Netherlands Books

This book is not 700+ pages long. It is 79 pages long.
This book is a reprint of a book published in 1944 by the Dutch government in exile in England.

This book is a good high-level snapshot of what Norway has to offer. However, once I was wandering the streets of Oslo, I wished that I had a book with greater selection and one that offered a few more off-beat places to visit. By following this book's direction, I felt like I was traveling down the same road as thousands of other tourists. In addition, the book's maps lacked sufficient detail. I think there are better Norway books to be had.

Anne Frank was born on June 12,1929 in a the German town of Franfurt am Maim. She had a father named Otto, a mother named Edith Hollander Frank, and a sister named Margot. Anne had a wonderful childhood. Her family moved to Amsterdam and Anne had no trouble making friends. Anne was always the center of atention. Anne also liked to watch movies and collect photos of movie stars. She was mostly interested in the Dutch family. On Anne's thirteenth birthday (a few days befor her family goes into hiding) she gets a diary. The very next day they went into hiding and thats when Anne's writing inspired people. Anne lived in fear for her life, yet at the same time she was grateful for her present saftey.

This soft cover book is only 95 or so pages but costs what a hardback would. An interesting book but I'm not sure that would justify the cost to most people.

The premise is this. The author managed to find some old letters, pictures and other effects that had belonged to Charlotte Kalotte ('Lotte mentioned in Anne's Diary) who was Fritz Pheffer's widow. She had recently died and somehow her personal things ended up being sold in a flea market in Amsterdam in the late 80's. The author used them and a variety of other sources to construct an imaginary interview with an elderly Charlotte and this is the first 49 pages of the book.

The remainder of the book consists of full page reproductions of Fritz's last letter to Charlotte before going into hiding and a number of other letters he had written her in the late 30's and early 40's. They are first presented in German and then in an English translation. The letters that Fritz sent her weekly from the secret annex are not included and the fictional Charlotte explains in the text that she'd had to destroy them as soon as she read them because they were dangerous to have (probably the truth).

The book is interesting in that it provides a lot more info about Fritz and puts a better face on him than Anne did in the diary. It also puts to rest a question that has been debated: they two were not legally married, however they had repeatedly tried to be but been refused due to the Nuremberg laws. Apparently even before the invasion, the Netherlands had upheld German law for German citizens living on their soil. They had, however, lived together and regarded each other as a married couple. All of his letters are addressed to "my beloved wife." Charlotte had married him posthumously in 1950.

A couple other interesting things:

* It explains that they had not fled earlier because they had family they did not want to abandon.
* Fritz and Charlotte had been in Berlin during the famous Krystalnaught (the night of the broken glass)
* Fritz and Charlotte had visited the Frank family every Sunday along with the van Pels' and others.

I'm an amateur Anne Frank scholar and this is a welcome addition to my Anne Frank library but as interesting as these things are, most of you may want to read it from the library before buying it.

NOTE: This is an English translation of a book which originally appeared in the Netherlands almost 2 decades ago.

First off, the maps are not very helpful. They aren't detailed enough, as far as the little side streets are concerned. Also, the maps are buried in different sections, so if you want to get from Neighborhood A to Neighborhood B you gotta keep on flippin'. The City Center map that's located in the index is adequate for navigating to major points of interests, but only that.

Secondly, while descriptions of restuarants, coffeeshops, htels and stores are accurate, a lot of REALLLLLLLLY cool places that I found on my own there are just not listed.

So, definitely carry it with you but keep in mind that on your own, you will find a lot of people/places and things that haven't been spotted by this guide.

Now I am a sophomore in highschool, I read this book when I was in third grade. After I read it I told my best friend about it, who then read it, and soon practicaly the whole class had, from hearing how great it was. Now, being older it might not be as great, but if you have a daughter in the third grade she would enjoy it very much!

Bea is a secretary in Holland in the late 1930s, where she meets a journalist named Erica. Bonding together and sharing an apartment, the two have a stormy relationship because of Bea's unrealized desire for Erica and her empty affairs with men, and because of Erica's self-destructive nature. As the Nazi influence in Holland grows, Erica lives in danger due to her half-Jewish heritage, but only Bea seems to recognize the danger. Erica does confess her same-sex relationships to Bea, but Bea can't seem to figure out where her own desires lie, and when Erica gets involved with the Dutch resistance, Bea finds it may be too late, in more ways than one. De Jong's groundbreaking work is further analyzed by Lillian Faderman's astute afterword. The story brings to mind such novels as "Aimee And Jaguar", Ebba Haslund's "Nothing Happened", and Erzsebet Galgoczi's "Another Love", all set around the same time, and all showing the limited possibilities for lesbian life in Europe during the mid-1900s.

In late 1944, the Allied armies advancing across northwest Europe were desperately in need of a deep-water port that could provide access for the supplies required for the final drive into Germany. Although the port of Antwerp was seized intact, the port could not be used until the various German garrisons that guarded the Scheldt estuary leading to the port were subdued. In Walcheren: Operation Infatuate, Andrew Rawson covers the British amphibious invasion on 1 November 1944 to seize the island of Walcheren - certainly one of the more obscure and bizarre operations of the war. Rawson's narrative is decent, but not up to the standard of earlier volumes in the Battleground Europe series.

