Aanspraak June 2018 English

June 2018 AanspraakAfdeling Verzetsdeelnemers en Oorlogsgetroffenen Wim Aloserij, the last survivor of the Cap Arcona shipwreck bears no grudges Contents Page 4 Speaking for your benefit. Page 5 Remembrance speech of 4 May 2018 at Dam Square, Amsterdam. By Director of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) Kim Putters. Page 6-9 The last survivor of the Cap Arcona shipwreck bears no grudges. Wim Aloserij survived the concentration camps in Amersfoort, Husum, Neuengamme and the bombing of the SS Cap Arcona prison ship by the Allies. Page 10-12 ‘The bombing of the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood ruined me physically, but not mentally.’ As a child, in 1945, former Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) mayor Hans Ouwerkerk lost his father and was severely injured by a British bomb. Page 13-16 Not having a ‘J’ stamped on my identity card gave me my freedom back. The Jewish dressmaker Marga was able to do resistance work undetected from Amsterdam. Aanspraak - June 2018 - 2 Page 17 News from the Client Council. Page 18 Questions and answers. No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen. Aanspraak - June 2018 - 3 Speaking for your benefit In Italy, every secondary school pupil is encouraged Meditate that this came about: to read ‘Se questo è un uomo’ (1947) by the Italian I commend these words to you, Jewish author Primo Levi. Levi was a chemist and Carve them in your hearts a survivor of Auschwitz. At home, in the street, Going to bed, rising: This book, which was published in English under Repeat them to your children. the titles ‘If This is a Man’(1947) and ‘Survival in Auschwitz’(1959), gives an account of daily life at Or may your house fall apart, Auschwitz and how people behave in extreme May illness impede you, circumstances. The underlying question throughout May your children turn their faces from you. the book is ‘If this is a man’, which, in the eyes of the author, applies both to the oppressors and Primo Levi, from: Se questo è un uomo, those they were oppressing. Turin, 1947. When the book was published, the distant and In 1959, the book was translated into German. contemplative manner in which Levi describes One of Primo Levi’s primary reasons for writing the life at Auschwitz made a profound impression. book was to make the German people realise what It begins with this disturbing poem, which I would had been done in their name and to make them like to present to the readers of our client magazine take – albeit partial – responsibility for these acts. Aanspraak at this time of remembrance: This is a poem you will never forget. The stark contrast If this is a man between those who were living their lives in safety and luxury, oblivious to the nightmare Levi was fighting to You who live safe survive in the Nazi camp. Amongst other things, Levi In your warm houses, makes you realise just how precious a life of freedom You who find, returning in the evening, is. This is a story for everyone, young and old. Hot food and friendly faces: Consider if this is a man Who works in the mud Who does not know peace Ruud van Es Who fights for a scrap of bread Member of the Board of Directors of the SVB Who dies because of a yes or no. Consider if this is a woman, Without hair and without name With no more strength to remember, Her eyes empty and her womb cold Like a frog in winter. Aanspraak - June 2018 - 4 Remembrance speech of 4 May 2018 at Dam Square, Amsterdam By Director of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) Kim Putters Today, we are here gathered here and all over Remembering, reflecting on what happened, the Netherlands to remember fathers, mothers, helps us to ask questions, both to ourselves and grandfathers, grandmothers, children, young and old others. Remembering requires us to listen to one – everyone! We will commemorate them together. another. It’s at times when the differences between This year at Dam Square, the wreaths will be laid by population groups become greater, that we should scouts and sea cadets from Friesland. As a young be trying to find out what is actually happening scout in my hometown of Hardinxveld, I was afforded with other people. Remembering forces us to ask that same privilege one 4 May. I remember how ourselves whether we are prepared to hear the truth, special it felt. My scoutmaster, Bas de Mik, told me whether we are able to gather information before that the war was also about me. When I asked him drawing conclusions about other people, whether why, he answered, ‘Why do you think?’