Praise for When a Toy Dog Became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew…
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
Book review by Mark Heisey
“Being the old, dark child of the past, I was the one bound to my mother through the secret memories that everyone wanted to leave behind and forget.”
De Vries’s memoir tells of her time as a child in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Her father, the traditional provider and protector, is taken to a German POW camp, and the young de Vries and her mother are suddenly left alone in an occupied city with no one to depend on but themselves. As the war goes on and the occupation lengthens, food and safety become scarce. De Vries’ mother begins to take bold steps to ensure the safety and welfare of her child. Even as suspicions run high, and neighbors report neighbors, de Vries’ mother begins associating with the resistance. She even shelters a young Jewish girl in their home, fully aware of the danger that brings to herself and her own daughter.
At just over two hundred pages, this book is a quick read with clean, clear sentences. Although much of the narrative is based on the recollections of a young girl and the stories she has been told, the memoir feels genuine with honest, flawed characters who show courage and toughness in the face of terrible circumstances. The addition of family photos and documents helps establish the historical accuracy and allows the reader to get a better sense of the men, women, and children involved. Fascinating in itself is the author’s recollection of life after the occupation is lifted, and the war is over. The exploration of the range of psychological impacts on the survivors and the difficulty of living in a post-war country without enough jobs or housing sheds light on the internal wars that can plague the survivors for years.
World War II is a subject much discussed in a variety of genres. In regard to personal narratives, Elie Wiesel’s Night and The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank are classic examples. De Vries’ memoir is a welcome addition to this group. What stands out in this work is the strength of these women, the sacrifices they made, and the risks they took to protect what they held dear. The terrors of concentration camps are well-known, but less well-known is the plight of those left behind in Nazi-occupied cities. The author’s book brings Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale to mind. Although Hannah’s book is fiction, both works bring to light the hardships faced by the women left behind and the courage these women showed to protect not only their loved ones but also their neighbors and friends and the countries in which they lived. Their sacrifices were no less significant nor less heroic than those facing the enemy on the front lines.
It often seems the domestic battles, possibly due to the psychological impact, are the last to be told after wartime. De Vries’s memoir sheds new light on this aspect of World War II and is a compelling read on its own. Ultimately, this memoir inspires and embodies the words de Vries’ mother told her: “‘ We are facing cold, dark days, but I want you never to forget this feeling of warmth and light, and I want you to know that no matter what happens, all this light and warmth will return.'”
Kirkus Review
‘A writer brings her perspective as a therapist with a love of mythology to her debut memoir of growing up in Amsterdam during World War II.’
‘Before the Nazis arrived, de Vries and her parents lived a vibrant life with colorful neighbors in a charming city full of promise. That changed when the author witnessed a little girl in a crowd being taken away by Nazis. Soon after, her father was sent to a camp as a prisoner of war. De Vries was only able to offer her father her toy dog, which she secretly believed was a wolf, to protect him. For the following two years, the author and her mother survived as Amsterdam’s inhabitants starved or were shot in the street, witnessed neighbors betray neighbors, scavenged for food, and burned anything they could find to stay warm. Her mother stayed hopeful and joined the resistance, at one point hiding a young Jewish woman. In one of the book’s most harrowing scenes, de Vries watched as Dutch traitors dragged the woman out of hiding and held her mother at gunpoint. As a child who had been taught to love stories, the author tried to think of a happy ending even as she and her mother ate their meager rations and battled malnutrition. One of the more intriguing aspects of this engrossing account is what happened when the family was reunited after the conflict. De Vries clearly and empathetically portrays how a broken-down family and a devastated city attempted to rebuild after the trauma of war. There are many lovely moments and vivid, heart-rending details that bring the author’s narrative to life, including her stark description of the inexplicable coldness she felt toward her father when he first returned. “I had no feelings for this man hugging my mother,” she recounts. “He had no place in the story of my mother’s and my traumatized life.” ‘–Kirkus Review, Posted Online Oct. 2, 2019
‘A beautifully wrought wartime account; highly recommended for its portrait of the human side of a horrifying period of history.’
