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"Ben Wessels and Kees W. Bolle were boyhood friends in the village of Oostvoorne. Holland, in the 1930s. Ten years later, Ben was struggling to survive in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he perished in 1945 along with fellow inmate Anne Frank and over a million other Jews and ethnic and religious minorities.".
"Decades later when he was visiting his friend Johan Schipper in Oostvoorne. Kees Bolle discovered a bundle of letters written by Ben. These letters documented in heartbreaking detail the terrifying journey of his family from an artificial ghetto cordoned off by the Germans in Amsterdam to the infamous transit camp at Westerbork and hence to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and other horrific landmarks of the German "final solution."".
"Juxtaposing Ben's letters with reports from the Dutch underground press, both of which appear in English for the first time, Bolle creates a unique portrait of the Netherlands during World War II, one very different from the romantic vision of the Resistance often portrayed in other accounts. Unlike Yugoslavia, for example. Holland had no mountains to provide shelter for small bands of heroic fighters.
Flat and densely populated, Holland had but one means to contest the Nazi occupation - the freedom of thought and word expressed in underground papers such as Vrij Nederland ("The Free Netherlands"), Trouw, and Het Parool in spite of heavy penalties imposed by German authorities.".
"Bolle also includes reports from the underground press near the end of the war, with scenes of victory, celebration, and hope intermingled with concerns for the future of the Netherlands. On a tragic note, there is a final message to Johan Schipper confirming the death in Bergen-Belsen of Ben Wessels, who died a month before the death camp was liberated by British troops in April 1945."--BOOK JACKET.
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Subjects
Correspondence, Jews, World War, 1939-1945, Underground literature, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), Personal narratives, Biography, Essays, journals, letters & other prose works, European history: Second World War, The Holocaust, Second World War, 1939-1945, History: World, Jewish Holocaust, History, History - General History, Germany, Netherlands, Holocaust, History / Holocaust, Schipper, Johan, Wessels, Benjamin Leo, Wessels, Benjamin Leo,, 1926-1945, Holocaust, jewish (1939-1945), personal narratives, World war, 1939-1945, underground movements, netherlands, World war, 1939-1945, jewsPlaces
NetherlandsShowing 2 featured editions. View all 2 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Ben's story: Holocaust letters with selections from the Dutch underground press
2001, Southern Illinois University Press
in English
0809323745 9780809323746
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2
Ben's Story: Holocaust Letters with Selections from the Dutch Underground Press
May 30, 2001, Southern Illinois University
Hardcover
in English
- 1st Edition edition
0809323745 9780809323746
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- Created April 29, 2008
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July 31, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | associate edition with work OL7798222W |
April 27, 2011 | Edited by OCLC Bot | Added OCLC numbers. |
August 6, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |