A riveting look at the story of World War II and the Holocaust through
the diaries of Dutch citizens, firsthand accounts of ordinary people
living through extraordinary times
Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand
Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this
unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary
Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven't seen in quite this way
before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a
Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.
Journalist Nina Siegal, who grew up in a family that had survived the
Holocaust in Europe, had always wondered about the experience of regular
people during World War II. She had heard stories of the war as a child
and Anne Frank's diary, but the tales were either crafted as moral
lessons -- to never waste food, to be grateful for all you receive, to
hide your silver -- or told with a punch line. The details of the past
went untold in an effort to make it easier assimilate into American
life.
When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up
again, as did another horrifying one: Why did seventy five percent of
the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western
European countries the proportions were significantly lower? How did
this square with the narratives of Dutch resistance she had heard so
much about and in what way did it relate to the famed tolerance people
in the Netherlands were always talking about? Perhaps more importantly,
how could she raise a Jewish child in this country without knowing these
answers?
Searching and singular, The Diary Keepers mines the diaries of
ordinary citizens to understand the nature of resistance, the workings
of memory, and the ways we reflect on, commemorate, and re-envision the
past.
