Our Mother's War: a Biography of a Child of the Dutch Resistance

Christina Radich and Daniel Fiske began dating in high school, back in 1972. This book is the unlikely result of their teen-aged romance. Christina wanted to capture her mother's story of life in Nazi-occupied Holland. She didn't know how or where to start. Dan suggested that his father, Mel, a former newspaper reporter, could steer her to the starting line. Mel advised Christina to get a recorder and tapes, and ask questions. For the next 15 or so years, she taped her mother's recollections up until her death in 1994. It took several years for Christina to find Lynette Bourne, a medical transcriber, to copy all the tapes. Then Christina brought the transcriptions to Mel Fiske more than ten years after the death of her mother. What do I do now? she asked plaintively. Mel took the unedited transcriptions. He began researching the history of the Dutch people under the Nazi occupation to place the story of Christina's mother in proper historical perspective. Our Mother's War is the story of Aluzia Van Dalen but also that of the Dutch people from 1940 to 1945, the darkest of times for them. Aluzia went through the war with one thought: survival. "I haven't lived yet," she told herself. Our Mother's War recounts her struggle to live.