"A Difficult Position for Both Sides"

Both sides are lost?

(This has nothing to do with Jewish chess history in particular, but...)

There is an old story about Saviely Tartakower saying that, observing the position in a game between two amateurs, quipped, "both sides are lost". Like most such "good stories", it is very probable that the story is simply fiction.

However, reading The Road to Chess Mastery by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden (an excellent book), I found the following on p. 45 of the 1968 British edition: the authors describe the position in the open Ruy Lopez, after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3 d5 8. dxe5 Be6 9. c3 Be7 10. Nbd2 O-O 11. Bc2 f5 12 exf6 e.p. Nxf6, as "a difficult position for both sides".

Is that in the original Dutch, as well, or is it a translation error?