The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found: The Costa Book of the Year 2018

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The last time Lien de Jong saw her parents was in the Hague, where she was collected at the door by a stranger and taken away to be hidden from the Nazis. She was raised by her foster family as one of their own, but a falling out after the war put an end to their relationship. What was her side of the story, wondered Oxford University's Professor Bart van Es, a grandson of the couple who looked after Lien. The Cut Out Girl by Oxford English professor Bart van Es has been named Costa Book of the Year, after previously winning the biography category of the awards. Professor van Es triumphed ahead of literary figures including novelist Sally Rooney. Read our Q&A below with Professor van Es, whose book tells the story of Lien de Jong, a young Dutch girl hidden from the Nazis during World War II.

Why was the Netherlands so compliant with the Nazis, so that 80% of the country’s Jews were killed, a far higher percentage than elsewhere in the West? stars and not a perfect 5 stars because the writing felt a little disjointed at times moving around in time, but totally deserving of being bumped up to 5.) In the first episode, Bart goes to Amsterdam to meet Lien and ask if she might be willing to tell him her story.La protagonista Lien y su evolución ha sido para mi lo mejor del libro. Ella fue una de las niñas que tuvo que buscar refugio y gracias a ella conoceremos lo que vivió durante esos años. Bart van Es tells the story of a young Jewish girl named Lientjie who was taken in during the War by his grandparents. He doesn't know too much about the story but is aware that at one point there was a falling out and they lost touch with her. This book tells the story of him first reaching out to Lientjie and then the process of discovering what had happened to her, his family, and why the falling out happened. The Cut Out Girl is Van Es’s piecing together of De Jong’s difficult youth; after she left the Van Eses she lived with another family who treated her as a servant and sexually abused her. It is also an exploration of Dutch cooperation in rounding up Jews for the Nazis. Raworth said that of around 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1940, 105,000 were dead by May 1945.

