I'm really enjoying your book. I love the words you choose. The colourful descriptions. It's beautifully personal. The story sucks me up. I thank you for your discipline, imagination, and talent - so that many thousands of people can enjoy it now and learn from your family story.

Today I traveled back in time. What an impressive family history! I read it in one day.

Birgit has expressed this complex topic in such an accessible way. A job well done! A real-life story, full of emotions without lapsing into drama. Wonderful! I read it in one go – moreover, a historically valuable document. Highly recommended!

Wonderful, empathetic, revealing, perfect historiography!

The story is told chronologically, and the writing style is pleasant and compelling. A glossary is included in the back, and – to top it all off – family photos have been added. I thought it was a well-balanced combination of a family story and a piece of history. I find it an excellent book that is not pessimistic despite all the losses, and I learned some too.

A beautifully told history that you will not soon forget.

For me, this book highlighted a whole new aspect of the Second World War in the Dutch East Indies.

This book shows how things went during the various occupations of the Dutch East Indies and their consequences for Victor and his family, even well after World War II. The use of Malay words made you think you were right there. The hardest thing perhaps was to stop reading. Sometimes it felt like I was sitting next to Victor in one of the Tjemara trees in the garden of Grand Hotel Lembang, and I could watch everyone without them noticing me.

This book is written in a fluent style, with short chapters with a title, so you know what is to come. The reader is triggered to keep reading, as there's often a cliff-hanger at the end of the chapter. A beautiful historical piece that I highly recommend!

Birgit, what a remarkable and loving book you wrote about the history of your father... And how both his loneliness and his resilience have become palpable. As a theater producer, I experience every day that each person carries a precious story of their own that is worth hearing and seeing. Your story not only 'frees' your dad's history but also 'liberates' so empathically and inexorably a dark side of the complex Dutch East Indies' past and politics. Your book shines a bright light on it for us to learn and heal.

A beautiful book written in a fascinating and moving way. It is a compelling story based on facts and written from a different perspective than the usual. Birgit was able to do this because the story is about her father, and she is very close to the main character, which has allowed her to describe things in a very personal way.