Features
New book tells story of incredible courage shown by two Dutch Jewish sisters during World War II
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN In early August we received an email from a publicist for HarperCollins by the name of Rebecca Silver, who’s sent us interesting books to consider reviewing in the past.
Here’s how Rebecca’s email read:
Hi Bernie,
Roxane van Iperen did not know what she would eventually uncover in her home after she moved in, but later discovered it was once known as the High Nest and became enthralled with the inspiring story of its former occupants. As she unearthed the history behind her own walls, she learned it was a safehouse for Jews in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. From then on, van Iperen was determined to explore its hidden corners and found she had unprecedented access to two sisters’ personal archives to create this remarkable work of narrative non-fiction.
The High Nest was one of Holland’s most daring rescue operations conducted by Jews for Jews. Through her excavation, she learned the story of two sisters, Janny and Lien Brilleslijper, who joined the Dutch Resistance, helped save dozens of lives, were captured by the Nazis, and ultimately survived the Holocaust. Through renovating her home, the sisters’ ingenuity and drive to survive was exposed by double walls, secret doors, and walled-off annexes that were so well concealed they were left undetected for decades.
Originally published in The Netherlands as The High Nest, the book was awarded the 2019 Opzij Literature Prize, an annual Dutch award given to female authors whose work has contributed to the emancipation, evolution, and awareness of women. Janny and Lien’s story is a remarkable story of resistance, strength, and determination — one you must read to believe.
All the best,
Rebecca
Included with Rebecca’s email was the following synopsis of the book: Eight months after Germany’s invasion of Poland, the Nazis roll into The Netherlands, expanding their reign of brutality to the Dutch. But by the Winter of 1943, resistance is growing. Among those fighting their brutal Nazi occupiers are two Jewish sisters, Janny and Lien Brilleslijper from Amsterdam. Risking arrest and death, the sisters help save others, sheltering them in a clandestine safehouse in the woods, they called “The High Nest.”
This secret refuge would become one of the most important Jewish safehouses in the country, serving as a hiding place and underground center for resistance partisans as well as artists condemned by Hitler. From The High Nest, an underground web of artists arises, giving hope and light to those living in terror in Holland as they begin to restore the dazzling pre-war life of Amsterdam and The Hague.
When the house and its occupants are eventually betrayed, the most terrifying time of the sisters’ lives begins. As Allied troops close in, the Brilleslijper family are rushed onto the last train to Auschwitz, along with Anne Frank and her family. The journey will bring Janny and Lien close to Anne and her older sister Margot. The days ahead will test the sisters beyond human imagination as they are stripped of everything but their courage, their resilience, and their love for each other.
Based on meticulous research and unprecedented access to the Brilleslijpers’ personal archives of memoirs and photos, The Sisters of Auschwitz is a long-overdue homage to two young women’s heroism and moral bravery—and a reminder of the power each of us has to change the world.
Author bio: Roxane van Iperen is a Dutch writer and lawyer who resides in the countryside east of Amsterdam, in a home known as “The High Nest” which was once the center for one of Holland’s most daring rescue operations conducted by Jews for Jews. She was shortlisted for the biggest public prize in Holland, NS Publieksprijs’ Book of the Year.
Now for my review of “The Sisters of Auschwitz”: The information I’ve quoted verbatim from Rebecca Silver’s email gives as complete an idea what the book is about as one might like. The question with which I want to deal is whether I would recommend this book.
It was a year ago precisely that I wrote about a book that was also based on documents that had been found hidden for years and which opened up an entirely different perspective on certain facets of the Second World War. That book was titled “The S.S. Officer’s Armchair – Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi”. (You can read my review by entering the word “armchair” on our website when you click on “search archives”.)
Of course, there’s a world of difference in reading about a hitherto undisclosed account of what life was like for an S.S officer in contrast with the lives of two Jewish sisters (and their families), but the comparison is fair to make because, in both cases, through a combination of luck and great diligence, the authors of the two respective books were able to piece together their subjects’ lives.
