Stichting 1940-1945, Loe De Jong and the Post-War Myth of Resistance in the Netherlands
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DISSENTING VOICES? STICHTING 1940-1945, LOE DE JONG AND THE POST-WAR MYTH OF RESISTANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS by Laurien Vastenhout, MA MASTER THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY (RESEARCH) 2015 UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Supervisor: Prof. dr. J. Th. M. Houwink ten Cate Second Reader: Dr. K. Berkhoff Dissenting Voices? Stichting 1940-1945, Loe de Jong and the Post-War Myth of Resistance in the Netherlands Laurien Vastenhout, MA – Contents – Introduction – Competing Narratives: the Memory of the Second World War 7 The Different Phases in the Approaches to the War 9 Successful Government-led Myth versus Dissenting Voices 26 Chapter 1 – Stichting 1940-1945: ‘Resistance’ as an Elusive 40 Definition 1.1 The Organisational Structure and Tasks of the Stichting 44 1.2 ‘Resistance’: Inclusion and Exclusion 52 1.3 The Communists 64 Chapter 2 – Loe de Jong: Shifting Approaches to Resistance 70 2.1 A Benchmark of Dutch Collective Memory 72 2.2 Resistance in Het Koninkrijk 80 2.3 Historian versus Moral Educator 96 Conclusion 106 Archives 111 Bibliography 112 Appendix 117 Acknowledgements 118 – Introduction – Competing Narratives: the Memory of the Second World War ‘Thanks to their sacrifice, a new nation will be resurrected that differs from the past, it will take a different stance vis-à-vis her allies than before. Our national resistance will be remembered as the most characteristic attitude of our people in this period of our history. It will make our history grow brighter. This, in particular, is what the Dutch people should be aware of today’.1 The days marking the end of the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1945 were euphoric; people danced on the streets and celebrated the Nazi defeat. However, their joy was short-lived. The Dutch nation had suffered some serious blows during the war. In the literal sense this concerned, amongst others the bombardments of Rotterdam in May 1940. In the figurative sense this blow was mainly caused by the rapid occupation of the country, – the struggle against the Germans in May 1940 had only lasted for five days – the relative large number of Jews that had been deported from the Netherlands and the fact that a famine had struck the Dutch nation (particularly the densely populated areas in the Western part of the country) during the last winter (Hongerwinter) of 1944-1945. The first post-war government, headed by the Social Democrat Prof. dr. Willem Schermerhorn, faced the tremendous task of having to revive the country and to restore its honour. Next to the practical responsibilities that had to be taken care of – e.g. freezing assets, trying collaborators, taking care of housing as well as the financial restoration of the country – the government also had to create an atmosphere in which Dutch citizens were willing to actively contribute to the restoration of the country. A continuous emphasis on the dreadful and uncertain period of Nazi occupation, in which quite some individuals had played a rather dubious and even collaborative role, would be detrimental to the constructive and optimistic mood that was necessary to achieve this aim. By pretending that the 1 Dutch Prime Minister Schermerhorn in a radio speech on August, 31 1945. Het Parool, Sept, 1 1945. NIOD Archief 263–7c. “Dank zij hun offer zal hier een andere natie herrijzen dan die van voorheen, zal deze een andere plaats innemen tegenover haar bondgenoten dan vroeger. Ons nationaal verzet zal als de meest kenbare houding van het volk worden aangemerkt in deze periode van de geschiedenis. Het zal er de kleur en den glans aan verleenen. Dit vooral dient het Nederlandse volk vandaag te beseffen.” 7 Dutch citizens, with the exception of some collaborative elements, had behaved in an honourable way and by focussing on the idea that Dutch society at large had been heroic during the period of Nazi occupation, the difficult history of the war could be easily dealt with. An important question that has occupied historians to date is what role the government has played in the construction of this idea that the vast majority of the Dutch people had been heroic citizens under Nazi occupation and to what extent this idea of a heroic nation was widespread and successful in the first place. The Belgian historian Pieter Lagrou has argued that the government deliberately put forward the ‘myth of resistance’ and thereby ignored the stories of persecuted groups that were not constructive to the myth that the entire society had been heroic. In doing so, the government consciously marginalised particular groups: ‘labour conscripts, survivors of concentration camps and Jewish survivors of the genocide in particular suffered from a lack of recognition of their particular fate’.2 In contrast, Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek has stated that, taken the