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renatevanderveen's review against another edition
5.0
Zeer indrukwekkend boek over familiegeschiedenis tijdens en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Over overleven in een Jappenkamp en overleven in NL zonder je ouders die ineens gearresteerd zijn. Twee verhalen die bij elkaar komen en die je aan het denken zetten over trauma, schuld en onschuld en hoe dat doorwerkt in kinderen.
Mooi hoe persoonlijk het is geschreven. En hoe trauma in kleine dingen zit. En hoe belangrijk het is persoonlijke verhalen te horen en te delen, zodat we voorbij onze oordelen komen. Want de feiten zijn altijd complexer en genuanceerder, waardoor goed of fout irrelevant wordt.
Om nog eens goed over na te denken.
Mooi hoe persoonlijk het is geschreven. En hoe trauma in kleine dingen zit. En hoe belangrijk het is persoonlijke verhalen te horen en te delen, zodat we voorbij onze oordelen komen. Want de feiten zijn altijd complexer en genuanceerder, waardoor goed of fout irrelevant wordt.
Om nog eens goed over na te denken.
thevagabondlawyer's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
I read somewhere that memory is a wound and some things are released only by the act of writing. And I wonder if Meike Eerkens, the author of All Ships Follow Me, is writing her family's story to clean, to heal that wound or else the grangene of decay will eat her alive.
"All Ships Follow Me" tells a fascinating story of intergenerational family trauma that is both profoundly sad and hopeful.
Mieke Eerkens, the daughter of a Dutch father born and raised in colonial-era Indonesia, who later became a prisoner of war during the Japanese invasion, and a Dutch mother whose parents sympathized with the Nazis during the German occupation in the Netherlands.
Mieke is attempting to understand her family's shared guilt, the legacy of shame, and the ever-changing roles of villains and victims in their narrative.
Honest, unflinching, and reflective, "All Ships Follow Me" provides a space for those labeled as outcasts to understand their past and move forward.
Finishing the book evoked a profound sadness, not sentimentally, but in challenging the prevailing monolithic narrative that stereotypes colonialists, sympathizers, or collaborators. How do we comprehend seemingly senseless choices? How can we bring coherence to discordant narratives? How do we convince convince the world that the roles of villains and victims often change places it is dizzying?
Mieke Eerkens achieved what she needed to do—exposing her story, writing her truth, and, I believe, finding her place.
"All Ships Follow Me" tells a fascinating story of intergenerational family trauma that is both profoundly sad and hopeful.
Mieke Eerkens, the daughter of a Dutch father born and raised in colonial-era Indonesia, who later became a prisoner of war during the Japanese invasion, and a Dutch mother whose parents sympathized with the Nazis during the German occupation in the Netherlands.
Mieke is attempting to understand her family's shared guilt, the legacy of shame, and the ever-changing roles of villains and victims in their narrative.
Honest, unflinching, and reflective, "All Ships Follow Me" provides a space for those labeled as outcasts to understand their past and move forward.
Finishing the book evoked a profound sadness, not sentimentally, but in challenging the prevailing monolithic narrative that stereotypes colonialists, sympathizers, or collaborators. How do we comprehend seemingly senseless choices? How can we bring coherence to discordant narratives? How do we convince convince the world that the roles of villains and victims often change places it is dizzying?
Mieke Eerkens achieved what she needed to do—exposing her story, writing her truth, and, I believe, finding her place.
wolfaj13's review against another edition
5.0
A hard look into the role of NSB members in the Netherlands, as well as the experience of those in the camps in Indonesia. I enjoyed how she wrote the book, and also delved a bit into the psychology of her parents and their experience, and how it affected her and her siblings and those with the same experience.
abookishtype's review against another edition
3.0
Mieke Eerken’s family is in the unique position of being caught in strangely opposing positions during World War II. Her father and his family were interned by the Imperial Japanese Army on the island of Java for almost the entire war. Her maternal grandparents were members of the National Socialist Party of the Netherlands. In All Ships Follow Me, Eerkens tells her family stories and shares her anxieties, concerns, and questions about her heritage as the child of a colonialist and the granddaughter of a collaborator...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
dreesreads's review against another edition
4.0
This book is both a biography of Eerkens' parents, and a memoir about her time spent researching their lives during and after World War II. As children, each of her parents had fairly unusual experiences during and immediately after World War II. As a child she always knew there was something "wrong" with her family, and this book is the result of trying to understand her father's experiences as a POW and the actions of her maternal grandfather.