As I made my way through “The Sisters of Auschwitz”, knowing that the two sisters who are at the heart of this book actually survived Auschwitz did not detract from the suspense that the author builds in telling the story. Every Holocaust survivor has their own unique story to tell, but it’s in the telling of the story that the great books separate themselves from the more mediocre ones. And, as is evidenced by author Roxanne van Iperen having been shortlisted for Holland’s most prestigious literary award, this book is not just a fine piece of reporting what the author discovered, it’s very wonderfully written.
Rebecca Silver’s email tells you about as much as you need to know about the story that was unearthed by van Iperen’s having had the good fortune to have lived in the house – the “High Nest”, which became the hiding place for Janny and Lien Brilleslijper, along with a great many other Jews, for a good part of World War II. What the author also does so well is describe the terrible fate that befell so many of Holland’s Jews during the Holocaust, when almost 75% of the Jewish population was exterminated, either by being murdered in Holland, sent to labour camps where they perished from exhaustion and hunger, or finally were gassed in death camps, particularly Auschwitz.
I’ve read before how so many Dutch citizens cooperated fully with the Nazis. It still comes as a shock to contemplate that fact because we’ve come to regard Holland as such a liberal state, which for the longest time was thought of as a mecca for those in pursuit of sex and drugs. But when you realize that 76,000 Dutch Jews were sent to their deaths, in no small part because so few Dutch gentiles were willing to come to their aid, it certainly leaves a different impression of the Dutch for Jews who might have thought of the Dutch as being active resisters to the Nazis. Sure, there were many brave souls in the Dutch resistance, but the Nazis were as comfortable in Holland as any Western European country, where they found many Dutch who were all too willing not only to work for the Nazi regime, but who were as cruel as many Nazis in carrying out their duties.
That’s not the major theme of “The Sisters of Auschwitz”, but as you read of Janny and Lien’s constant worry about being betrayed during the fairly long period in which they were able to avoid being detected by Nazi hunters, who were primarily Dutch citizens – zealous in their pursuit of Jews, it’s hard not to wonder whether there was a much deeper anti-Semitism engrained within the Dutch than perhaps we’ve thought.
While the first half of “The Sisters of Auschwitz” deals with Janny and Lien’s being able to hide from the Nazis, also their active involvement in the Dutch resistance, once the storyline moves from Holland to the sisters’ (along with their younger brother and both parents) being transported to Auschwitz, the book becomes nothing less than an outright horror story.
Before Janny was captured, by the way, she was in hiding in Amsterdam, along with her non-Jewish husband, Eberhard, where they were both quite active in the resistance. Once she is captured –and tortured, however, how she manages to endure the horrors that are subsequently thrust upon her is a testament to this woman’s utter resilience. While Lein is brave, nothing compares to Janny’s determination to carry on, no matter how many times you might think to yourself: “Why didn’t she just give up and let herself die?”
Whether it was being starved, beaten, or forced to spend hours naked outside in freezing temperatures, Janny not only managed to endure, her incredible willpower also enabled her to keep Lein alive at the same time – many times when Lein was ready to give up.
What might come as the greatest surprise to readers moreover, is the introduction of the Frank family into the story: father Otto, mother Edith, and sisters Margot and Anne. I was always under the impression that Anne Frank died in Auschwitz, but I was wrong; she died in Bergen Belsen, along with her sister Margot. If the details given in “The Sisters of Auschwitz” are accurate, the fact that Margot and Anne even made it as far as Bergen Belsen after having been in Auschwitz is largely due to the care that was given to both of them by Janny and Lein when both Frank sisters were suffering from typhus in Auschwitz.
As much as this book is a compelling read, I admit that I had a hard time with the many foreign names in the book. There are so many different characters introduced – and that is largely a reflection of just how many different Jews the two sisters were able to hide in the “High Nest” at one time or another, that it became quite confusing for me, as did the names of the sisters’ children. Still, I’m sure that if you concentrate on trying to remember who is who (and I’m terrible at that), it will all come together for you.