Rawson's volume begins with short sections on the need to open Antwerp, the German occupation of Walcheren and the garrison on the island, which consisted of about 7,000 troops from the static 70th Division and about 1,000 naval troops. Rawson provides a fairly good section on the planning for Operation Infatuate - the amphibious landings on Walcheren - although the supporting maps are rather skimpy. One of the oddities of the Operation Infatuate was the British decision to use RAF Bomber Command to "sink" the island; just before the invasion, heavy bombers were used to breech the island's dikes and about 2/3rds of the island was soon knee-deep in water. While the interior of the island was mostly under water (with many civilian deaths), the German garrisons were isolated atop the rim of dikes and sand dunes on the outer edges of the island. This decision to "sink" the island would limit the tactical mobility of both sides and reduce most operations to clearing the outer edges of the island. Many elements of the British plan were risky if not downright dumb. The amphibious landings called for frontal assault against alerted and powerful coastal defenses. Furthermore, the British unwisely decided to split their landings up, with the 4th Special Service Brigade (4SSB) of Royal Marine Commandos landing on the south side of the island and an army brigade on the south side of the island; neither landing could support the other if it ran into trouble. However, the worst mistakes were in underestimating the enemy, the terrain and the weather.

Straightaway, the main landings by the Royal Marines ran into much heavier resistance than expected, and the naval support group was shot to pieces by the German coastal batteries (the British had foolishly pitted unarmored landing craft gunships against heavy coastal guns in concrete bunkers). Both the Marine and army brigades succeeded in getting ashore, but most of their tanks and support weapons were lost in the landings. With the troops ashore - perhaps 5,000 men - the British were able to capture the German batteries near the landing beaches but they lacked the strength or mobility to do more than slowly winkle the Germans out of their bunkers. Poor weather and heavy seas virtually shut down more landings on the beaches for several days, meaning that the British troops were soon short on ammunition and wounded could not be evacuated. The British also had great difficulty getting across the breeches in the dikes caused by their bombing, with the amphibious tractors often unequal to the terrain. The British Royal Marines and army commandos were superb light infantry, but they were forced to tackle one bunker complex after another and they suffered at least 30% casualties in eight days of fighting on Walcheren.

Walcheren bears certain resemblances to Arnhem, such as outnumbered but high quality British troops taking on second-rate German troops in a situation where the Allied plan took too many chances. Fighting on the island consisted mostly of urban combat and advances down the coastal strips, but everywhere the British were thinly spread. In one unusual incident, 47 Commando captured an important German coastal battery but had suffered such heavy losses that they could not hold the position and a German counterattack nearly overran the unit. German resistance was much heavier than expected and several times during the operation the British stuck their neck out too far with small forces and nearly got it chopped off. Finally, after nearly a week of fighting, a small British force of less than 200 men was able to trick the German commander and 2,000 troops into surrendering. Walcheren was secured after eight days of fighting and several weeks later, convoys began arriving in Antwerp.

Rawson's narrative omits mention of casualties but they were quite heavy on the British side. The author also does not provide sufficient detail on the operations that immediately preceded Infatuate, nor does he spend more than a few sentences on the Canadian crossing onto the east side of the island on November 3, 1944. Indeed, the author might have questioned whether it might have been better to let the Canadians clear the island from the east, since most of the defenses were facing westward. Perhaps the costly amphibious assaults and "sinking" the island were unnecessary and wasteful. This volume should be useful for military professionals, such the circumstances of the operation were so bizarre, but there are more questions posed than answered herein.

This little guide should not be used as your primary guide when going to Sao Paulo. There are basically no informative maps in it, the information is outdated, and most of the places it recommends are for those who have trust funds or are on the expense account (yes, even in Sao Paulo). Its reviews are entertaining but it lacks vital information that most tourists need to get around and acquainted with the city.

Keith Springer chairs the Bethel College History Department at Bethel College, Kansas. His copious attention to the mundane is an instant depressant. Here is yet another attempt to chronicle the history of the church in such a way as to forcefully arrive at preconceived conclusions. Keith Sprunger always fails to give the reader the appropriate depth that comes with a concept of social setting. There is not one anectdote to recommend. Sprunger gives no dimension to an exhausted paradigm.

"PD from Wildwood NJ" could not have written it better! But I protest and quietly resign Sprunger as another "intellectual historian" writing for himself. Reform, renewal and religious ferment seem is what Keith Sprunger is good at--I should know...because I have endured "The Meeting of Dutch Anabaptists and English Brownists" from "The Contentious Triangle." "KEITH L. SPRUNGER ('62) is Oswald H. Wedel Professor of History at Bethel College (Kansas). He presented "The Printing Press and the Reformation of Religion," in Paris in 1997, and he published "Puritan Church Architecture and Worship in a Dutch Context" in Church History (March, 1997)."--History at Illinois

Keith Springer chairs the Bethel College History Department at Bethel College, Kansas. His copious attention to the mundane is an instant depressant. Here is yet another attempt to chronicle the history of the church in such a way as to forcefully arrive at preconceived conclusions. Keith Sprunger always fails to give the reader the appropriate depth that comes with a concept of social setting. There is not one anectdote to recommend. Sprunger gives no dimension to an exhausted paradigm.

As with so much of today's new informational technology, this site is a mixed blessing. It gives reviewers the opportunity to impart either useful information or misleading twaddle. Unfortunately, the comments from "PD from Wildwood NJ" about Professor Sprunger's "Dutch Puritanism" fall into the latter category.

As a specialist in the field, I can say with assurance that this book is the most comprehensive and best-researched work yet written about this subject. It aims at imparting new information gleaned from years of study in Anglo-Dutch archives and setting it in a proper context.

Professor Sprunger provides brief social and religious summaries at appropriate intervals, but he generally assumes that readers will come to the subject already armed with considerable background knowledge. Any expert scanning the footnotes and bibliography can immediately appreciate the depth and breadth of his contribution.

This book is extremely important for anyone working in the fields of Anglo-Dutch Puritanism and American colonial history.