. I didn’t know we view the events from different perspectives, what to say and didn’t ask any further questions. and whether we reject lies and fight against discrimination, whatever the reasons. As members My grandfather, bargee Gerrit Putters, had a box of a free and engaged society, we must be prepared containing items from the war. He showed me the to be open to facts and modify our views. ration coupons and boatmaster’s certificates from that time, frowned, wrinkling his forehead, and I think my scoutmaster was trying to say that we can didn’t say much more after that. I saw it was difficult learn from World War II, that we should listen to the for him, so being a small boy, I didn’t ask any more stories of those who lived through it, that we should questions. It wasn’t until much later that I realised pass on those stories to subsequent generations, he was angry at the ‘Jerries’, as he called them, and that we should learn to question injustice in and that those items brought back all kinds of these times, fight it, and continue to search for memories. How I wish I had asked him some more answers. We should reach out, be open to others, questions. ask questions, and enter into dialogue about the limits of our freedom – with ourselves, with others, ‘Resistance doesn’t begin with big words but with the world. with small deeds’, as Remco Campert wrote in the poem ‘Someone Asks the Question’, which Remco Campert closed his poem with the holds a very special place in my heart. Campert following lines: was not even fourteen years old when his father, ‘Asking yourself a question resistance member and poet Jan Campert, died That’s where resistance starts at Neuengamme concentration camp in 1943. And then asking someone else the same question.’ Aanspraak - June 2018 - 5 The last survivor of the Cap Arcona shipwreck bears no grudges Wim Aloserij survived the concentration camps in Amersfoort, Husum, Neuengamme and the bombing of the SS Cap Arcona prison ship by the Allies. When we visit his home in Lochem, we are greeted but being unemployed and relying on charity during by a well-groomed elderly man, impeccably the crisis years, my mother barely managed to make dressed in a suit, with a twinkle in his eye. War ends meet. This meant that Jo and I had to start victim Wim Aloserij and his biographer, Frank working at a very early age. The only person to take Krake, both have something to celebrate, because me under his wing was the butcher in our street, and today, 11 April 2018, ‘De laatste getuige’ [the last he let me learn on the job with him. I earned 7.50 survivor], the book on Wim’s wartime experiences, guilders a week, 6.50 of which I would give to my has reached number three in the Libris literary mother. The rest I would share with Jo.’ top ten. They are currently giving talks across the Netherlands on the book, for which Krake spent a Escape from the Arbeitseinzatz year delving into war records. Together, Krake and ‘The day war broke out, I was working in the 94-year-old Wim also visited all of the places where butcher’s shop and everybody was talking about Wim was imprisoned during the war. ‘There was it. There was a marine barracks nearby that was a time when I was unable to speak about the war, occupied by German marines who would buy large but now I’m pleased it’s getting so much attention’, quantities of meat from us. Some of them were OK Wim explains in his charming Amsterdam accent. and some weren’t, as is the case everywhere. A short while later, I was called up to work in Germany for Kattenburg in a time of crisis the Arbeitseinsatz, but I ignored it. Two German Wim starts talking: ‘I was born on 8 August 1923 soldiers came to the shop, accompanied by two into a Roman Catholic family who were living on members of the Dutch National Socialist Movement Kleine Kattenburgerstraat in Amsterdam. My father (NSB), and enquired about me. The butcher protested had died of a lung disease two months before. and told them I was indispensable, but it was no use. I had one older sister, Jo, and, later, a younger I was told to report, and was transported by train half-brother, Henk. My mother soon remarried, to to Braunschweig. By chance, I met a German girl at Hendrik Aloserij, who legitimised my sister and I. the station who sent me to someone who helped Together, they had a son, Bertus. My stepfather me avoid being sent into the camp. This young was a builder. He was moody and an aggressive Dutchman worked on the German trams and helped drunk, and would beat us daily without reason.

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