Our Mother's War

Christina Radich and Daniel Fiske began dating in high school back in 1972. This book is the unlikely result of their teen-aged romance.<p> Christina wanted to capture her mother's story of life in Nazi-occupied Holland. She didn't know how or where to start. Dan suggested that his father Mel a former newspaper reporter could steer her to the starting line. Mel advised Christina to get a recorder and tapes and ask questions. For the next 15 or so years she taped her mother's recollections up until her death in 1994.<p> It took several years for Christina to find Lynette Bourne a medical transcriber to copy all the tapes. Then Christina brought the transcriptions to Mel Fiske more than ten years after the death of her mother. What do I do now? she asked plaintively. <p> Mel took the unedited transcriptions. He began researching the history of the Dutch people under the Nazi occupation to place the story of Christina's mother in proper historical perspective. <I>Our Mother's War</I> is the story of Aluzia Van Dalen but also that of the Dutch people from 1940 to 1945 the darkest of times for them.<p> Aluzia went through the war with one thought: survival. I haven't lived yet she told herself. <I>Our Mother's War</I> recounts her struggle to live.<p>