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

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De Jong, it turned out, had kept a great deal of documentation about her life, including the letter her mother had sent to the family who would raise her daughter. “She has been taken from me by circumstance. May you, with the best will and wisdom, look after her,” she wrote in August 1942. Bart van Es' detailed, painstaking and thorough investigation of the life of his 'aunt' Lien is a truly moving, often heart-breaking account of a Jewish child's struggle for survival in wartime Holland and her life after the war.

Lien, una niña judía que con ocho años es separada de sus padres, una de esas niñas que con su historia sacara a la luz todo aquello que vivió, tanto con su familia antes de la Guerra como durante esos años. 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. 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 . Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: a young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents, who understood the danger they were in all too well. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, there was a falling out, and they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war, and after?

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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.

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. This is a detective story of sorts, constructed in such a way that the reader works through the clues (pictures, letters, official documents, personal testimony) along with the author. It begins with an uneasy and cautious meeting between van Es and the woman Lien - now in her 80s - and ends with a hopefulness and healing on both sides. Even though Lien had believed that she had both raked over and come to terms with the past, there were still gaps to fill, questions to answer and old wounds that needed lancing. Los capítulos se van alternando, unos en presente, donde se narran las conversaciones del autor con Lien, donde vamos averiguando su historia, y otros capítulos en los que reconstruye la historia, y que los va narrando Lien. Ademas, durante la historia veremos fotos del álbum familiar, algo que me ha gustado mucho. Es una historia dura, como todas estas historias, pero a la vez es una historia muy bonita, donde el autor cambia su vida y construye una relación de amistad, con una persona que en cierto modo puede considerarse de su familia.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. 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. Bart van Es treats this story with the respect and care it deserves even when he discovers things that I am sure would have been easier to hide and or/ignore. I absolutely loved the way he wove Lientjie's story in with the story of his research as well. I enjoyed seeing their friendship grow as the story progressed. The switching between present and past and Bart van Es trips to see many of the location Lientjie tells him about - really made the story come alive for me. I am not ashamed to say that I shed tears reading this book - the subject matter was not always easy to get though. 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.

Many thanks to #NetGalley and Penguin Press for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion. Description: a young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents, who understood the danger they were in all too well. The girl had been raised by her foster family as one of their own, but then, well after the war, there was a falling out, and they were no longer in touch. What was the girl's side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? The book described how she was taken from her family in late summer of 1942 by Mrs Heroma, known as Took (she and her husband were central to Nazi resistance) to live with Jans and Henk van Es who were the authors grandparents. A lot of Dutch families sheltered children as it was relatively easy to absorb them into their families. The van Esses were very kind to her and she felt happy there. There are some lovely letters she received from her family on her 9th birthday before they were put on the trains to the death camps. Sadly Lien had to be moved several times and not all of them happy such as the final place she stayed in Gelderland. Although they were not especially kind they did at least protect her and they didn’t give her up. It was at this time aged 11/12 she was repeated raped by the seemingly jolly uncle of the family. After the war Lien returned to the van Es family although in later years they became estranged. One of the most profound sections was where Lien had the courage to go to Auschwitz and there she had the bravery to read out a letter in English detailing what happened to her family members. It’s also possible- bless the author’s heart- that he was ‘too close’ to this story to have been objective. I don’t think it was necessary to have his opinions on how he feels society is today.... comparing ‘today’ with the devastations of the Holocaust.

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Lo que este libro nos transmite es la generosidad de esas familias y el amor que les dieron a esos niños a los que escondieron. 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.

I think about how until I had my son, I too have had my moments of feeling an island. As a child, I felt intensely jealous of classmates with siblings, or even of those who had cousins who lived close enough to attend the same school. I never liked being a de facto only child. I tried to form proto-sibling connections throughout my childhood and indeed all the way into my early adulthood but nothing ever really took. Being the only person in my family with my last name reinforced my sense of being set apart. It is a hard thing to feel on the outside, to sense your presence as an unwanted extra. There is also the conundrum of my paternal line. My biological father stepped out of my life before I was born and reconnection has been cordial rather than warm. But I was startled when I first heard tories about his wider clan. A whole cluster of relatives of whom I know nothing. In truth, that branch of my family tree had always seemed a frizzled stump, yet suddenly I recognised it as a loss. Without families, you don't get stories. When I was eight years old, I went hiding and said good-bye to my father and mother and I thought it was just for a few weeks. 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.

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. It’s a very important book. It’s a story that would never have been told if he hadn’t gone in search of it. We all thought it had huge resonance with today, the number of displaced people there are today and the number of stories that go untold,” said the chair of judges, the BBC presenter Sophie Raworth. “It’s beautifully written, very understated. We were all very much surprised by it. It very much felt like a hidden gem that we really wanted to put the spotlight on.” It is a story rich with contradictions. There is great bravery and generosity--first Lientje's parents, giving up their beloved daughter, and then the Dutch families who face great danger from the Nazi occupation for taking Lientje and other Jewish children in. And there are more mundane sacrifices a family under brutal occupation must make to provide for even the family they already have. But tidy Holland also must face a darker truth, namely that it was more cooperative in rounding up its Jews for the Nazis than any other Western European country; that is part of Lientje's story too. Her time in hiding was made much more terrifying by the energetic efforts of the local Dutch authorities, zealous accomplices in the mission of sending every Jew, man, woman and child, East to their extermination. And Lientje was not always particularly well treated, and sometimes, Bart learned, she was very badly treated indeed.