Today’s meeting was held at The Angel View and it was a wonderfully warm and joyous occasion, made special by the reunion with one or two lovely, much missed, members. We were discussing The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es.
This novel/biography is about the author’s journey into the history of his family which has previously been lost to him.
Some 4,000 Jewish children survived the war in hiding in Holland. Lien was one of just 358 who stayed with a non-Jewish family after 1945: she asked to return to the Van Eses. Bart van Es (the author) – an Oxford English professor who has lived in Britain since the age of three – had always known that his grandparents had sheltered Jewish children. But it was only after the death of his uncle in 2014 that he began to ask questions and made contact with Lien, now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam.
The writing is heroic in its endeavours to deliver the facts objectively, despite his personal connection. Some of the group felt that he was expert in delivering the narrative simply and that his use of understatement was effective. However, there was dissension when some felt he struggled to create narrative by writing in two different styles: one representing Lien’s voice and the other his own academic one. A couple of us agreed with a comment that it made difficult reading and that it was a bit of a slog at times, despite loving Lien’s story.
But, others felt strongly that they understood the need for the straightforward style used by Van Es to pass on information in contrast to the lyrical style used for Lien’s story.
Should one be unfamiliar with the historic background of this story, then reading this will put you right. I, for one, had no idea that so many vulnerable children were hidden from the Nazis. I had no idea that some were exploited and hideously abused by so many. The experiences which Lien went through left her numb and removed from reality. Her identity and feeling of self worth was clearly numbed by the process of being removed from her natural parents to live in another world of confusion and abject loneliness. Lien, clearly badly damaged by her experiences, questioned her existence:
“I ought not to be here”
This book is about the Holocaust and about the Dutch families saving the lives of Jewish children. Unfortunately it is also about those that turned those very families and children in to the Nazis.
The journey Lien takes as a little girl is fraught with danger and violence and we meet this extraordinary woman, having carried the burden of her experience throughout the years. Reaching the age of 80, she can finally begin to relate her experiences and share her understanding of what happened during this terrible time.
Van Es writes, “Without families you don”t get stories” - a profound statement in relation to this book.
The experience of getting to know Lien had been transformative for him and he describes it as “having changed me”.
All members felt that the book is well worth reading as a detective story which brings us to find the violators and the victims. All found it to be movingly descriptive and breathtakingly factual.
There are many characters in Lien’s story. Some are to be recommended for courage and commitment and without whom Lien would not have survived. Some characters come off really badly in the telling but they will be judged for their part in this unforgivable and terrible chapter in our recent history.
We awarded this book 4/5 stars.
Our chosen novel for May’s reading is The Enchanted by Rene Denfield to be reviewed on first Thursday in June.
