Local Author and Therapist, Hendrika de Vries Launches her Memoir of the Holocaust

 

WHEN A TOY DOG BECAME A WOLF AND THE MOON BROKE CURFEW

HENDRIKA DE VRIES

Chaucer’s Books is honored to welcome local marriage and family therapist and author, Hendrika de Vries as she launches her memoir entitled When a Toy Dog became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew.

Born in the Netherlands at a time when girls are to be housewives and mothers and nothing else, Hendrika de Vries is a “daddy’s girl” until her father is deported from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to a POW camp in Germany, and her mother joins the Resistance. In the aftermath of her father’s departure, Hendrika watches as freedoms formerly taken for granted are eroded with escalating brutality by men with swastika armbands who aim to exterminate those they deem “inferior” and those who do not obey. As time goes on, Hendrika absorbs her mother’s strength and faith, and learns about moral choice and forced silence. She sees her hidden Jewish “stepsister” betrayed, and her mother interrogated at gunpoint. She and her mother suffer near starvation, and they narrowly escape death on the day of liberation. But they survive it all–and through these harrowing experiences, Hendrika discovers the woman she wants to become.

Hendrika de Vries was born and raised in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She became a swimming champion, young wife, and mother in Adelaide, South Australia. She eventually got her BA and earned a Phi Beta Kappa in Denver, Colorado. A later move to Washington, DC precipitated a search for meaning and a spiritual quest that led to her immersion in the Depth Psychology of Carl Jung, an MTS in theology at Virginia Theological Seminary, a journey to Greece in search of the mythical Goddess, and a move to Santa Barbara, California, for an MA in counseling psychology. A Jungian-oriented marriage and family therapist for over thirty years, she has used dreams and intuitive imagination to facilitate recovery and healing of trauma, address life transitions and relational issues, and empower women. The mother of three grown children and four millennial grandchildren, de Vries now lives with her husband in Santa Barbara, where she writes and swims.