difficulties of the post-period into consideration, the government has done all it could to pay attention to the stories of these persecuted groups.3 There was, in his view, not a deliberate intention to ignore the stories of persecution and these groups received attention at different levels in his view.4 The Dutch anthropologist and sociologist Rob van Ginkel has introduced yet another view in which he states that the government in fact did not have a significant influence on the position of these persecuted groups as they constructed their own views and memories of the war.5 If the government was indeed instrumental to, and successful in, the construction and maintenance of the all-encompassing idea that the Netherlands had been a heroic nation as Lagrou has argued, there must have been no room for dissenting voices or alternative memories that were destructive this heroic story. 2 Pieter Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965 (Cambridge: University Press, 2000), 295. 3 Martin Bossenbroek, De Meelstreep Terugkeer en opvang na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2001), 367-380. 4 Ibid. 5 Rob van Ginkel, Rondom de stilte: herdenkingscultuur in Nederland (Amsterdam: Bakker, 2011), 726-727. 8 Still, both Bossenbroek and Van Ginkel, albeit from different perspectives have indicated that memories and stories challenging this conspiracy of silence were visible in Dutch society. This thesis will explore whether or not the government was instrumental to, and successful in spread of a nation-wide of the myth of resistance as Lagrou has indicated or whether dissenting voices can be identified. Different Phases in the Approach to the War The memory of the Second World War is inevitably linked to the historiography of Dutch resistance. There have been several attempts to identify different phases in the way the war has been remembered, copying the Dutch marxist historian Jan Romein who established a theory on the way the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) – the revolt of the seventeen provinces of Holland against the political and religious hegemony of Spain – had been approached throughout history. Romein argued that six phases could be identified. First there was the chaotic reality, then the filtered reality followed by a condensed story. After that, there was the dramatic representation and then the genuine image of the war. In the last phase, a conceptual image could eventually be identified.6 Only with the passing of time, Romein argued, one is able to develop a more distanced and well-balanced approach to such a turbulent period. In 1983 Hans Blom, Dutch historian and future director of the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (the current Dutch Institute for War- Holocaust- and Genocidestudies, NIOD), formulated an alternative model in order to understand the different phases of our approach to the Second World War.7 These different phases identified by Blom will be followed. During the first phase – the immediate post-war years – the suffering that had taken place during the war was still fresh in the memory of the people. In the Netherlands, there were severe casualties that had to be dealt with. In the first place, the country had hardly provided any serious resistance against the invasion 6 Jan Romein, “Spieghel historiael. De geschiedschrijving over de Tachtigjarige Oorlog” in: ibidem et al., In opdracht van de tijd. Tien voordrachten over historische thema’s (Amsterdam: Querido, 1946). 7 Hans Blom, “In de ban van goed en fout?: wetenschappelijke geschiedschrijving over de bezettingstijd.” Inaugural lecture at the University of Amsterdam, 1983. 9 of the Germans; the struggle lasted only from May, 5 1940 until May, 10 of the same year. This fostered feelings of anger and humiliation. The nineteenth century ideal of the nation-state, which was supposed to guarantee the integrity of the national territory, had proven defenceless when faced with foreign invasion.8 Second, in comparison to surrounding countries, the percentage of Jews deported from the Netherlands was significantly higher than elsewhere; 75% of the Jews living in the country were deported, in Belgium this amounted to 40% and in France ‘only’ 25%.9 Combined with the fact that there had been relatively little resistance against the Germans during the occupation, and the fact that atrocities had been part of the daily reality in post-war internment camps for collaborators, this fostered an unstable post-war situation.10 At a later stage, the situation grew even worse after the unsuccessful decolonisation and the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949) – a struggle that lasted over four years and involved a bloody armed conflict, internal Indonesian political and communal upheavals and two major international diplomatic interventions. In the end, Dutch forces were not able to prevail over the Indonesians, and was forced to recognise Indonesia's independence at the end of 1949.11 Again, the honour of the Dutch nation had been at stake.