Jacqueline van Maarsen Browse All Authors Famous Quotes by Jacqueline van Maarsen I was 11 when the Germans invaded Holland. I remember seeing the planes flying overhead and sensing the great agitation of my parents. I thought we might get bombed or we might not get enough food, but the idea that we faced another threat because we were Jewish didn’t even enter my head. My mother was a Parisian Catholic, and although my father had registered us as Jewish in Amsterdam in 1938 — he wanted us to be part of the Jewish community, like the rest of his Dutch family — my older sister and I weren’t really brought up as Jewish. Jacqueline van Maarsen Otto gave me a copy of the farewell letter Anne wrote to me in hiding. I was surprised because there were two letters: the second was a reply to a letter she pretended I had written to her. She wrote: “I am thinking so much of you,” and “Let’s always be good friends until I come back.” She must have been very lonely. Jacqueline van Maarsen
