Author Gerard van Veen (second left) with second-form classmates at St. Dominic College in Nijmegen, 1947. Photo from “Schoolboy in Wartime.”
Gerard van Veen. (HNP photo)
PHILIPSBURG–gerard van Veen appeared in television programme “Speaking of Everything” this week, talking about his autobiographical book Schoolboy in Wartime – Memories of My Early Years.
He told host/producer Oral Gibbes that sponsors of the World War II book will receive their gift copies at the book party at the Parish Hall on Back Street, across from the Cultural Centre, at 7:30pm Saturday, July 7.
“I’m inviting sponsors who contributed to the book’s publishing, friends, family, the cultural-arts- and book-loving public to join me for an entertaining book party at the Parish Hall,” said Van Veen on Thursday.
He will read passages at the book party and take questions from guests about the book’s description of family lore; discovering his parents’ resistance guns in the house; his “mission” to the mysterious Mr. Westerman on the “outskirts of town”; preparing vestments for a Nazi “soldier priest” in his Dutch neighbourhood; the disappearance of a Jewish citizen who frequented his grandparent’s shop; and his father returning from “police action” in the Netherlands East Indies.
The author’s childhood war accounts, mainly in the city of Alkmaar in the German-occupied Netherlands, are enhanced with photos of Alkmaar men forced to board trucks for work camps in Germany, women in search of food during the “Hunger Winter” and the author’s family and school life.
The former Roman-Catholic priest is the author of nine books, including Soualiga Catholica and Colorful Religion.
Schoolboy in Wartime is available at Van Dorp and Arnia’s bookstores.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/78323-saturday-book-party-for-schoolboy-in-wartime
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