Siegfried E. van Praag (1899–2002)

Siegfried Emanuel van Praag was born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His parents were Grietje (de Jongh) and Henri (Herman) van Praag, a diamond merchant, and he had two brothers. Siegfried studied French language and literature at the University of Amsterdam and became a high school French teacher. In 1925, he married Hilda Sanders, a journalist. That same year, he published his debut novel, the first of more than 60 books. In 1936, the family settled in Brussels. After Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, they fled to London, where van Praag worked for Belgian radio. After the war, they returned to Belgian and the Netherlands, where he taught and wrote. Among his many works were historical novels and descriptions of pre-war Jewish Amsterdam, including Jeruzalem van het Westen (Jerusalem of the West, 1961), which went through numerous editions. He also wrote extensively about his own life, including the autobiography De arend en de mol (The Eagle and Me): Autobiografische schetsen, published in 1973, and Een Lange Jeugd in Joods Amsterdam (A Long Youth in Jewish Amsterdam).