A Point of Reference

About the Book

In her memoir Elsa M. van der Laaken relives the WW II years in The Hague, Holland where she was born in 1936. She was almost four years old when Hitler´s war machines attacked the neutral country like "thieves in the night" and the Nazi High Command decided to settle in her city. The act of war shattered the stability of the van der Laaken household. Her Dutch father, in Queen Wilhelmina´s service, had his job put on hold when a German lawyer took charge of all the Royal properties. Her German mother became suddenly "the enemy" in the eyes of the angry Dutch in the neighborhood. The family lived in a house that came with her father´s job at the Royal stables. Her father agreed to be the driver for the German lawyer while both parents secretly helped the Dutch resistance. They continued to live in the Royal Stables´ house under Nazi scrutiny. From the start of the war in 1940 the complex events that surround the young girl, and the reaction of her parents, become a point of reference and form her insight. The child´s view of a loving and safe environment in Old World Europe depict family members, their kitchens, food and the community spirit when the family pig is slaughtered, lovingly. These events are in sharp contrast with the Nazi Doctrines that affected her life during the war years. We learn about the secret radio and the uplifting effect Churchill´s war speeches had on the family, also about the "divers," the hiding people who passed through her house. We feel the fear when a fired V2 rocket returns from where it came and when a Nazi soldier blocks her way home from school. Much is revealed when she grips her father´s hand when they enter "the lion´s den," a famous restaurant taken over by the Nazis. The experience of the tale is told through the eyes of a child, and is in this way fresh and void of prejudice. We observe Elsa´s loyalty to her parents and the resourcefulness of the latter. Survival was incredibly difficult during the winter of 1945 when people in the west of Holland had to survive on 340 calories per day. The cruelty of the Nazi regime reached a peak in her young life when her cousin was executed one month before liberation. This tragic event is followed by the joyous accounts of "Operation Manna-Chowhoud," the U.S.A. ordered food-droppings over the starving west of Holland, and finally freedom. The epilogue describes the years following the liberation by the Allied soldiers. Although it took until 1950 to sort out who and what had been good or evil in Holland during the chaotic war years, there was a fair outcome concerning the fortunes of the van der Laaken family. The ultimate message of this memoir is to learn from the past and to respect human life in all its facets and with all the differences. History tells us how difficult that is, but we must keep on trying, and try our best.

About the Author

During WW II Elsa M. van der Laaken lived in a Nazi-occupied building in The Hague, Holland with a Dutch father and a German mother who helped the Dutch resistance. She describes her family’s tenuous situation and defiance against the occupiers. She moved to California after studying psychology and creative writing at Vermont College.