Dancing in Bomb Shelters

In May 1940, fourteen-year-old Johanna de Wilde was just like any other teenage girl in Nijmegen, Holland, who loved boys and music, but when Hitler and his German troops invaded her town during World War II, her life was changed forever.

As bombs exploded around her house, Johanna was encouraged by her father to document their large family's struggles to survive as they desperately searched for food; fearfully hid Jewish friends; and bravely endured SS brutality, Gestapo searches, and resistance activities. Johanna shares how she was forced to write secretly and keep the pages of her diary well-hidden to avoid discovery by the Gestapo who would have surely shot her father and sent the rest of the family to concentration camps as punishment.

As her town became the focal point of the huge Allied invasion, Operation Market Garden, Johanna provides an in-depth glimpse into how teenagers behaved during a traumatic time in history as they searched for excitement, danced and romanced, and played tricks on the enemy in order to offset hunger, earsplitting noise, and privation that persisted for five long years.