The Pilgrims' Castle A Poet, A War, A Family's Secrets

'I love Jon Day's writing' OLIVIA LAING

One Amsterdam house. Many versions of the past. A family reckoning with the truth.

Growing up, Jon Day heard the same stories as everyone else. There was the grand canal house in Amsterdam where, during the Second World War, the exiled German writer Wolfgang Frommel had hidden young Jewish men from the Nazis. It was a place, his family said, of literature and poetry, courage and sacrifice, home to an extraordinary circle of artists and intellectuals known as Castrum Peregrini - the Pilgrims' Castle.
But in that house, friendship didn't always mean just friendship.

Talking to family, former members of the group and those who finally chose to break their silence, Day pieces together a very different story. Behind the celebrated legend lay a hidden world shaped by the inspiring yet dangerous teachings of the controversial poet Stefan George, where ideals of beauty and mentorship became entangled with manipulation, secrecy and sexual abuse.

As national memory collides with suppressed testimony, The Pilgrims' Castle uncovers a secret history of wartime resistance, hidden coercion and the competing stories we tell ourselves to survive the past.