Anna’s War by D.J. Taylor

Title: Anna’s War

Author: D.J. Taylor

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Riveted Press

Published: 2^nd July

Format: Paperback

Pages: 192

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: Holland, 1943: In the last eighteen months of World War II, 14-year-old Anna’s life is thrown into a perilous world of secrets and danger. Her once-ordinary town in German-occupied southern Holland is transformed into a war zone where trust is rare, and courage and resistance is everything.

As Nazi officers begin arresting local men and deporting them to German factories, Anna’s father hides in a cramped, secret cellar beneath their home.

Anna helps the Dutch resistance whilst avoiding the prying eyes of Nazis and German soldiers who now walk the streets she once knew so well.

Then she meets Karl, a young German translator, whose piercing gaze and unexpected kindness leave her conflicted. Against her better judgement, Anna finds herself drawn to him and begins to believe he can be trusted – especially when he keeps her father’s hiding place a secret from Horst, the ruthless Nazi officer he translates for. But as her feelings deepen, so do the risks. One misstep could unravel everything Anna and her family have fought to protect.

Anna’s War is a gripping tale of resilience, forbidden connection, family loyalties and the growing bravery of a young girl thrust into the deep shadows of war. Can Anna protect her family, or will the cost of trust prove too great in a world torn apart?

~*~

Anna Jansen is living in occupied Holland in 1943, and her family is part of the resistance movement. They’re working underground to get messages to people, and work against the Nazis taking over their home. It’s a world of secrets and danger, and a world that fourteen-year-old Anna is becoming involved in. Things are tense, and her world is changed forever when her father has to go into hiding in a secret room in their cellar. She’s keeping lots of secretes now, and becomes even more involved in the Dutch resistance.

Until she meets Karl, a translator for Horst, who is determined to find out what Anna is hiding and what is going on in her house. Everyone has to be careful about what they say and do. Who can Anna trust? Will she inadvertently let someone know their secret? Or will she feel like she is hiding more secrets from her family as things change over the final months and years of the war for everyone?

Anna’s War explores the Dutch resistance, inspired by DJ Taylor’s mother-in-law who lived through these times, and how she managed to get through it. It reflects a time when people had to make do with the things they had or could get. It was a very hard time when families never knew who they could trust, or only had very few people they could trust. It was war, and the war is constantly edging closer to Anna’s world throughout the book as she grapples with the secrets she is keeping and the son of the mayor who calls her father names and acts superior because of the position his father holds as a Nazi sympathiser.

As the novel moves through the last eighteen months of World War Two, Anna, her mother and Oma need to find ways to keep her father’s secret. To make sure Henry and Gita get through it, and to ensure that Henry doesn’t keep asking about his father. It’s about knowing what to say and who to say it to, and about when to hide things. It’s about sacrifices as well, and how there’s always an undercurrent of mistrust and not knowing who to rely on during these times. World War Two resistance acts were filled with risks and everyone who took part in them knew what they were risking at the time.

But it is the bravery of these people that shaped how ordinary people stood up against a tyrannical regime and managed to get through days where they thought things would never change. Where they had to put up with a lack of food, being hungry and not having what they needed as their oppressors took everything for themselves. Like many World War Two novels, it explores one aspect of the war through the eyes of one person and family who are affected by what is going on around them.

It contributes to the wider World War Two narrative in fiction, as every story I have read explores something different about the war and the people affected. Usually, the stories are about the people impacted by the Nazis or other invasions, particularly in Australian historical fiction. It ensures that we understand there were layers to what was going in the war, that the things that happened affected real people and the people affected weren’t just numbers. They were real. They had families, and they had ways of needing to survive. This is the power of a book like Anna’s War, and reminding people of what happened in these times.