Just as reading “The S.S. Officer’s Armchair”, which was published in 2020, enabled an entirely new understanding of what life must have been like for an ordinary Nazi official – 75 years after that particular individual likely died, reading “The Sisters of Auschwitz” also opens up an insight into how some Jews were able to endure the tortures inflicted upon by them by the Nazis that, were it not for a quirk of fate, would also have remained undisclosed.
“The Sisters of Auschwitz”
By Roxane van Iperen
320 pages
Published by HarperCollins
Released for sale August 31, 2021
Available on Amazon
Features
The moral degradation of Israel’s far-right is even worse than you think
By Dan Perry (Posted March 27, 2026)
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
This week, an Israeli Knesset member said something that should have been shocking, horrifying and unanimously condemned.
“I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation,” said Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of the ultranationalist Otzmah Yehudit Party. Even if the “collateral damage is children or women — it does not matter to me.”
“In Jenin, there are no innocent civilians,” he added. “In Jenin, there are no innocent children.”
Kroizer was referring to a genuine tragedy: The killing of almost an entire Palestinian family by Israel undercover forces on March 15, near the village of Tammun. The forces opened fire on the family’s car as they returned from a shopping trip. Waed Bani Ohde, her husband Ali, and two of their young children Othman, 7, and Mohammed, 5, were killed. Two sons survived. The army says the car accelerated toward the forces; Palestinian witnesses say the IDF gave no warning before attacking.
It is tempting to dismiss statements like Kroizer’s as the rhetoric of the extreme. Indeed, I often find myself making that point when talking to people inclined to think the worst of Israel: They do not represent the majority, and not even the immoral government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But that, while true, is becoming a little too pat.
For it is also true that as time goes, as the wars continue and hearts harden, what Kroizer articulated is a moral framework that is steadily taking hold in the Israeli right.
That’s why the statements were not condemned by anyone associated with the government. And, indeed, Israeli far-right activists responded to the deaths with social media posts rejoicing in the death of the unarmed “terrorists.”
No senior Israeli official apologized for the shooting. No one said publicly that even if the soldiers believed they were acting under threat, the killing of two children demands something more than a routine internal review.
No official has even conceded that this type of event might contribute to agitation and instability in the West Bank, and perhaps spark another uprising. Set empathy aside; even enlightened self-interest is beyond the current Israeli government.
Yes, an investigation has been opened. But military investigations almost never lead to concrete action against the troops. A Guardian report this week revealed that no Israeli citizen has been prosecuted for a killing in the West Bank since 2020, despite a radical uptick in violence; settlers and police have already killed 10 Palestinian civilians this month alone.
The undercover soldiers, especially, are something like the real life version of the international hit Fauda, widely admired for their counter-terrorism activity. There is little appetite for throwing the book at them.
So while it’s tempting to chalk this up as just another tragedy in a long list of tragedies on both sides, it is actually much more: a devastating manifestation of something fundamental — not just a personal tragedy but a national one.
That’s a tragedy I’ve seen unfolding slowly, since even before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
I’ve seen it in the rhetoric of far-right leaders like cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But I’ve also seen it firsthand, as when I found myself on wartime television panels where I was besieged by right-wingers enraged at my assertion that innocents have been killed during the war in Gaza. I challenged one of them about whether this idea would include a two-week old baby.
“OK, maybe not the baby!” he conceded, unhappily.
The descent of part of Israeli society into this unforgivable lack of compassion is, some have argued, an inevitable outcome of indefinite control over the Palestinian territories. For years, warnings that rule over millions of disenfranchised Arabs would mutate Israel’s character were treated as excessive, even hysterical.
Israel was not a colonial power in the classic sense, its defenders argued; it was a democracy under siege, navigating impossible dilemmas. The West Bank may be “occupied” but that was justifiable because of the threat its near proximity posed. Israel’s actions might be harsh, but they were necessary, the argument went. It was said that the country’s moral core, despite pressures, would remain intact.
