The Mastmakers' Daughters

“The Mastmakers’ Daughters” are cousins. Rennie van Ommen-de Vries writes a detailed memoir, starting in 1901, of growing up in de Lemmer above the mastmaker shop. Her cousin, by the same name Rennie de Vries, grows up in Germany where her father is mastmaker. The German cousin becomes NAZI party member and Rennie van Ommen joins the Dutch resistance. She is arrested and the story follows her through the prisons and concentration camps of Vught, Ravensbrück and Dachau and the post war experiences of her and her German cousin. The writer has managed to reconstruct a complete story, which until now were fragmentary unpublished reports. In particular about the 200 women of the so called “AGFA-Commando”, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfa-Commando, how these brave women survived and how they sang, prayed, laughed and cried together. Van Ommen discovered, often shocking, facts and misconceptions about the war years. This is a story about a port city on the Zuiderzee till the sea was tamed to a fresh water lake, of the change from sail to steam and later diesel propulsion. Over the Mastmaker daughter’s life experiences in places like the island of Urk and the affects of the 1st World War. Rennie embraced the emancipation and became active in the first Christian women movement. Her co-prisoners elected her to be Blockälteste, as their spokesperson with the concentration camp guards. Above all this is the profession of Rennie’s faith in the Lord through her life but in particular for her and her companions during her imprisonment. The book has its own web site www.TheMastmakersDaughters.us and the original Dutch version www.DeMastmakersDochters.nl, where you'll be able to find more details and excerpts from the books.