims of burns and those who developed various forms of cancer succumbed to their injuries: “People would continue to die in ways that people never imagined people could die.” Scattered in these survivor stories is another set of stories from those involved in the development and deployment of the only two atomic weapons ever used in warfare. The author also tells of the letter from Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard to Franklin D. Roosevelt that started the ball rolling toward the formation of the Manhattan Project and the crew conversations on the Enola Gay and the Bockscar, the planes that dropped the Little Boy on Hiroshima and the Fat Man on Nagasaki. We have to find a way to get along, one crew member said, “because we now have the wherewithal to destroy everything.”
This is not an easy account to read, but it is important enough not to be forgotten.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798228309890
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
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