The initial signs after this latest tragedy are not exactly reassuring. Far from condemning Kroizer, as they rightly should have, the cabinet convened this week to offer his party a great gift: the legalization of 30 illegal settlement outposts, including some in “Area A,” which is supposed to be under full Palestinian control.
Israel did not begin this way. Its founding story was deeply bound up with an acute awareness of the need to maintain morality. The early Zionists envisioned a country that would be a “light unto the nations.”
As occupation has become an entrenched reality, most Israelis have wanted to look away; the problem is too complicated. This position may not be possible for much longer. The moral rot is too extreme. But the good news is that it has not infected everything and everyone. Israel’s public broadcaster devoted a segment to the Palestinian family’s tragedy, characterizing Kroizer’s statements as a disgrace.
The humanistic ideas through which Israel once judged itself have eroded. We must now hope that they won’t entirely vanish.
Dan Perry is the former chief editor of The Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and the author of two books about Israel. Follow his newsletter “Ask Questions Later” at danperry.substack.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
The Entebbe Alliance Reborn: Why Uganda Is Ready to Fight Iran Alongside Israel
Fifty years ago, Israeli commandos stormed the terminal at Entebbe Airport under the cover of darkness. They engaged in a deadly firefight with Ugandan troops and Palestinian hijackers to rescue over 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages. The daring 1976 raid astonished the world and reshaped modern counterterrorism, but it cost the life of the assault unit’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu.
Fast forward to March 2026, and the geopolitical script between Jerusalem and Kampala has flipped entirely. The very soil where Ugandan and Israeli forces once exchanged fire is now the foundation of an emerging alliance aimed squarely at countering the Islamic Republic of Iran.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of Uganda’s armed forces and the son of President Yoweri Museveni, recently shocked the international community with a blunt declaration.
As regional tensions with Iran boiled over into direct military confrontations, Kainerugaba took to social media to draw a definitive line in the sand. He stated that while the world wanted the war in the Middle East to end, any talk of destroying or defeating Israel would bring Uganda into the war on the side of Israel. To physically cement this dramatic pivot, he previously announced that Uganda would erect a statue of Yoni Netanyahu at the exact spot where he fell at Entebbe Airport, framing the monument as a profound gesture designed to strengthen blood relations with Israel.
While some policymakers in Washington and European capitals are quick to dismiss Kainerugaba’s rhetoric as mere social media bluster, doing so overlooks a profound geostrategic realignment occurring in the Global South. This is not just historical poetry or diplomatic hyperbole. It is the public crystallization of Israel’s new “Circle of Partners” framework, a vital evolution of Jerusalem’s traditional defense strategy tailored for an era of multi-front warfare.
For decades, the Israeli defense and intelligence establishments relied heavily on the “Periphery Doctrine.” This strategy involved cultivating quiet but robust ties with non-Arab states to counterbalance a hostile Arab core.
Today, the threat matrix has completely inverted. The Arab core is increasingly allied with Israel, while the primary existential threat is the Iranian regime. Containing and defeating Tehran’s regional ambitions requires strategic depth far beyond the Levant, necessitating a modernized Periphery Doctrine that extends deep into the African continent. Israel recognizes that securing a “Circle of Partners” is no longer optional; it is a tactical imperative.
By cementing ties with Uganda — a Christian-majority, military heavyweight in East Africa — Israel is effectively anchoring a new southern flank. The strategic utility of this partnership becomes undeniable when looking at a map of Iran’s maritime ambitions. Tehran has spent years attempting to weaponize the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, primarily through its funding of Houthi proxies in Yemen, while simultaneously seeking naval footholds in the Horn of Africa. East Africa serves as the geopolitical backdoor to this critical maritime corridor.
Furthermore, as the conflict with Iran expands across multiple domains, an allied Uganda offers Israel unparalleled intelligence-sharing nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Uganda People’s Defense Force possesses deep institutional knowledge of local terror networks and illicit smuggling routes that Iranian proxies frequently exploit. Uganda also provides potential logistical staging grounds that sit safely outside the immediate range of Iran’s conventional ballistic missile umbrella, offering Israel a secure rear base for long-term strategic planning and operational depth.
