Blog Tour: Tulips for Breakfast by Catherine Bauer

Title: Tulips for Breakfast

Author: Catherine Bauer

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Ford Street Publishing

Published: 1^st October 2022

Format: Paperback

Pages: 200

Price: $19.95

Synopsis: As Hitler’s reign tightens on Amsterdam, Lena feels the door to her life closing. There are officers swarming every corner, and they’re out for blood.

As the days drag on endlessly, one thing becomes clear: not everyone is going to make it out alive.

A powerful and relatable tale of life, death, friendship, and the ability of the human spirit to both endure and transcend evil.

Tulips for Breakfast is set in Amsterdam during the Second World War, from the arrival of the German Army to Liberation.  For much of this time, Adelena lives in hiding in the home of her music teacher. Her Jewish parents, who fled pre-war Germany with Adelena, have left her in the care of someone else in the belief that their child’s only chances of survival are greatest if she can remain in hiding for as long as it takes to be free again. Adelena feels abandoned but finds a way to adjust, her heart warmed by memories.

A powerful and relatable tale pf life, death, friendship, and the ability of the human spirit to both endure and transcend evil.

2023 – Longlisted – Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction

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In 1940, Adelena and her friends are shocked as the Nazis continue their rampage across Europe, restricting the rights of Jews as they take over as many places as possible. Now that they’re in Amsterdam, Lena, and her friends Hetty and Double B are forced to leave school, stay at home, and adhere to curfews. Yet when Hitler’s control tightens and people start disappearing, Lena’s parents hide her with Isle Graaf in 1942 – while they try to get to safety elsewhere. For the next three years, Adelena, known as Lena, lives in safety and fear, terrified she will be discovered. She has to follow rules and stay out of sight, stay inside at all times, and hide in a cellar when anyone comes to the house or to snoop. As the war drags on, it seems that Lena will stay there forever – and she’s doesn’t know if she will ever see her parents again either. For Lena, her world is very small, until she makes a surprise discovery that could endanger many, and as the war comes to an end, it becomes a matter for survival for everyone around her – and makes her more determined to cling to what she knows and what has helped her get through the last few years, and to find her family at any cost.

Catherine Bauer’s latest book is a memorial to the Dutch resistance and the Holocaust. It is based on the story of one of Anne Frank’s friends, Hanneli Goslar-Pick, who gave Catherine her blessing to write the story, because she wanted people to continue to remember to Holocaust. She wanted Catherine to help keep the story alive for a new generation, and Catherine used this blessing, plus a multitude of research – she used interviews and first-hand accounts with lots of hidden children to maintain Lena’s authentic voice and experiences, the emotions, and the history – what they all felt, saw, heard – everything and anything they remembered to craft Lena’s story. Doing this research, plus other research with WWII historians, the Sydney Jewish Museum, and the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, as well as archived newspapers and other interviews about the late life impacts helped craft Tulips for Breakfast.

One other aspect that Catherine utilised was her Catholic family’s stories from her non-Nazi family, and the story of her father’s mother finding a Nazi greatcoat and turning into a smaller coat for her son – a symbol of oppression that had become something positive and useful, and she drew on the stories of her father’s Jewish friends who ‘disappeared’ in the 1930s. The emotional impact of Tulips for Breakfast is powerful – as a reader, you can feel the pain as Lena and her parents are separated, not knowing what has become of each other until the end of the war, hidden away from the world as they are confined by the war, and the fact that they have to hide away, or else meet an horrific fate like so many other people they knew – those who they grew up with and never survived the war. The confinement and isolation Lena goes through can resonate with readers today, as it reflects the similar lifestyle changes we went through during COVD-19, but not to the extent Lena and the other children and people in hiding went through – at least we could contact people. Lena and others in hiding were alone for years on end, with their own thoughts and no updates on loved ones – no way of knowing what was going on in the world because of the propaganda the Nazi-controlled countries were being fed.

This book affected me deeply – it is one of many books I have read about the Holocaust, but I think its connection to Anne Frank – even in a fictional way – is what makes it feel very real, and very emotional. It feels as though you are right there with Lena as she is hiding, as she fights to survive, and deals with things that she should never have had to deal with – that nobody should ever have had to deal with, see, or experience. And yet, it is a testimony to the memory of the Holocaust – those who survived, those who suffered, and those who died, as well as those who helped them. As a society, we need to remember the Holocaust. Remember what happened and who it remembered to – and books like this, when written with lots of research and a blessing from a Holocaust survivor, are necessary and important. This history is fairly recent – only within the last century, and already, there have been echoes of this happening again throughout the world. It cannot happen again, and books like this, like every book I have read about the Holocaust, is a reminder of what the world lost at this time and what we let happen.

Books like this keep history alive, and I find them very important, because they allow us to read about a myriad of experiences during the Holocaust, because everyone’s experiences were different – even if they had to deal with similar experiences. The importance in keeping these stories alive means that people never forget that the Holocaust doesn’t fade into the distance and is an act of resistance as well – an act of speaking for the victims and survivors in the light of Holocaust deniers and people who still discriminate people based on religion, or race, or gender, or disability. Lea’s story is one story amongst millions, and it gives them a voice and a name. It means that people see those who suffered through it and remind people of the resilience of these people amongst great adversity – to keep the story of suffering alive for a new generation. I think books like this remind us that something like this could happen at any time and to anyone – it takes one person and their hateful rhetoric to create an environment of fear and hatred, of danger and of a willingness to prioritise one group over another. I hope that we never forget the Holocaust and that books like this continue to be read by everyone, because it not only brings history to life, but as Holocaust survivors die, it enables their stories to continue to be told. I think this powerful book should be read widely to keep the memories of Hanneli, Anne, and every other person affected by the Holocaust alive.