Fictional coating obscures the human-interest facts
The Sisters of Auschwitz
Seven Dials, £18.99
YThe Sisters or Auschwitz and thinking the cover seems familiar: it bears a striking resemblance to last year’s Holocaust bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Clearly, the publisher is hoping this, too, will grab the attention of readers around the globe.
Roxane Van Iperen’s story — also a novelised account — this time of the resistance activities of Lien and Janny Brilleslijper, certainly has the ingredients necessary to captivate readers.
The Brilleslijper sisters, assimilated Dutch Jews with a wide circle of bohemian and well-connected friends, come across as thoroughly modern heroines. As Hitler’s shadow descends over Amsterdam, they become embedded in the resistance movement, eventually creating a safe house called “The High Nest” and harbouring those under threat of deportation.
As can be deducted from the title, this state of affairs is not going to last; the sisters are sent to Westerbork, stage one on a journey taken by fellow Dutch hideaway Anne Frank.
The sisters’ story is nothing short of astonishing, such that, if this was not marketed as “The True Story of Two Jewish Sisters’ Resistance in the Heart of Nazi Territory”, I would disbelieve its premise.
Journalist Van Iperen’s diligent research has thrown up myriad near misses as the daredevil siblings somehow avoid detection by the
Nazis. Unusually for a book of this ilk, there are more than a few happy endings to be found.
The author chanced upon the story on moving into The High Nest, and sought to tell it “because it is different from the many stories the world knows” — Jews in hiding and in concentration camps suffering unimaginably, yes. But Jews harbouring other Jews and undermining the Germans at every turn?
It deserves to be known. And some details — the babies given sleeping pills so they make no sound while in hiding, for example — cast new light on a subject that could otherwise feel almost too familiar because of the many books and films documenting life under Nazi occupation.
Nevertheless, the book left me wanting more. The translated prose can be clunky and I found the insistent use of the “historic present” grating. Moreover, I never felt that Van Iperen really got under the skin of the sisters, or of those they helped. She supplies plentiful historical information but the book is written as a novel, with only sparing recourse to primary sources such as letters, diaries or even photographs (admittedly, this may not be out of choice). Given the Anne Frank connection, it is hard not to feel the book — as remarkable historical document — is the poorer for it.
When Janny and Lien are separated from their children, I wanted to know first-hand how they coped, not read Van Iperen’s dramatisation
I wanted more specific backstories of those they helped, not just names or dates, but more about individuals’ prewar lives. I wanted the personal, private facts beyond those available in public records.
Still, it is a compelling tale. Let’s hope it is just the start of bringing these two indomitable, courageous and heroic women to public attention.
Jennifer Lipman is a freelance reviewer