the war diaries front cover

The War Diaries: World War II Written by the People Who Lived Through It by Nina Siegal

£10.99

Only 1 piece in stock!

Based on select writings from an exceptional Amsterdam archive containing more than two thousand Dutch diaries from World War II, The War Diaries illuminates a part of history we haven’t seen in quite this way before.

Nina Siegal, an accomplished journalist and novelist, weaves together excerpts from the daily journals of collaborators, resistors, and the persecuted―a Dutch Nazi police detective, a Jewish journalist imprisoned at Westerbork transit camp, a grocery store owner who saved dozens of lives―into a braided nonfictional narrative of the Nazi occupation and the Dutch Holocaust, as individuals experienced it day by day.

Siegal provides the context, both historical and personal, while she tries to make sense of her own relationship to this past. As a “second-generation survivor” born and raised in New York, she attempts to understand what it meant for her mother and maternal grandparents to live through the war in Europe in those times. When Siegal moved to Amsterdam, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: Why did 75 percent of the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western European countries the proportions were significantly lower? How did this square with the narratives of Dutch resistance she had heard so much about, and in what way did it relate to the famed Dutch tolerance?

Searching and singular, The War Diaries takes us into the lives of seven diary writers and follows their pasts into the present, through interviews with those who preserved and inherited these diaries. Along the way, Siegal investigates the nature of memory and how the traumatic past is rewritten again and again.

  • Publisher: ‎William Collins (15 Feb. 2024)
  • Language: ‎English
  • Paperback‎
  • 272 pages
  • ISBN-10: 000844773X
  • ISBN-13: ‎978-0008447731
  • Dimensions: ‎12.9cm x 1.7cm x 19.8cm

About the author;

NINA SIEGAL is an author and journalist who works as a regular contributor to the Culture section of the New York Times. She is currently completing her doctoral dissertation at the University of Amsterdam’s research school for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. In addition to working as a journalist since the 1990s, Siegal has published three novels. She received a Fulbright Fellowship to the Netherlands for her second novel in 2006 and ended up settling down in Amsterdam, where she currently lives with her daughter and her dog. Siegal has won many grants and awards for her writing, including a 2021 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant.

More information View images

Christmas 2024

Last order dates for Christmas delivery. Orders placed after these dates aren't guaranteed to arrive before Christmas.
 SERVICE LAST ORDER DATE
UK Standard 16th December 2024
UK Express 18th December 2024

The museum will be closed on 24th, 25th and 26th December. Orders placed from 23rd December onwards may not be processed until 27th December. 

Shipping

We process orders daily, Monday to Friday.

Collect instore (Leeds Museum)
Collect within 7 days 		FREE
UK Standard - 3-5 Working Days £3.95
FREE on orders over £60
UK Express - 1-2 Working Days

 £5.95
UK Express - 1-2 Working Days - AGE CHECK For full-size replicas (Swords, Gimli's Axe, Gandalf Staff) £14.50
International Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout based on destination and weight.

Please ensure that someone is available at the delivery address to receive your order. Any undelivered or uncollected parcels will be returned to sender. We will automatically issue a refund for all products once they have been received back at the museum, however, shipping is non-refundable.

Age Check - 18+

All sales of replicas and alcohol require age verification. You will be asked for proof of age at point of delivery.

Collect in store

  • Collections can be made from the shop at Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds during opening hours.
  • You will be notified via email once your order is ready for collection.
  • Once you receive this notification, we will hold your order for 30 days.
  • Please bring your order confirmation and ID that matches the name on the order.
  • Limited short stay, road-side parking is available on Clarence Road or Citipark operate the nearby Leeds Dock multi-storey car park. Please note that parking charges may apply.

International Shipping

The estimated delivery time for Europe, USA and Canada is 7-10 working days and 10-14 working days for rest of the world, however this is not guaranteed. 

Please note that some products are not available to ship outside of the UK. A full list can be found on the Restricted Items page. Orders placed with a non-UK delivery address that include a restricted item may be subject to cancellation and a refund will be issued. If you are unsure, please contact us before ordering.

Please be advised that you are responsible for any import duty that may be charged on delivery of your order. If you are unsure, we advise you to check with your own customs and excise department before placing an order.

Contact us

You can find all the ways to contact us on our Contact Us page

You may also like

Recently viewed