Nina Siegal
The Diary Keepers /
De vergeten dagboeken
On february 21st 2023 The Diary Keepers by Nina Siegal will be published by Ecco/Harper Collins in the US and Harper Collins UK, and in Dutch translation on march 7th, to be published by Harper Collins NL. The book got some great pre-press already: a starred review (and an interview) in Publishers Weekly: ‘This diverse and enlightening collection of excerpts from journals kept during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands is an essential contribution to the history of WWII… Even those well versed in the subject will find much to discover in this treasure trove of firsthand perspectives.’
The Diary Keepers offers a riveting look at the story of World War II and the Holocaust through the diaries of Dutch citizens, firsthand accounts of ordinary people living through extraordinary times.
‘‘It’s a poignant metaphor for Siegal’s own sense that she is “walking around in a void” — a nation in which an entire ethnic group was all but wiped out, while the complicity of their neighbors in their extermination has yet to be fully examined. “They say that the Dutch Jews are still in hiding,” a friend tells her. This book is an important step in bringing them out.’’ Ruth Franklin, The Washington Post
Slechts een paar dagen na de bevrijding van ons land begon het NIOD al met het verzamelen van opgetekende herinneringen aan de oorlogsjaren 1940-1945, in dagboeken, brieven en andere persoonlijke documenten.
Opgroeiend in een Amerikaanse familie die de Tweede Wereldoorlog heeft doorstaan, hoorde journalist Nina Siegal nauwelijks iets over haar familiegeschiedenis, laat staan over het bestaan van deze bijzondere collectie. Toen ze naar Nederland verhuisde en dit land steeds meer haar thuis ging noemen, begon haar zoektocht naar het verleden. Aan de hand van de dagboeken van drie Joden, twee nazisympathisanten, een verzetsstrijder en een
fabrieksarbeider brengt ze de Tweede Wereldoorlog dichterbij dan ooit.
De vergeten dagboeken schetst een integer en indringend beeld van oorlog en verzet en toont hoe wij herinneren, herdenken en reflecteren op het verleden.
'Zelfs degenen die goed thuis zijn in het onderwerp zullen veel te ontdekken hebben in deze schat aan verhalen uit de eerste hand.' Publishers Weekly, starred review
Nina will be on the road in the USA and the Netherlands in march, april and may 2023 to promote The Diary Keepers (more dates will follow soon):
March:
2 Public book launch at The Strand, New York
9 Public book launch + interview with Roxane van Iperen at Joods Cultural Kwartier, Amsterdam (sold out)
16 Public interview at Christies, Amsterdam
23 Public interview (with Benjamin Moser) at ABC, Amsterdam (18.15-19.45)
April:
13 Event at Vrije Academie, Centrale Bibliotheek Den Haag (14.00-15.00)
14 Event at Vrije Academie, Singelkerk Utrecht (14.00-15.00)
18 Event at Vrije Academie, Amsterdam (20.00-21.00)
23 Event in sjoel
May:
2 Public event at Pakhuis de Zwijger, Amsterdam (20.00)
4 Public event Open Huizen (location to be announced soon)
Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, The Diary Keepers illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp.
Journalist Nina Siegal, who grew up in a family that had survived the Holocaust in Europe, had always wondered about the experience of regular people during World War II. She had heard stories of the war as a child and Anne Frank’s diary, but the tales were either crafted as moral lessons — to never waste food, to be grateful for all you receive, to hide your silver — or told with a punch line. The details of the past went untold in an effort to make it easier assimilate into American life.
When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: Why did seventy five percent of the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western European countries the proportions were significantly lower? How did this square with the narratives of Dutch resistance she had heard so much about and in what way did it relate to the famed tolerance people in the Netherlands were always talking about? Perhaps more importantly, how could she raise a Jewish child in this country without knowing these answers?
Searching and singular, The Diary Keepers mines the diaries of ordinary citizens to understand the nature of resistance, the workings of memory, and the ways we reflect on, commemorate, and re-envision the past.
Photograph: Stuart Acker Holt
Nina Siegal is an author and journalist from New York who lives in Europe. She has been a regular freelance contributor to The New York Times from Amsterdam since 2012. She covers art and culture, history and society.
Nina has published three novels and is currently working on a nonfiction book, The Diary Keepers, forthcoming in 2023 from Ecco/Harper Collins. She is a 2021 recipient of the Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant, and a Humanity in Action Fellow. Siegal is currently completing her doctorate at the University of Amsterdam in the research school for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. She received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and her BA in English Literature from Cornell University.
Nina is the author three novels. You’ll Thank Me For This (Mulholland, Little, Brown, 2021), The Anatomy Lesson (Nan A. Talese/Knopf Doubleday, 2014) and A Little Trouble With the Facts (HarperCollins, 2008). She has received numerous grants and fellowships including a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing, two MacDowell Colony fellowships, and the post-graduate Jack Leggett Fellowship from Iowa.
In addition to The New York Times, her freelance writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including the Wall Street Journal, W. Magazine, Art in America, 1stDibs.com, ArtNews, and The Economist.