"A Hatred for Tulips"

[Sequoia]

by Richard Lourie

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Qo23wXN7L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg

Less than 200 pages and very, very good !!

From Publishers Weekly
According to Lourie's fictional account, the informant who turned Anne Frank and her family in to the Nazis was a mere adolescent, motivated more by a desire to feed his dying father, who was subsisting on tulip bulbs, than by an obsessive hatred for Jews or by an unalloyed greed. When the brother he hasn't seen for 60 years visits from America, self-pitying Joop confesses his terrible boyhood secret, which he claims prevented him from marrying, cultivating friendships or leading a normal life, and relives the war years. Events include Joop's brief play at sabotage (discovered by a Dutch Nazi uncle and reported to Joop's father, who savagely beats him); Joop surviving diphtheria (he's blamed when a similarly infected sibling dies); and Joop's parents' unhappy marriage and casual anti-Semitism, which cast shadows over his ordinary activities. Lourie's rendering of Anne Frank's fictional betrayer as a callous, misguided youth is stark and deftly written.

Amazon.com

[truedelphi]

1. THanks for this tip. I confess to reading almost any thing I find related to Anne Frank

In some of the books, there is mention of it being a woman who turned the family in.

When Otto Frank is asked about his feelings about this betrayal, he says something to the effect that the blame has to go to the top - indicating that you can't hate people who do irrational things because they are hungry.

When I visited Holland in 1979, I was befriended by this remarkable older gentleman who said basically the same thing.

As a junior high schooler - he had one of his fingers cut off when brought in for questioning by the Nazis.

His older brother fared even worse - he happened to be home the day that the Nazis went door to door in their residential neighborhood.

That day, all males over 13 were rounded up and taken to the local park and shot.

He also mentioned that in the final days of the German Occupation, when you walked down the street, people around you would just topple over and die from malnutrition.