A Point of Reference

Rating:
Summary: The Dutch Resistance
Review: Exceeded Expectations

Of the many books written about WWII, I find "A Point of Reference" appealing. Some of the greatest unknown soldiers were the occupied people; the men, women, and children who risked their lives helping the Dutch resistance.
The author gives an accounting of her German mother and Dutch father along with their countrymen defying the occupation troops. After reading this book, I can imagine the feeling the Dutch people must have felt as the Nazi soldiers brainwashed the people, took over the press, the arts, and then the education of the children. The people resisted in subtle ways; planting orange marigolds in the planter boxes, slowing down work and manufacturing for the enemy, hiding radios, brass, silver, copper, and pewter items.
The author received a fresh egg from one of the German soldiers. "Look mom, I've got a real egg. Enemy soldiers gave it to me, they were kind." The mother replied, "Some soldiers are just country boys who had to leave home too soon".
"The egg was mine. I had it soft-boiled and savored its creamy soft yellow".
After reading "A Point of Reference", each time I eat an egg, I think of how precious the author's egg was to her.

Rating:
Summary: The Dutch Resistance
Review: Exceeded Expectations

Of the many books written about WWII, I find "A Point of Reference" appealing. Some of the greatest unknown soldiers were the occupied people; the men, women, and children who risked their lives helping the Dutch resistance.
The author gives an accounting of her German mother and Dutch father along with their countrymen defying the occupation troops. After reading this book, I can imagine the feeling the Dutch people must have felt as the Nazi soldiers brainwashed the people, took over the press, the arts, and then the education of the children. The people resisted in subtle ways; planting orange marigolds in the planter boxes, slowing down work and manufacturing for the enemy, hiding radios, brass, silver, copper, and pewter items.
The author received a fresh egg from one of the German soldiers. "Look mom, I've got a real egg. Enemy soldiers gave it to me, they were kind." The mother replied, "Some soldiers are just country boys who had to leave home too soon".
"The egg was mine. I had it soft-boiled and savored its creamy soft yellow".
After reading "A Point of Reference", each time I eat an egg, I think of how precious the author's egg was to her.

Rating:
Summary: The Dutch Resistance
Review: Exceeded Expectations

Of the many books written about WWII, I find "A Point of Reference" appealing. Some of the greatest unknown soldiers were the occupied people; the men, women, and children who risked their lives helping the Dutch resistance.
The author gives an accounting of her German mother and Dutch father along with their countrymen defying the occupation troops. After reading this book, I can imagine the feeling the Dutch people must have felt as the Nazi soldiers brainwashed the people, took over the press, the arts, and then the education of the children. The people resisted in subtle ways; planting orange marigolds in the planter boxes, slowing down work and manufacturing for the enemy, hiding radios, brass, silver, copper, and pewter items.
The author received a fresh egg from one of the German soldiers. "Look mom, I've got a real egg. Enemy soldiers gave it to me, they were kind." The mother replied, "Some soldiers are just country boys who had to leave home too soon".
"The egg was mine. I had it soft-boiled and savored its creamy soft yellow".
After reading "A Point of Reference", each time I eat an egg, I think of how precious the author's egg was to her.

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in endurance
Review: This book is an account of the war years in Holland through the eyes of a small child of four. Little Elsa tells us of the years before WWII, when her parents met and married, and then of their predicament as a Dutch family in their Nazi ocuppied country. Contrary to expectation, you will not read here heart breaking descriptions of concentration camps, or any human suffering in a big scale. Instead, you will be mesmerized by the very innocent description of extremely hard times by a girl who does not remember any better, and to whom, her parents' fight to survive turns out to be a celebration of the victory of the human spirit over adversity. Elsa's parents are inexhaustible sources of inventiveness: i.e. her father adapts a bicycle to transform it into a press from which they extract oil from rape-seed. And her mother is always creating "delicious" food for Elsa: they had no sugar, so they grated the white sugar beets they bought on the ration-stamps and "Mother... cooked sweet sticky syrup that could make anything sweet"; even Elsa's young life, growing up in a war torn Holland. Wonderful reading, it will certainly lift your spirits, as it did mine.

Rating:
Summary: a point of reference
Review: This is an extremely accurate account of life in Holland during the WW-II Nazi occupationan. Although written from a child's perspective, it has more historical and factural information I have found in any other book/report or movie regarding this period of time. It is both fascinating, easy and inspirational reading.