‘This gripping story of survival in Amsterdam during World War II is a tribute to the fiercely courageous mother who keeps her child, the author, and herself alive after her husband is shipped off to a Nazi work camp. Hendrika de Vries writes ‘we were a generation of children raised in war and oppression who learned that people disappeared from their homes, from school, and off the street, and you did not ask questions.’ This beautifully crafted memoir reminds us that we are never far from oppression by those who wish to silence us.’
–Maureen Murdock, author of The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness
‘Here is a memoir that remains in the heart and mind like few others.
––Ginette Paris, Ph.D., author of Wisdom of the Psyche.
On one level it tells, with historical acuity and story telling genius, the traumatic events in Amsterdam during WW 2.
On a deeper level, it offers a psychological frame that can guide anyone facing adversity. The attitude and rituals invented by the mother, her courage, her love, are such that anybody reading this story will find, hidden between the lines, a wonderful example of parental guidance, of human dignity, and of feminine heroism.
If it were in my power, I would nominate this book as not only the best memoir of the decade, but also a most beautiful and extraordinary example of psychological wisdom, one that moved more than anything I have read in the past year.’
http://www.ginetteparis.com
“DeVries’s book is a beautifully told story of the madness and joys circling everyday life in a child’s neighborhood in wartime. The vividness of her memories serves to frighten in one moment and nourish the next. In that way her narrative is like a Northern European fairy tale–the old kind, gripping, devastating, and enchanting. Her understanding of the psyche of a family will be fascinating to people working with trauma and family therapies and epigenetic transmission of experience– even though she intentionally never leans on the language of these fields. Her inspiring story speaks eloquently for itself.”
––Nor Hall, author of The Moon & The Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine
‘Reading Hendrika de Vries’ memoir of her childhood in WWII Amsterdam was a real adventure for me, which stirred up many memories of my own less traumatic experience of those years. I am especially impressed by how superbly she communicates both the perspective of the child she once was and of her present self and by her richly detailed memories of the Hunger Winter of 1944-45, the absence of the father she loved, and her mother’s bravery. She writes honestly, too, of the postwar difficulties for each of them – mother, father, child––when the father returned and they had to rediscover how to be a family once again. Hendrika is a fine, fine storyteller.’
––Christine Downing. Ph.D. Scholar and author of numerous books including: The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine, andThe Luxury of Afterwards
“This invaluable memoir is written in the authentic voice of a child, but informed by a mature adult sensibility that continues to bring insights as it progresses. It portrays a real-life, ‘ordinary’ woman who risks her life and her daughter’s to hide a Jewish girl who becomes a ‘stepsister’ in the home. This eminently readable book illuminates the bonds that develop between mother and daughter in wartime, the daily grind of home life under the Nazis, and the devastating consequences of the war even in a family where everyone survives. Don’t start it in bed. You won’t be able to put it down.’
––Mary Fillmore, author of An Address in Amsterdam, a historical novel about a young Jewish woman who risks her life in the resistance.
Winner, Sarton Women’s Book Award for Historical Fiction
“The title of Hendrika’s Memoir made me instantly curious about what it could mean; I wondered what myth could be lurking in its folds. But I could not have grasped the fierce pull of the narrative describing her world in Amsterdam from 1942-50, which spanned her years from 5-13 years of age; it covers the horrific brutality of the Third Reich on her city and the suffering it engendered in inhuman forms of barbarism. But even more, it relates the astonishing strength of her mother to keep the two of them alive during horrific conditions of survival, starvation and then, starting over. I have known Hendrika for 25 years; after reading her beautifully crafted narrative, the word “know” has assumed a whole new meaning. She is a master storyteller.’
––Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., author of Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story and A Pilgrimage Beyond Belief: Spiritual Journeys through Christian and Buddhist Monasteries of the American West