Glowing Reviews of The Truth Was Different
A deeply human story of trauma, resilience moral complexity, and eventually, hope
Read what these important people say about The Truth Was Different, and get your copy when it comes out!
A Compelling and Unapologetic Portrayal of a Flawed Woman’s Life and Choices
[Spoiler alert]
The subject of this biography is the author’s paternal grandmother, Marie Johanna “Rita” Ouwerkerk-Wallig; Crocker constructs this chronicle from extensive research, family lore, and Rita’s own published works.
Rita was born in 1908 in Amsterdam and spent much of her life in the Netherlands, where she was raised by a strict mother and self-absorbed father. She eventually married a man named Frederik and became a mother. When Freddie fell terminally ill in 1937, Rita faced such a severe financial strain that she made the difficult decision to place her sons in a children’s home in Driebergen. Everything changed in 1940, when she awoke to the sound of German planes flying overhead. Soon after the Netherlands surrendered and became an occupied territory, all Jewish people were required to register—Rita chose to defy the order (“You…might get away with it. You have a Gentile surname and don’t look Jewish”). This decision kept her from being identified as Jewish, but it did not spare her from food shortages, financial hardships, and the chaos and tragedies unfolding around her. While she navigated a new and complicated relationship with a man named Ernst, Rita’s brother and his family disappeared into the camps; Rita remained unsure of their fate as she fought to keep moving forward.
Crocker’s biography brings to life the story of a complicated and intriguing woman. Readers will find themselves rooting for Rita in one scene in which she stands up for herself against oppression, only to be shocked by how she speaks to her children in the next.
The complexity of Rita’s character, and her relatable humanity, render the story compulsively readable for anyone interested in history and unreliable narrators. The text includes a glossary to help readers understand the French, German, and Dutch words used throughout, in addition to multiple appendices. [Actually, it contains one appendix.]
Praise From an Influential Messianic Jewish Leader
How we respond to tragic figures reveals a lot about ourselves. It is all too easy to superimpose present-day morality on the past and pass judgment on sin and vice from a white tower of holy-than-thou integrity. Likewise, it is all too easy to excuse the moral failure of present-day reality by laying the blame in the past. Perhaps it is best that we each, in honesty, lay all our cards on the table, knowing that we are all the products of our history; the question really is: can we learn from it? Rita’s story is a lament of adverse lived experience. Rita is a tragic figure, caught in a story of lovelessness. Abandoned by her parents, with the father’s literal move to the Dutch East Indies and the mother’s emotional selfishness, the story of Rita is not a sweet one. But life isn’t full of sweet stories that turn reality into fantasy. This true story unfolds as a diary, giving it a real-life lived experience. Born from lovelessness, Rita’s life is one of forbidden love in forbidden relationships set against the dark shadow of the Nazi rise to power.
Having read Rita’s story, I feel like I have walked alongside her, watching her rebellious, irreverent, and wild nature blend with a wondrous hope, a desire for light to shine in the darkness. At times, wanting to shout at her as she made some terrible decisions. At others, anticipating that this next chapter would bring fresh hope and light. The reader is challenged by a story where so much is beyond the central characters’ control. And yet each character bears responsibility for their own decisions. This is a story of very real characters, flawed and not perfect, much like ourselves. We all reap what we sow, and yet, the Christian hope is that there is always more.
Can we see God at work in Rita’s life? Like in the book of Esther, God remains hidden for much of the story. He is rarely spoken about except in desperate prayer, often in the bitter night when prayer is truly needed. Faith was never brought to Rita through her immediate family. Yet His unseen hand is revealed at the conclusion of the book, as Caroline talks with her grandmother and an unwanted portrait, long forgotten, reunites past with present. Reminding us that faith and the Divine presence can never be removed from any human story. A loveless history leaves us longing for a world where love reigns eternal—the hope of every believer. Rita’s story also challenges us about the nature of forgiveness. I commend you to read her story and be challenged by the book’s final question: How can Jesus forgive me when you don’t know what I’ve done? The Lord’s answer that breaks through every tragedy is … ‘it doesn’t matter’!
Caroline has retold her grandmother’s story in a truly amazing and challenging way. A crafty blend of tension, despair and hope. Rita’s story is her story and the way Caroline told it makes it our story, too.
–The Revd. Dr. Aaron Eime, General Director of The Church’s Ministry among Jewish People
Parts of the Foreword by Roni Robbins
I predict you will be drawn into this family’s universe as I was – surprisingly so. As a seasoned journalist crafting new stories daily – albeit relatively short ones – I’ve been in awe of Caroline’s prolific book publishing chops for some time. Yet as a career storyteller and former editor, I’m typically so highly critical of others’ writing that I was amazed how quickly I became immersed in the narrative.