Equally important is the diplomatic and ideological blow this alliance deals to Tehran. The Iranian regime relies heavily on a manufactured narrative that pits the Global South against a supposedly isolated Israel. At a time when international forums are routinely weaponized to turn Israel into a pariah state, unconditional support from a prominent African Union member shatters Iran’s diplomatic framing. When a leading African military commander publicly volunteers his own forces to defend the Jewish state and honors a fallen Israeli hero on African soil, it signals a shared recognition of the threat posed by radicalism that transcends geography.
In 1976, the raid on Entebbe proved to the world that Israel possessed the operational reach to strike its enemies and defend its citizens anywhere on the globe. In 2026, the emerging Entebbe alliance proves that Israel possesses the diplomatic foresight to build a continental strategic firewall against Iranian hegemony.
Uganda’s willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel is a testament to the shifting tides of global alliances. If Tehran continues to escalate its multi-front war, the ayatollahs will rapidly discover that Israel is not fighting alone, and its “Circle of Partners” reaches much further than the Islamic Republic ever anticipated.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx.
Features
Iran Lowers Minimum Age for War Roles to 12, Sparking Outcry Over Child Soldier Use
The Iranian regime has lowered the minimum age for participation in war-related activities to just 12 years old, a move that will likely fuel the concerns of human rights groups, which have condemned Iran’s treatment of children.
In a televised interview with state media, Rahim Nadali, a cultural with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran, announced that the new initiative “For Iran” is recruiting participants to assist with patrols, checkpoints, and logistics.
“Since children are increasingly volunteering to take part, we have lowered the minimum age to 12,” Nadali said, urging young children to join the war effort if they wish.
Rahim Nadali, Cultural Deputy of the IRGC’s Tehran branch (Mar 26, 2026):
“12 and 13-year-old children wanted to participate in Basij checkpoints across the cities. We have lowered the age limit to 12 and above.” pic.twitter.com/lLZy9pU5xm— حافظه تاریخی (@hafezeh_tarikhi) March 26, 2026
Iran International first reported Nadali’s statement, which has since circulated on social media.
As part of the regime’s state media coverage of the US-Israeli war against Iran, this latest announcement has ignited mounting backlash over the use of minors in security‑related roles — a practice that is not new in Iran.
“Recruiting children into military activity is a violation of international laws and the international community must not stay silent,” Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad posted on social media, along with video of Nadali’s comments. “This is the same regime that lectures the world about morality. But when it comes to survival? They’re willing to send children into danger.”
In the past, widely circulated social media images and videos have repeatedly shown children and teenagers in military-style uniforms cracking down on protests, including during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, which erupted nationwide after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in a Tehran police station following her arrest for allegedly violating hijab rules.
Under international law, Iran’s move flagrantly violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly prohibits the use of children in military activities, marking a dramatic breach of its global obligations.
Human rights groups have also repeatedly accused Iranian security forces of killing child protesters during past crackdowns.
According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, more than 200 children were killed during the nationwide anti‑government protests earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving thousands of demonstrators tortured or killed.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also documented cases of children being shot, detained, and abused during these latest demonstrations, noting that government forces have repeatedly targeted minors in ways that breach international law.
Iran has a long track record of widespread human rights abuses, including crackdowns on protesters, harassment of activists, threats to minorities, executions of children, violations of women’s rights, and dire prison conditions.
During the January uprising, at least 6,724 protesters, including 236 children, were killed, with another 11,744 cases still under verification, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Multiple other reports have estimated that the overall death toll may exceed 30,000.
As in past years, executions remain one of the starkest manifestations of human rights abuses in Iran, with at least 2,488 people executed last year, including 63 women and two children, 13 of them carried out publicly.
Tehran’s latest controversial move comes as Iran has reportedly slammed a US proposal to end the war as “one‑sided and unfair,” a rebuff that has cast doubt on the prospects for a negotiated ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump has warned the Islamist regime it must reach a deal or face a continued onslaught.
“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”