Oy Vey Reads! The Diary Keepers by Nina Siegal

For our inaugural session of Oy Vey Reads, we’ll be reading Nina Siegal’s powerful book The Diary Keepers, available in Dutch as De vergeten dagboeken.

The book is based on diary entries from a collection of Dutch diaries written during World War II. The Diary Keepers looks at the history from the point of view of the people who lived through it, from a non-Jewish member of the resistance to a Jewish journalist who wrote of the daily activities at Westerbork. Nina, who is a journalist and writes for the New York Times, sums up each section of the book in a clear and concise manner.

This book is available in Dutch and English, which makes it the perfect book to read first! Plus, Nina Siegal lives right here in Amsterdam and will be coming to our first meeting to discuss the book with us! Bring your questions! And join us.

The book is available in both Dutch and English at the American Book Center, Atheneum, and Van Rossum.

[Tori’s note: Start reading now! It’s engaging and easy to read, but it can be emotionally exhausting to live through the time with the diary writers.]

We’ll be reading two more books over the coming year:

De-Integrate! by Max Czollek

Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman, by Abby Chava Stein available in Dutch as Eigenlijk Eva: Mijn transitie van ultraorthodoxe rabbi tot trans-vrouw