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JOHN MICHIELSEN, BROCK UNIVERSITY i • I ; Coming to Terms With the Past and Searching for an Identity: II The Treatment of The Occupied in the Fi<;tion of Hermans, Mulisch and Vestdijk /

The popularity of Harry Mulisch's De had been somewhere else at a certain time aanslag, which was published in September things would have worked out differently. 1982, shows the constant interest that the This is especially the case in De aanslag and Dutch have had in literature dealing with the De donkere kamer. Pastorale 1943 concerns occupation of the Netherlands during World itself less with this question, perhaps because War Two. Simon Vestdijk's Pastorale 1943, it was written during and immediately after published in 1946, and Willem Frederik the occupation and its author's stay in prison. Hermans' De donkere kamer van Damokles of Vestdijk wished to render a vivid and realistic 1958 also deal with the same period. The three description of the lives of those who novels are interesting as a picture of the time; collaborated with the Germans, those who they concern themselves in part with the role worked for the underground, and those who of the resistance during the occupation and were hiding from the Germans. Even here, also the relationship between the occupied however, chance plays a role in what happens Dutch and the enemy. Naturally, the question to the characters. of guilt, both of the Germans and their collaborators the Dutch Nazis, arises in this As far as the structure of the novels is context. The three novels also present the concerned, De aanslag and De donkere kamer thesis that groups working against the enemy are the more complex novels of the three and were composed of bungling dilettantes, they are also the richest in symbols. De working either in isolation or together without aanslag is divided into five episodes or time much sense of purpose, who sometimes periods in the life of the main character, succeeded in sabotaging the enemy or Anton Steenwijk, who is born in 1933, the liquidating collaborators. year that Hitler came to power. The years that are mentioned are not only important in In addition to their value as a portrait of Anton's life, but they are also milestones in Holland during the occupation, the novels Dutch and world history. In the hunger winter themselves have a more timeless or universal of 1945, in , the corpse of that city's quality. All three concern themselves with the assassinated chief of police and Nazi individual's quest for his identity in a time of collaborator, Fake Ploeg, is dragged in front of chaos and uncertainty. Along with this theme the house of Anton's family by their they examine the role of chance or neighbours, Karin Korteweg and her father. In coincidence in human destinies. The idea is retaliation the Germans burn down Anton's stressed again and again that if an individual house and execute his father, mother and Coming to terms with the past and searching for an identity: the treatment of the occupied Netherlands 179 brother alQng with Qther hQstages. In 1952 tries to. remain apQlitical, and yet nQW he finds AntQn, who. has been brought up by his aunt himself demQnstrating with many Qthers and uncle in , and who. is nQW a against nuclear weapQns. Just as AntQn's student, returns to. Haarlem fQr a party, where father, mQther and brother died by chance, the war in Korea is discussed, and visits the AntQn is taking part in this demQnstratiQn site Qf his fQrmer hQme. In 1956, the year Qf because Qf chance: he has a tQQthache and his rebelliQns in PQland and Hungary, Castro's dentist has refused to. treat him unless he CQmes to. the demonstratiQn. rise to. PQwer in Cuba, and the scandals I surrQunding the Dutch royal family, he is / The theme Qf~e nQvel is the main character's again cQnfrQnted with the past, this time attempt to make SQme sense Qut Qf life. He thrQugh a chance enCQunter with the right­ finally CQmes to. the understanding that wing SQn Qf the assassinated Fake PIQeg everyQne's actiQns invQlvethe lives Qf Qthers. during demQnstratiQns in Amsterdam. The Life still dQes nQt make sense to. AntQn at the next episQde takes place in 1966, when· the end, but he understands that Qne must be war in Vietnam was hQtly debated, at the cQnsciQus Qf what is gQing Qn and participate funeral Qf a friend Qf his father-in-law, a in life. We are all resPQnsible fQr Qthers, and member Qf the Dutch resistance. Here AntQn AntQn finally awakens frQm what Qne critic meets the man who. killed PIQeg. The rQQk has called a "Versteinerung des·Bewusstseins" closes with a descriptiQn Qf the massive - a petrificatiQn Qr atrophy Qf Qne' s demQnstratiQn against nuclear weapQns that cQnsciQusness. 2 It is nQt just cQincidence that tQQk place in Amsterdam in 1981; here AntQn, AntQn becQmes an anaesthetist. His chQice Qf by chance, meets Karin KQrteweg, the WQman professiQn suggests that he wants to. who. helped her father drag the CQrpse Qf PIQeg anaesthetize himself and forget abQut the past to. the frQnt Qfthe Steenwijks' hQuse. From her and nQt get invQlved in cQmbatting atrocities he discQvers that KQrteweg did nQt want the in the WQrld. CQrpse in frQnt Qf his hQuse because he was afraid that the Germans WQuid destroy his A cQuple Qf images that express the theme Qf the nQvel neatly shQuld be examined mQre cQllectiQn Qf salamanders, and he did nQt want clQsely. The nQvel starts Qut with a descriptiQn to. mQve the cQrpse to. the Qther neighbQurs' Qfthe twelve-year-:-Qld AntQn, who. is watching hQuse because they were sheltering three a man pushing a bQat thrQugh the water with Jews. The novel ends with AntQn asking a PQle. The man walks back to. the stem Qf the himself: bQat to. push it fQrward and the bQat mQves fQrward. "This AntQn liked best: a man who. Was everyone guilty and innocent? Was guilt walked back to. push sQmething fQrward