“Watch out for the little girl behind us. She’s absolutely skeletal. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she were the next to drop dead.”

Her friend sniffed. “I’m afraid you may be right. This horrible war! I never expected to see the day when people passing away from hunger would become commonplace. Poor little thing!”

Both women turned to look at me with pity in their eyes.

I raised my chin, filled my cheeks with air so that I would look fatter, narrowed my eyes, and stared defiantly at the two women. I knew, just knew, that they were wrong. I had no intention of dying. I was determined to survive. If I could’ve, I would’ve stuck out my tongue, too! But, that would have let the air out. Sieglinde quickly put an end to my charade. “Meta, stop. You’re not fooling anyone. Everybody knows that you’re just puffing up your cheeks!” 

I didn’t answer her, but held back the tears that were pricking at the back of my eyes. I thought to myself, In these circumstances, putting on a brave face is the best thing that I can do. If nobody can see how they hurt me, then at least I can feel proud of myself. Looking down, I was delighted to see how shiny my shoes were, even with the holes in their soles. Nobody could see those, of course, and that thought gave me a little jolt of pleasure.

REVIEW:

Brave Face, based on a true story of actual people whose names are used (although many are now deceased), tells the tale of Meta, the spirited youngest daughter of a working-class Dutch man and his German wife and who would later be the mother of the co-author, Caroline Crocker.  Like many novels dealing with the Holocaust, the authors endeavor to portray their participants faithfully although the “dialogue and the personification of evil are the product of the authors’ imaginations,” hence the literary part of a history that continues to receive significant attention to this day. 

The novel begins with an overview of Meta’s early life in the Netherlands and soon introduces the reader to “der Stiefel” (the boot), in the form of fear of a Nazi soldier Meta notices while stranded at the Oberhausen railway station when her family is forced to leave Germany at the beginning of the Second World War. Meta is witness to numerous atrocities and horrors when, at only four-years-old, her neighborhood is bombed, the Netherlands occupied, and her family relocated while civilians were shot dead in the street. There are also the “constant threat of soldiers coming to their home,” and Meta grows “terrified of the potential consequences of her father’s anti-German activities.”  Further hardships and deprivations follow: sickness, disease, and dysentery along with the loss of hope and thoughts of suicide.   Yet somehow, Meta continues to survive, yet barely, so when liberation finally becomes a reality, most of what they knew—neighbors and friends as well as homes and businesses—are gone. The emotional and psychological toll of the Nazi policies along with the horrors of war itself prove to be severe, but not impossible to overcome as Meta eventually marries and moves to Canada to face new challenges in a new world.  

The novel is about the worst and best of humanity: it is about “fear, hunger, poverty, loss, heroism, sacrifice, and the delightful warmth of family life.”  Over time, and given the random confluence of luck and determination, one can survive and perhaps, with even more luck and determination, thrive. While academic texts certainly have their place, novels have the unique ability to draw a reader into the many human aspects of a story, even one as horrible and alien as the Holocaust.  Brave Face  brings the reader into a world that is still unimaginable to all but those few still alive who actually experienced the Holocaust. It is recommended to any person who wants to understand how ordinary people can survive, and even thrive, after living through extraordinary times that reveal the worst and the best of humanity.   

Dr. John Schmitz, author of Enemies among Us: The Relocation, Internment, and Repatriation of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans during the Second World War