Based on select writings from a collection of more than two thousand Dutch diaries written during World War II in order to record this unparalleled time, and maintained by devoted archivists, this book illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before, from the stories of a Nazi sympathizing police officer to a Jewish journalist who documented daily activities at a transport camp. Journalist Nina Siegal, who grew up in a family that had survived the Holocaust in Europe, had always wondered about the experience of regular people during World War II. The details of the past went untold in an effort to make it easier assimilate into American life. When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: How could she raise a Jewish child in this country without knowing these answers?