With Caroline’s evocative wordsmithing, I shouldn’t have been so stunned.
With war and antisemitism raging across the globe today and few ancestors left to share their first-person accounts, Caroline’s books play a crucial role in educating and enlightening so history doesn’t continue to repeat itself in the most devastating ways.
Recommendation by a Dutch WWII Historian and prolific author
[The Truth Was Different] is a remarkably engaging and gripping story, full of improbable twists – as are so many histories from the time of the German occupation of the Netherlands.
…pleasant to read and easy to follow…I admire the way the historical context of the occupation period is described…hardly any errors or slips in it – a great compliment.
The Truth Was Different is the accessibly written story of the impossible situation in which a brave woman found herself in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
–Ad van Liempt, journalist, TV producer, historian, and author of dozens of nonfiction books, 10-15 of them on WWII
Some of van Liempt’s books
An Insightful Review by a Psychologist
The Truth Was Different offers a compelling example of how extreme circumstances shape both character and behavior. Through Rita’s life in the occupied Netherlands, Caroline Crocker reveals that history is not only about what happened to people, but, more importantly, about who they became because of it.
The book evokes sadness, compassion, frustration, and hope as readers struggle with Rita’s choices while gradually understanding the experiences that shaped them. It avoids easy judgments and invites readers to hold personal responsibility and human compassion together. Trauma does not merely produce symptoms. It can become woven into identity, changing how people understand themselves, relate to others, and give or receive love.
I recommend The Truth Was Different to readers interested in World War II history, trauma, resilience, complex family relationships, and generational patterns. It will be particularly valuable for book clubs, faith communities, clinicians, educators, and families seeking a deeper understanding of identity, responsibility, forgiveness, and healing.
–Jonathan Hartiens, PhD, MBA, Clinical Psychologist, Dept of Veterans Affairs
A Moving Review by a Bishop
The Truth Was Different is a moving and at times difficult story of suffering, survival, and the choices people make in the complexities and traumas of life. Caroline Crocker tells her grandmother’s story with honesty and compassion, neither minimizing her failures nor ignoring the extraordinary circumstances that shaped her. In doing so, she reminds us that we rarely know the whole story of another person’s life, and that we should therefore be slow to judge and quick to extend mercy.
What moved me most is the question that quietly runs beneath Rita’s story: can a person be truly known with all her wounds, failures, and regrets and still be loved? For Christians, that question takes us to the very heart of grace. The Truth Was Different is a compelling, carefully researched, and courageously told story.
–The Rt. Revd. Chris Warner, Bishop in the ACNA
A Insightful Review by a Rabbi
As I read The Truth Was Different, I was taken into a space where I had to examine my own humanity. Life is so nuanced and complicated sometimes. I often have wondered how I would handle adversity of different kinds. Having lost my life partner recently, I have struggled to figure out who I am and find meaning in life.
I wonder whether the truth IS different and struggle with the line from the Moody Blues Song, “Nights in White Satin” that says, “just what the truth is I don’t know anymore.”
My dad used to always quote the poem “House by the Side of the Road” by Sam Walter Foss, who writes,
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat
Nor hurl the cynic’s ban-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Who knows what we would do if we faced the challenges Rita faced? I see similarities to the main character in Maus because Art Spiegelman portrays his father, and it makes me wonder: how do we really know who someone is? Do difficult situations define us, or do they make it impossible to judge because of the severity of the circumstances?
Ultimately, can we be forgiven for the hard choices we make, and what does G-d expect of us? The book of Micah teaches that G-d demands we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with G-d. But…is that always possible, particularly in Rita’s life?
These are engaging questions, and one important recommendation is that readers not read this at night if they want a good night’s sleep. This book will transform you to a place where, like Jacob, we wrestle with the angel, and who we are may never be the same.
—-Rabbi Bruce Aft, Rabbi Emeritus at Congregation Adat Reyim and Chaplain and Adjunct Professor at George Mason University
Recommended by a Leading Bishop
Caroline Crocker’s book “The Truth Was Different” is an astonishing testimony to the perseverance of a family that was battered by the horrors of antisemitism, extreme poverty, and the chaos of that era in our history, and yet survived the nightmare of Nazism and brutal warfare. It is hard to read because we would all prefer to live in a world that looks more like The Peaceable Kingdom than the reality of our battered and broken world.
Caroline’s amazingly detailed research allows her many characters, and there are lots of them, to live and challenge us with the cruel battles that they each encountered. Reading about them reminded me of that famous quote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Caroline’s determination to understand her own family history, and especially to honor her grandmother Rita, is most commendable. She gives all of us a powerful glimpse of the human spirit that will not be quenched by cruelty and conflict. The book is a masterpiece and deserves wide attention.
