War’s Long Shadow: a family’s journey

This wide-ranging memoir covers a wide, tumultuous, swathe of the twentieth century, from 1905 to 1971 and beyond, with World War 2 and the potent impact it has on an ordinary family, as its pivotal point. The story begins with seven-year-old Bill’s entry into an Australian orphanage and then asks the question: How did it come to this? From there the narrator takes us back to the birth of his parents, his father in the Dutch East Indies in 1905, his mother in the Netherlands in 1906. At the time when Fer and Beppie marry, and prepare for their life in the colonies, there is no thought that life need ever change much; they saw their life with optimism – working and raising a family in the dreamy, idyllic tropics. What could go wrong? In the course of this story, the narrator tells not only his family’s history, but while doing so, touches on several of last century’s defining themes: colonization, economic depression, World War 2, wars of independence, decolonization and immigration. All this, while also focusing on how one child, caught up in these powerful movements, responds. It is a story of how ordinary people are disempowered by the relentless force of global events and the emotions that such turmoil unleashes. In the end, the story also gives hope and suggests a way forward. — ISBN13: 9798322359098