Hitler and the Occult

In this touching, if modest, memoir, Fuykschot recalls the daily problems her family endured during the WWII German occupation of Holland, which stretched from her 11th to her 15th year. She conveys the effect on the populace when Queen Wilhelmina fled to London--``We had lost our Queen, we were no longer a nation, we were nobodies...''--and the more devastating impact on the Fuykschot family when her father, an insurance inspector, was held in a hostage camp. After his release, the family suffered the increasing privation that was common across Holland: the absence of running water and electricity and the relentlessly diminishing food supply. During the grim winter of 1944-1945, children were sent into the countryside to beg for food at farmhouses. Fuykschot provides a dramatic account of the liberation of Utrecht by Canadian troops, who made such a favorable impression in ensuing weeks that scores of Dutch citizens ultimately moved to Canada (``Moving to Canada seemed to many like going to live with your big brother), including the author herself. Photos. (Apr.)