Biography & Autobiography Personal Memoirs
Long Labour, A
A Dutch Mother's Holocaust Memoir
- Publisher
- Ronsdale Press
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2007
- Category
- Personal Memoirs
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781553800453
- Publish Date
- Mar 2007
- List Price
- $21.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781553802761
- Publish Date
- Mar 2007
- List Price
- $19.99
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 13
- Grade: 8
Description
In this unusual Holocaust memoir, Rhodea Shandler gives a woman's view of life under the Nazis in Holland. She begins by describing her early life in a closely knit Jewish family in northern Holland. There was anti-Semitism, she explains, but it was of a low level, and the Jews with their strong ties to community managed to live relatively normal lives. Then everything began to change with Hitler's rise to power in 1933.
Through it all, she tells of life ongoing and how she became a nursing student in Amsterdam. It was while she was working in an Amsterdam hospital on May 9, 1940, that an explosion was heard, and she looked up to watch German paratroopers landing to take control of the city. Over the next few years she describes how the community attempts to cope even as Jews are being deported before their very eyes.
Finally in early 1943, she and her new husband decide that they must go into hiding in the countryside. With the help of the Underground, they find a "safe" farm, but their situation changes when Shandler discovers that she is pregnant. Some of the most moving parts of the story describe her preparations for the child's birth, even as their "friendly" family turns against them, fearful of the new dangers a baby will bring.
Then on a bitterly cold day in December 1943 the baby is born, and Shandler is left with the difficult task of caring for the child in the midst of continuing Gestapo raids. Shandler's memoir ends with the family's decision after the war to emigrate to Canada, and for Shandler to write of her struggle to give birth to the new.
About the author
Rhodea Shandler was born Henriette Dwinger in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, on August 26, 1918. She became a nurse and married Ernst Bollegraaf. When the Nazis began rounding up Jews, Rhodea, her husband and their daughter went into hiding with sympathetic Christian families. In 1951, Rhodea and her husband, now with five daughters, emigrated to Canada. Shortly after completing her memoir, Rhodea died on February 17, 2006, at the age of eighty-seven.
Librarian Reviews
A Long Labour: A Dutch Mother’s Holocaust Memoir
A Long Labour tells the story of the author’s struggle to survive during World War II. The story begins with her early life in Holland before the war and her training as a nurse. As the war progresses, Rhodea, her husband Ernst, and their children are forced into hiding because they were Jewish. Most of the Dutch Jews did not go into hiding, and were sent to their deaths at extermination camps. The strength of Rhodea’s character permeates the pages. She describes being separated from her husband and children for long periods of time and how she endures a pregnancy while in hiding. The memoir ends with the reunited family’s decision to emigrate to Canada.Source: The Association of Book Publishers of BC. BC Books for BC Schools. 2007-2008.