Name: An afternoon with Monica van Rijn: The Memory Place
Start: 2026-05-03T16:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-03T17:00:00+02:00
Location: The American Book Center

An afternoon with Monica van Rijn: The Memory Place

Book presentation of The Memory Place: Surviving Seventeen Concentration Camps by Monica van Rijn.
About this Event

Please join us in ABC Amsterdam for the book presentation of by artist Monica van Rijn. There will be a Q&A, and Monica will sign her book as well.

About the book:
When WWII breaks out in Amsterdam, Hetty and Fritz have not yet met. Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the hostile takeover of the Netherlands, armed German soldiers appear on every street. Through propaganda and increasing restrictions, hatred is cultivated towards thousands of Dutch citizens, especially Jews. They are terrorized, and forced to relinquish everything, including their homes, bank accounts, and citizenship. Then, family and friends start disappearing.
Two months after they meet, Hetty gets an official summons to relocate, and Fritz discovers the true, hidden agenda of the Nazis, yet manages to prevent her deportation. However, the couple cannot escape and are abducted late at night during a night raid. They are sent away, separated, enslaved, and starved. While being subjected to atrocities in numerous slave labor camps and concentration camps such as Camp Vught and Auschwitz, they completely lose track of one another. Yet, they miraculously manage to keep a private vow to each other to stay alive and tell the world of the horrors of war and the wonders of survival.

About the author:
Monica van Rijn (1950) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist with more than 200 exhibitions to her name. Besides painting, she designs and makes objects with hidden compartments. Monica is the maker of the installation "Colored by War", the performance art "Evolutionary Theatre", and is the founder of Dutch Art Tours. She is the author of The Relationship Calendar and the biography about her parents called The Memory Place: Surviving Seventeen Concentration Camps.
She was born in Amsterdam and grew up in California during the ‘flower power’ era. There, she studied commercial art, sociology and psychology, receiving her Bachelors from San Jose State University. After graduation she traveled to fourteen countries and settled in Amsterdam where she still lives and works.