Elsa M. van der Laaken grew up in The Hague, Holland where the Nazi High Command settled during WW II. Born in 1936 to a German mother and a Dutch father, who worked for Queen Wilhelmina during the war, she observed her family’s precarious situation while living in a Nazi-occupied building called The Royal Stables as both her parents helped the Dutch resistance.

She left Holland at age 22, married and lived in various countries where her professional life focussed on Teaching English as a Second Language. Her desire to write never wavered and over the years she preserved boxes full of memoirs, articles and personal notes. In 1994 she graduated from Vermont College after studying psychology and creative writing while still teaching in Brazil. After a period of intensive research in Holland, she moved in 1995 to California where her children and grandchildren live.

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