Ben je benieuwd naar het verhaal van de familie Van Praagh uit Rijswijk tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog?
Wil je meer weten over het boek The Dutch Girl's Lost Letters: An Emotional Jewish Historical Novel?
Kom dan luisteren naar dit ontroerende verhaal (Engelstalig).

The story

Ten brothers and sisters of the Jewish Van Praagh family, originally from Monster, lived in or close to Rijswijk before and during the war. Seven of them, and many partners, children and even grandchildren, perished in Auschwitz or Sobibor. On Friday November 7 eleven 'Stolpersteine' will be laid in the Geestbrugweg and the Prins Hendriklaan for Van Praagh victims of the Holocaust. Few members of the family survived. One of them is Janny, 23 years old in 1940. Janny survives and decides to move to Israel after the war, changing her name to Miriam. Her life story is captured in the letters she exchanged with friends and family. In The Dutch Girl’s Lost Letters Miriam’s daughter Diklah Geva reconstructs how her mother survived the war and built up her life in Israel.

"This novel describes the pain of a woman who survived in Europe but found herself alone, and a man who left Europe before the war and eventually lost his old world and his family. It is also the story of shared healing and the love that grows from the shared pain. Moving and heart-wrenching," The Dutch Girl’s Lost Letters is a story of hope, forbidden love, and starting over, perfect for fans of Kristin Harmel, Kelly Rimmer, and Kristin Hannah.

Are you curious for this story? Feel welcome to join the book presentation of this novel in the library of Rijswijk.

About Diklah

Born in 1960, Diklah grew up on a kibbutz in northern Israel to Dutch parents from Rijswijk and Scheveningen. She worked for three decades in the biomedical industry as a biostatistician. After her mother’s passing, she discovered letters and photographs from before and after the war—materials that inspired her first novel. She is currently working on her second. Diklah divides her time between Tel Aviv and The Hague.

About Jilt Sietsma

Jilt Sietsma is a retired inhabitant of Rijswijk with a great interest in the history of the Second World War. In the past year he performed historical research on Rijswijk events during the German occupation, among which the stories of Jewish Rijswijk citizens, in the framework of celebrating 80 years of freedom.

Program:

19:00 uur "A Jewish family in Rijswijk", Jilt Sietsma
19:15 uur "The Dutch Girl's Lost Letters", Diklah Geva
20:00 uur Questions and discussion
20:30 uur End