- 324 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
An epic memoir of one family's experiences on both sides of WWII that questions what we know about the conflict while tracing the effects of war.
In March 1942, Mieke Eerkens' father was a ten-year-old boy living in the Dutch East Indies. When the Japanese invaded the island, he, his family, and one hundred thousand other Dutch civilians were interned in a concentration camp and forced into hard labor for three years. After the Japanese surrendered, Mieke's father and his family were set free in a country that plunged immediately into civil war.
Across the globe in the Netherlands, police carried a crying five-year-old girl out of her home at war's end, abandoned and ostracized as a daughter of Nazi sympathizers. This was Mieke's mother. She would be left on the street in front of her sealed home as her parents were taken away and imprisoned in the same camps where the country's Jews had recently been held. Many years later, Mieke's parents met, got married, and moved to California, where she and her siblings were born. While her parents lived far from the events of their past, the effects of the war would continue to be felt in their daily lives and in the lives of their children.
All Ships Follow Me moves from Indonesia to the Netherlands to the United States, and spans generations, as Mieke recounts her parents' lives during and just after the war, and travels with them in the present day to the sites of their childhood in an attempt to understand their experiences and how it formed them. All Ships Follow Me is a deeply personal, sweeping saga of the wounds of war, and the way trauma can be passed down through generations.
Praise for All Ships Follow Me
"Honest, unflinching, reflective, and carefully researched. . . . Eerkens's self-awareness and desire to honestly grapple with the history in front of her is worth every sentence. Reality is never an absolute, and truth is always messy." — Book Riot
"A generational memoir of war and its long-lasting effects on descendants. . . . The author examines the psychology of loss on the part of children caught helplessly in tumultuous events. . . . The sins of the fathers are visited on their children, indeed. Eerkens' poignant book sheds new light on the history of World War II." — Kirkus Reviews
In March 1942, Mieke Eerkens' father was a ten-year-old boy living in the Dutch East Indies. When the Japanese invaded the island, he, his family, and one hundred thousand other Dutch civilians were interned in a concentration camp and forced into hard labor for three years. After the Japanese surrendered, Mieke's father and his family were set free in a country that plunged immediately into civil war.
Across the globe in the Netherlands, police carried a crying five-year-old girl out of her home at war's end, abandoned and ostracized as a daughter of Nazi sympathizers. This was Mieke's mother. She would be left on the street in front of her sealed home as her parents were taken away and imprisoned in the same camps where the country's Jews had recently been held. Many years later, Mieke's parents met, got married, and moved to California, where she and her siblings were born. While her parents lived far from the events of their past, the effects of the war would continue to be felt in their daily lives and in the lives of their children.
All Ships Follow Me moves from Indonesia to the Netherlands to the United States, and spans generations, as Mieke recounts her parents' lives during and just after the war, and travels with them in the present day to the sites of their childhood in an attempt to understand their experiences and how it formed them. All Ships Follow Me is a deeply personal, sweeping saga of the wounds of war, and the way trauma can be passed down through generations.
Praise for All Ships Follow Me
"Honest, unflinching, reflective, and carefully researched. . . . Eerkens's self-awareness and desire to honestly grapple with the history in front of her is worth every sentence. Reality is never an absolute, and truth is always messy." — Book Riot
"A generational memoir of war and its long-lasting effects on descendants. . . . The author examines the psychology of loss on the part of children caught helplessly in tumultuous events. . . . The sins of the fathers are visited on their children, indeed. Eerkens' poignant book sheds new light on the history of World War II." — Kirkus Reviews
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
- Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
- Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- A Brief World War II Time Line Relevant to the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies
- Map of the Netherlands
- Map of Dutch East Indies
- Preface
- Part I: Father
- Part II: Mother
- Part III: Coming Together
- Epilogue
- Photos
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
- Contents
- Copyright