THE CUT OUT GIRL by Bart van Es

A memoir of sorts, as well as a biography, this is a gentle and elegantly told story of a young Dutch Jewish girl, Lientje, who was smuggled out of The Hague as the Nazis were taking over Holland, into the care of non-Jewish families in the Dutch countryside. It is also the story of the author, who is the grandson of one of the families Lientje lived with as a little girl. He had grown up knowing that his family had been part of the resistance against the Nazis, and the terrible danger they constantly lived in harbouring a Jewish child. He also knows that something happened some time after the war ended that estranged Lientje from his family.  So he sets out on a quest to find out what happened, Lientje's story is, his own family's story, and in turn  it also becomes a journey of self-discovery and healing for himself.

Part of the story is how Bart tracks down the now very elderly Lientje, her reluctance to open up and tell the story, his quiet and gentle encouragement, getting to know her, gaining her trust.  There is an urgency to it all - she is old after all, he wants to get the story while Lientje is still healthy and well.

We know war is a terrible thing. People do things, make decisions, behave in ways they just would not have to consider in normal every day predictable living. Lientje's parents saw the writing on the wall very quickly, and made the agonising decision to give their only child up to the unknown - the care of others, knowing they would never see her again. He writes so beautifully of this agony, the loneliness of a little girl, doing as she is told, without fully understanding why. being taken by strangers, delivered to strangers, settling in, opening her own heart, being moved on, living in fear.

And then what happened once it was all over. Where does a young girl go whose parents and entire family have all been obliterated?

I loved this book, a sad story, but also full of courage and hope, and above all the rebirth of a relationship and deep bond between two families formed and nurtured during such a trying and difficult time.