Her father survived Japanese POW camps, and her maternal grandfather was jailed post-war for being an NSB party member. She looks at their experiences, reads and researches both her grandfather's trial records in the Dutch archives and the notes of other boys interned like her father. She looks at what they went through during and after the war, and sees how both of her parents' personalities reflect traits that enabled them to survive. Her father never gives up, and drives his family crazy with the tenacity that helped him survive the camps. Her mother has an inferiority complex, derived from years of being told she and her family were "fout" (a Dutch word meaning more than just "wrong").
Her parents meet, marry, and raise a family in California, their children do not fully understand the trauma their parents suffered and how it affects their adult behavior—and how it reflects in their children as well. Eerens examines this, and also looks at the attempts by Dutch colonists to get repatriations from the Japanese government, as well as the fact of having colonizers in her immediate family. She looks at the idea of "good" vs "bad" during WWII and in today's current events. She does not attempt to give an answer, as there is no one answer. There is a lot of self-reflection on her part, as she attempts to better understand and heal from the internalized guilt she carries.
———
Eerkens' father grew up in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), as did his father and possible his father and grandfather before him. When Japan invaded Indonesia, the Dutch were moved into POW camps, and as an 11-year-old her father was soon housed in a camp for older boys, away from his mother and siblings and his father. He spent years in this camp, watching other boys starve, die of illness, and suffer horrible illnesses and parasites himself. After the war, the Indonesians fought a war for their independence and the Dutch ended up back in the camps for protection, and were then evacuated. Her father was 15 when he set foot in Europe for the first time. He never felt at home there.
Eerkens' mother grew up in the Netherlands, and her father (Eerkens' grandfather) was a member of the NSB, the Dutch political party that allied itself with the Nazi party after the Nazi invasion. Though he did not accept jobs or items form looted homes, nor inform on those who hid Jews or had radios, he did write some articles. Her mother was 5 at the war's end, and some of her first memories of are her father's post-war arrest as a collaborator, and then her mother's arrest and she living in the young children's ward of a Children's Home. After her mother was let go with time served, she reclaimed her children and finally found a place to raise them. Her father was jailed, and later had to work in Amsterdam and only see the family on weekends.
————
Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for providing me with an egalley in exchange for an honest review.
Her father survived Japanese POW camps, and her maternal grandfather was jailed post-war for being an NSB party member. She looks at their experiences, reads and researches both her grandfather's trial records in the Dutch archives and the notes of other boys interned like her father. She looks at what they went through during and after the war, and sees how both of her parents' personalities reflect traits that enabled them to survive. Her father never gives up, and drives his family crazy with the tenacity that helped him survive the camps. Her mother has an inferiority complex, derived from years of being told she and her family were "fout" (a Dutch word meaning more than just "wrong").
Her parents meet, marry, and raise a family in California, their children do not fully understand the trauma their parents suffered and how it affects their adult behavior—and how it reflects in their children as well. Eerens examines this, and also looks at the attempts by Dutch colonists to get repatriations from the Japanese government, as well as the fact of having colonizers in her immediate family. She looks at the idea of "good" vs "bad" during WWII and in today's current events. She does not attempt to give an answer, as there is no one answer. There is a lot of self-reflection on her part, as she attempts to better understand and heal from the internalized guilt she carries.
———
Eerkens' father grew up in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), as did his father and possible his father and grandfather before him. When Japan invaded Indonesia, the Dutch were moved into POW camps, and as an 11-year-old her father was soon housed in a camp for older boys, away from his mother and siblings and his father. He spent years in this camp, watching other boys starve, die of illness, and suffer horrible illnesses and parasites himself. After the war, the Indonesians fought a war for their independence and the Dutch ended up back in the camps for protection, and were then evacuated. Her father was 15 when he set foot in Europe for the first time. He never felt at home there.
Eerkens' mother grew up in the Netherlands, and her father (Eerkens' grandfather) was a member of the NSB, the Dutch political party that allied itself with the Nazi party after the Nazi invasion. Though he did not accept jobs or items form looted homes, nor inform on those who hid Jews or had radios, he did write some articles. Her mother was 5 at the war's end, and some of her first memories of are her father's post-war arrest as a collaborator, and then her mother's arrest and she living in the young children's ward of a Children's Home. After her mother was let go with time served, she reclaimed her children and finally found a place to raise them. Her father was jailed, and later had to work in Amsterdam and only see the family on weekends.
————
Thanks to NetGalley and Picador for providing me with an egalley in exchange for an honest review.
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