Max B. Heppner

Story Structure: Some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some wounds never fully heal. In 2010, Luuk Meijer, a researcher at the Anne Frank House, discovers Max Heppner’s memoir, I Live in a Chickenhouse. The book implicates Luuk’s father in a wartime murder. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Theo van Daalen unearths an artifact of past violence that sets him on an obsessive journey to uncover the region’s hidden past. As their independent searches intertwine, flashbacks reveal the same world in 1942, where the Dutch Resistance sought to protect Jewish refugees, including two boys, Felix Goldman and Max Heppner, and their families. When [...]