Was God on vacation?: A WWII autobiography

By Jack Van Der Geest

Book Overview

A World War II autobiography of a Dutch youth during the years 1940-1947. An extraordinary account that follows the author through the invasion of the Netherlands, home life under the Nazis,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0964961504
• ISBN13: 9780964961500
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: van der Geest Publishing and D
• Length: 161 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Strength of the Human Spirit

Jack van der Geest's chilling true story of his life during World War II should go up there with Elie Wiesel's Night and Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night as must-reads for high school students. Since Mr. van der Geest resides in the same town as I, his book is required reading.His story is one of wonder, fear, and terror, from his work in the Dutch Underground, to the betrayal of a neighbor woman that landed Jack and his mother and father in Nazi concentrations, to Jack's reluctant work as an aid to German doctors, to his escape from Buchenwald . . . And the book's not even half over. Once he's safely escaped, he takes the reader through western Europe, making trips through several countries guiding Allied soldiers to safety and working for the French Underground. In my high school history text book, an incident is reported in which Mr. van der Geest was involved in, while working with Allied forces in England. This book is a shocking account of both the cruelty of some humans, and also the strengh and compassion of others.

A 20th Century Odyssey

Jack van der Geest is what Odysseus, Private Ryan, and Forest Gump all pretend to be. His journey is amazing, his personal struggles staggering, and his contact with history is the stuff legends are made of. WAS GOD ON VACATION is sweeping the classrooms of America, and for good reason. We need heroes, badly.From Nazi occupation to a concentration camp "medical" lab, from the French underground to D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, and the post-war turmoil of South Asia, that this man survived to settle in America (and become an insurance salesman) gives new meaning and value to the American dream so often dismissed as too dull or banal to pass on to our kids.Jack van der Geest endured World War II, but chose Main Street America, where he has personally re-defined citizenship and civic duty with his life.Speilberg should have talked to Jack before he began his SAVING PRIVATE RYAN project. The story of this every-day Joe from South Dakota (by way of Holland) dwarfs anything Hollywood could ever contrive.Don't ever believe the lie that heroes are a thing of the past. New ones are born every day. Just ask Jack van der Geest.

A well documented WWII heroic action of one man

This book should be read by all high school children of this country. It is a powerful description of the conditions which existed in Europe until May 1945. As an emigrant from France I returned to Europe and was dropped into occupied France as an OSS/SOE agent. Jack's description of the French escape and evasion network is accurate. It is possible that we have known the same people because two of my uncles were involved with an escape route to Switzerland. The French resistance so often was penetrated by the Gestapo that my uncles never revealed their function to the local Maquis. My home town had several Jewish families, except for one, a school friend, all went to the gas chambers. With the help of the local population, all were taken to waiting cattle cars by the local French police, not the Gestapo, and shipped to Germany . I did not return to my home town for forty years. If Jack as a web page I will kink it to mine with pleasure... E-mail: rene@defourneaux.com

Very powerful book

As a school assignment, I was supposed to read Was God On Vacation?, by Jack van der Geest. I thought that this book was amazing. Jack has certainly lived an amazing life from escaping from the Buchenwald concentration camp to storming the beaches of Normandy. He writes in detail all of his suffering. After reading the book I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. van der Geest. He is an amazing man with an amazing story. I think that this is a much better book than Night by Elie Wiesel that has won awards. Jack's book should have won some awards. This is an exciting book, I highly recommend it.

Was God On Vacation?

This is definitely one of the best and most well-written books I have ever read. The most chilling part of the book is, even after reading it several times, I have to stop and remind myself that everything in the book is real. I have personally met Mr. van der Geest, the author of this book, and it was a wonderful opportunity for me to discuss various facets of his experiences. For me, meeting someone who saw firsthand the terrible evil and hellish nightmare that was Nazism helps me from going the way of those who would prefer to think that it never happened instead of facing it and learning from the past. To quote Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."