–The Rt. Revd. Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (retired)
A Glowing Recommendation From a Pediatrician
The Truth Was Different is the third in a series of one Dutch family’s World War II experiences by author Caroline Crocker. Rita lives through an emotionally impoverished childhood followed by deprivation, betrayal, love, loss, and abuse in the context of World War II in the Netherlands. In an era when women’s opportunities and options were limited, she makes fateful choices that perpetuate a legacy of both trauma and endurance for her two young sons. This is one woman’s story of survival and impossible choices. The truth really is different, complex, and beyond our imagination, and the book is an immersive, gripping read.
–Teresa Kosciuk Rowe, MD, Pediatrician, Virginia Hospital Center
[Spoiler Alert]
A good number of readers will find much to interest them in this story of a woman who survived war and occupation completely on her own terms.
Caroline Crocker’s new book, “The Truth Was Different: One Woman’s Journey Through Occupied Holland,” is based on five books written by Crocker’s grandmother, Rita. Crocker added material gleaned from extensive archival research, interviews, and information from museums, family documents, and numerous other sources to produce an original narrative nonfiction book…The first quarter of the book covers Rita’s childhood and young adulthood, years before the Nazis invade. She was born in 1908 to a wealthy couple whose marriage quickly turned sour. Their high-spirited daughter reacted to her parents’ turmoil by becoming cheeky and sarcastic, eventually engaging in her own illicit affair with a married man.
…the Nazi invasion chapters when the story becomes quite compelling as it chronicles the emotional reaction of one woman to the unthinkable:
“As we listened to the news, logic fled. Instead, I was at the mercy of the power and strength, the comfort and terror, and the unimaginable tenacity of the RUMOR. At first, I believed everything. The English are coming. The English are not coming. Holland has been flooded. Nee, only the East. The Germans can’t win, and the whole world will revolt against this. The Queen and royal household have fled because they’re cowards. Nee, they’re brave and will get help in England. The rumor stream would not be stopped, and we believed everything. Fear eliminated our capacity for rationality. My critical nature repeatedly tried to reassert itself, but time and again, common sense would fail, and I’d defend nonsensical assumptions as fervently as I had condemned them in others.”
The personal testimony of a single witness can often be more immediate and startling than any photograph or film clip, and this is certainly the case when Rita first encounters Luftwaffe-decimated Rotterdam:
“I’d never really known my way around Rotterdam, but now I stood no chance. My eyes searched for something, anything, that looked familiar, a house or shop that would show me where I was. There was nothing. The air trembled hot above charred wall fragments, the remnants of a chimney, and a staircase in what had once been a room.
Hesitantly, I crossed the square to a place free of rubble, pausing to watch scavengers with red handkerchiefs on their heads perform a macabre dance. One of them was beating an empty can like a drum. Mesmerized, I felt goosebumps rise on the back of my neck.”
When the Nazis order people with at least one Jewish grandparent to register with the authorities, the blue-eyed, Aryan-appearing Rita (who had not one but two Jewish grandparents) ignores the edict, and goes about the work of survival. This section of the book details something not often shown in WWII stories: the exhausting tedium of existence under occupation. Rita continually seeks better paying work, hides foolish family members who take advantage of her, wards off unwanted sexual advances, walks the treacherous line of hating the Germans while being careful to not publicize those sentiments, all under the shadow of the deadly swastika.
While the historical backdrop to most of this narrative nonfiction book, the 20th century’s most horrific conflict, fascinates at times, “The Truth Was Different” is really about Rita. She’s the most likeable character in her story, but was she really the person she describes herself to be? Was the real Rita truly surrounded by utter vapidity? Or did she exaggerate the flaws of others to make herself look better? And it greatly puzzled me as to why her children were sometimes not glad to see her.
The post-war chapters chronicle these relationships tanking even more, which made for difficult reading. But at the very end of the book, Rita encounters her teenaged granddaughter, the author of this book, and it is somewhat refreshing to see love offered to the crusty old woman by one of her descendants. I’m not sure it’s the most satisfying denouement to this story, but it’s likely the only one possible and is not without its charm.
In the process of writing this book, Crocker’s opinion of her grandmother changed from mild shame to gratitude and pride in being “the granddaughter of [an] honest and courageous woman.” I did not share this assessment, but I can certainly understand how and why a granddaughter, or any of Rita’s descendants, might feel that way after getting a closer look at a family member who lived through one of the most tumultuous eras of the 20th century.
To do a deep dive into the life of an ancestor is a worthy achievement of which Crocker can be proud, and a good number of readers will find much to interest them in this story of a woman who survived war and occupation completely on her own terms.