I am thankful for the Goodreads giveaway that put this book in my hands and even more grateful for Bart van Es for telling this story. A big takeaway from this book for me was that even thought human beings are capable of such horror - there are always those who are willing to fight, to help and to try make a difference. My heart is grateful for the many hero's in this book who helped Jewish people escape, hide and survive the war. My heart aches for those who didn't survive, for those who lost family members and friends and for those who were left with the horrifying emotional scars that come from such events. The things that stand out for me are the documents that Lien has kept with her. For example, there is the letter that Lien’s mother wrote to my grandparents in August 1942, in which she gave up her child in the hope that Lien would survive the war even if the rest of the family could not. There is also the last letter that Lien ever wrote to her mother, which was not delivered because her parents were already in Auschwitz by the time it would have been sent via the secret post. Also very powerful are the wider stories of resistance activity that came to me in the course of my research. In one case a group of young Dutch women decided that the only way in which they could save Jewish babies would be to claim them as their own illegitimate children, fathered by German soldiers. This brought absolute safety to the babies, but also, of course, terrible shame to the women themselves. I have always been fascinated by stories of the Second World War and as my father served with the Canadian Army in Netherlands for quite some time, I have a particular interest in stories of that time. I have also been fortunate enough to visit the Netherlands and see places like the Annex where Anne Frank and her family hid or the hidden cupboard in the home of Corrie Ten Boom where many people would hide for shorter periods of time. In spite of all that, I did not find this book a particularly easy one to read. The author Bart van Es had a very personal reason for writing this book. His family had been involved in helping to hide a young Jewish girl, Lientje during the war and had even fostered her for some years after the war but ultimately there had been a break n the family relationship that vanEs wanted to understand. In the words of Maria Condo This one is not bringing me joy and I have read 50% of the book and that has taken me a week. I think it is time to part company. I struggle with giving up on a book as some books do turn around and am always afraid I will miss out by not finishing the read. Cuando empecé a leer esta novela, no esperaba lo que me he encontrado, porque no es una historia normal, una novela contada sin más, es una historia real, no basada en hechos reales.Lien was sent by her parents in 1942 to live with a foster family, the van Eses, who bravely took her in and treated her as one of their own children at the time when the witch-hunt to round up all Dutch Jews and deport them to the concentration camps was beginning. Lien lived happily with the van Es family for months, gradually forgetting her parents as Ma and Pa Es started to replace them in her heart and her new sisters and brothers and school friends became her family. It would be years before Lien knew anything of the deaths of her parents and most of her extended family in Auschwitz. This book is about a Jewish Dutch girl Lien and the various families who saved her following the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, in particular the van Es family. The ‘the cut out girl’ represents Lien but the title comes from a picture in a ‘poesie’ album she kept which was a scrapbook of poetry that people wrote in for her and about her - these were popular with girls at that time. Lien’s family were not especially religious and the author pointed out that it is really Hitler who made Lien Jewish following the invasion in May 1940. From 1941 similar rules to those implemented in Germany from 1935 (Nuremberg Laws) were enforced such as wearing the yellow star and Lien had to go to Jewish school. Prior to this her childhood had consisted of mixing happily with other children surrounded by a happy extended family and caring neighbours. There are some lovely pictures to illustrate this life that was to end so disastrously. From start to finish this was an interesting read about war, about growing up, about a family. It is non fiction, the author (a nephew of Lien, the girl) also tells about his conversations with Lien, his spending time in the Netherlands visiting all the places she mentions and his visits to various libraries to do research. Lien was ultimately reunited with the van Eses, returning to live with them after the war. After a time, she stopped calling Mr and Mrs van Es 'Auntie and 'Uncle' and switched to 'Ma' and 'Pa'. This should have been the happy ending. Indeed, Bart van Es comments how the best possible conclusion for the story would have been at the point of Lien's wedding. She marries at the Portuguese synagogue and at the reception, she has a whole family around her. In a speech from one of her van Es family members, one of them jokes whether her new husband is good enough for 'our Lien'. Lien is theirs. And even one of her biological cousins, another Holocaust survivor, manages to be present. But this is not the end. While she may have shone with happiness that day, Lien struggled with depression and survivor's guilt. She was not alone in this; the cousin who attended her wedding later killed himself. Her loving new husband had also lived through the war in hiding but he had done so in the midst of his family so could not understand why Lien would dwell in the past. He could not fathom her trauma.

I knew the 2020 good read vibes wouldn't last, and The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found is the culprit that has potentially crushed those vibes. I bought this book some time ago, not long after it was released, and after a Waterstones employee told me this book was absolutely wonderful, I thought I was on to something.

About Arts Blog

Professor van Es, of St Catherine's College and Oxford's English Faculty, talks to Arts Blog about the journey that led to the publication of his new book, The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found . She said she was surprised the story of her life had won the Costa award, which was judged by a panel made up of Raworth, Prue Leith, Kate Humble and Simon Williams. “I loved the book but I didn’t expect it,” said De Jong. “We were in hiding, but after the war, nobody spoke about it. It was not an issue, it was not a subject. So nobody spoke about it during the war or after the war. I once said that I’d been born after the war. My feeling is, I just started after the war. The time before that, I had no words ... I never thought I had a story, but Bart wrote it down and it was a story.” The last time Hesseline - known as Lien - saw her parents was in The Hague as she was collected at the door by a stranger and taken to a city far away to be hidden from the Nazis. She was raised by her foster family as one of their own but, some years after the war, she became estranged from the family who took her in. What was her side of the story? Bart van Es - a grandson of the couple who looked after Lien - was determined to find out. And, most pressingly as far as The Cut Out Girl story is concerned, how could my grandmother (who rescued Lien and brought her up as her own daughter after the war) have ended up quarrelling with the person she saved from the Holocaust? How could she have sent her a letter, in July 1988, that cut Lien out of her life? Es una historia real relacionada con la familia del autor, esto la hace mas especial si cabe, nos habla sobre lo difícil que lo tuvieron los niños judíos cuando los nazis los atacaban duramente, y lo mejor sin duda ha sido conocer la red de familias que se prestaron a ayudar a estos niños aun a riesgo de ponerse en peligro ellos mismos.