My Sins Go With Me

A Story of Heroism and Betrayal in the Dutch Resistance

Martin Sixsmith

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• eBook ISBN:
  9781471149863
• Year: 2024

‘Highly engaging . . . The creeping escalation of oppression and rebellion is often thrillingly told . . . A powerful story of a history that remains far from settled’ Daily Telegraph

In the darkest days of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Anna-Maria van der Vaart sheltered Allied pilots, gave refuge to persecuted Jews and participated in audacious acts of sabotage. She survived when others did not, a witness to their courage and to the terrible treachery that betrayed so many of them to the Nazis.

Tens of thousands of Dutchmen elected to fight with the Germans, while many civilians turned over their Jewish neighbours to an almost certain death. Holland’s Jewish leaders prevaricated, hoping to save their people and their own skins. But the exploits of the Dutch Resistance produced unimaginable heroism and unparalleled self-sacrifice.

A chance meeting with Martin Sixsmith in 2019 led to Anna-Maria telling him her story. In Dutch and German archives, interviews with survivors, personal diaries and contentious memoirs by those with things to hide, Sixsmith came across a drama on a scale he could never have imagined.

My Sins Go with Me is a story of remarkable bravery, and of cowardice and betrayal in the hardest of times.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Invasion 1940
• Chapter 2: Resistance Begins
• Chapter 3: The Ghetto
• Chapter 4: The Dilemma of Resistance
• Chapter 5: The Final Solution
• Chapter 6: V-Men: Traitors and Spies
• Chapter 7: The Resistance Fights Back
• Chapter 8: Roundups
• Chapter 9: Deportations to the East
• Chapter 10: Women’s Work
• Chapter 11: Forging Freedom
• Chapter 12: The Fight Intensifies
• Chapter 13: A Lucrative Business
• Chapter 14: Destroying the Records
• Chapter 15: The Cancer of Betrayal
• Chapter 16: The Murder Business
• Chapter 17: The Resistance Betrayed
• Chapter 18: Traitors Unmasked
• Chapter 19: A Last Gamble
• Chapter 20: A Traitor behind the Traitor?
• Chapter 21: Doing Justice
• Picture Credits
• Copyright