The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It

This diverse and enlightening collection of excerpts from journals kept during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands is an essential contribution to the history of WWII. Drawing from an archive of more than 2,100 wartime diaries, novelist Siegal (You’ll Thank Me for This), whose Czech Hungarian grandfather Emerich Safar was a survivor, contextualizes her primary sources with exhaustive research and analysis of contemporaneous records, seeking to understand, among other questions, why 75% of the Dutch Jewish population died in the Holocaust, a higher percentage even than some Eastern European countries, including Hungary. The diarists featured include Philip Mechanicus, a Jewish reporter who documented his experiences at the Westerbork transit camp before he was sent to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz; two Dutch Nazis; a teenage factory worker without political affiliations; and a grocery store owner who became involved in resistance activities. Siegal uses their words to create a vivid portrait of the Nazi occupation as it unfolded, providing a wider lens than many Holocaust histories, and she incisively explains how the Netherlands’ willingness to confront its complex Holocaust legacy has evolved, culminating in the 2021 unveiling of the National Holocaust Names Monument in Amsterdam. Even those well versed in the subject will find much to discover in this treasure trove of firsthand perspectives. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff Literary. (Feb.)