An Epistolary Glimpse Into Wartime Holland
How does one understand the incomprehensible human tragedy of the Holocaust? The answer: One story at a time. In “Hidden Letters” (Star Bright Books), Deborah Slier and Ian Shine have edited a treasure trove of letters that Philip “Flip” Slier, a Dutch Jew, wrote during 1942 at the Dutch forced labor camp Molengoot. The translations are by Marion van Binsbergen-Pritchard.
Fifty years after the war, these letters lay hidden in a bathroom ceiling of an Amsterdam building. The foreman of a Dutch demolition company found them by chance and gave them to the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation. In 1999, they landed in the hands of Deborah Slier, Flip’s first cousin, whose father’s 1922 immigration to South Africa saved her from the horrors experienced by her family. The attempts to better understand her cousin and the calamity that befell him through his writings bore “Letters.”
The correspondence reveals an 18-year-old’s moods, his hardships in the work camp, his decision to go into hiding, and requests for clothing and provisions. Often addressed to his parents, the youth’s sensitive, matter-of-fact correspondences offer insights into his daily life. On September 13, he writes: “What is a person? What is all of life? Nothing. And still we don’t want to lose it, and that is why we have to be strong and have faith. Someday we will be liberated!!!”
Foreboding and chilling, these words accompany pictures of the handsome youth posing with friends during a break from work detail, or smiling outside a military barracks. Additional pictures, war documents and maps provide a context for readers to view Flip’s short life and to fully appreciate the legacy he left to the world.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.