and at innocent and innocence guilty? The three Jews ... Six million had been exterminated, the same time remained in the same place" (p. twelve times as many people as were 10). In the Qther image at the beginning Qfthe demonstrating here; but by being in mortal nQvel, AntQn watches the waves in the wake danger these three people had saved two other Qf a bQat. He tries to. decipher the pattern that people and themselves, and instead of them they make, but he has no. Qverview Qf it. At his father, mother and brother Peter had the end Qfthe nQvel the narratQr wQnders if it perished, because of the salamanders. I matters at all. The waves have died dQwn. One Again and again, Anton tries to. dissQciate Qther symbQI that has a central functiQn in the himself frQm the events of that fateful nQvel is that Qf the SungQd, PhQebus ApQllQ evening, withQut being successful. He also. or Ra. After his parents have been taken away 180 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies

by the Germans, Anton is to move in with his her husband in a fit of madness. Henri marries aunt and uncle in the Apollolaan in his cousin Ria at the age of eighteen and Amsterdam. When the Ortskommandant returns to Voorschoten to run his father's cigar arranges for Anton to be taken there, he store and care for his insane mother. comments: "Phoebus Apollo. Der Gott des Lichtes und der Schonheit!" (p. 63). When In 1939, after the German invasion, a certain Anton hears Karin's explanation of why Dorbeck, whose likeness to Osewoudt is as Ploeg's corpse was deposited in front of their that of a print of a photograph is to its house instead of the other neighbour's, a negative, asks him to develop a film. From solution to a clue in a cryptic crossword then on Osewoudt has a purpose in life as a puzzle that he has been thinking about since member of the underground. His first act is to that morning suddenly occurs to him. The clue help execute some collaborators in Haarlem. is: "Heeft de zonnegod geen duidelijkere The next date mentioned is 1944, when omschrijving voor deze puinhoop?" And the Osewoudt hears from Dorbeck again. On the answer to the clue is "ravage" (destruction) (p. latter's instructions he kills a collaborator and 252). his wife and he kidnaps their child. He goes into hiding, is imprisoned by the Germans, Henri Osewoudt, the main character of escapes to the liberated South, and spends the Hermans' De donkere kamer van Damokles, is rest of his life trying to convince the Dutch just as affected by the occupation of Holland that he was not a Nazi collaborator. as is Anton Steenwijk. In the former's case, Unfortunately, Dorbeck cannot be found to however, it gives him a purpose in life and an corroborate Osewoudt's insistence that he is identity. Hermans also deals with the innocent. He spends the last days of his life absurdity of life and man's attempt to make thinking about the meaninglessness of life and some kind of sense out of it. Whereas finally he is shot to death while trying to Steenwijk continues to live in the face ofthis escape from prison. absurdity, Osewoudt only has recourse to death at the end. What makes Osewoudt's life so pathetic is the fact that he really has no identity until he As does De aanslag, De donkere kamer also meets Dorbeck. As he says when he is starts out with a revelatory image. "A man had nineteen years old, he has the feeling that he been drifting on a raft for days, without has done everything that needs to be done. All drinking. He was dying of thirst because the obstacles that ought to have held him back, seawater was salty. But when lightning struck that other people spend their whole lives his raft and the raft caught fire, he scooped overcoming, have been overcome by him: his some of that water up with his hands in order father and aunt are dead, Ria is a woman with to attempt to extinguish the fire. ,,3 As in the whom he has done everything he can imagine former novel, the book consists of the doing, including marrying her. At this point narration of several episodes with many years Dorbeck. the man who resembles him between them. There are also a few physically and yet is totally unlike him, enters similarities in the lives of the main characters. his life. Physically, Dorbeck looks like a successful edition of Osewoudt; whereas the Henri Osewoudt, who comes from latter's life is meaningless, Dorbeck has a Voorschoten, is brought up from the age of definite purpose in that he feels that it is his twelve by his uncle in Amsterdam, after his duty to liberate Holland from the Germans. He mother is taken to an insane asylum for killing Coming to terms with the past and searching for an identity: the treatment of the occupied Netherlan$ tl) shot some German soldiers at the beginning of met Dorbeck! What would I be without the invasion, and he intends to keep on Dorbeck? (p. 123) working for the underground. He recruits Osewoudt to help the movement and the latter At the end of the novel, when he is visited by then attempts to become as much like a priest who wants to console him, he states Dorbeck as possible. Osewoudt achieves an that he does· not need consolation. He feels identity in this manner, but later this leads to that what happened to him occurred only by his death when Dorbeck cannot be found. chance; he does not hate the people who keep Osewoudt spends the last part of his life him imprisoned. The only reality for him is hoping that a picture of himself and Dorbeck that Dorbeck exjsted and that he has to prove can be fond to prove his innocence. What a this to the rest of the world. grotesque irony then, that when the camera with which he took it is finally found and the Cor Takes has similar ideas on the role of film is developed it only reveals a picture of chance in human lives in De aanslag when he Osewoudt and the enemy, Obersturmfuehrer explains to Anton that he does not regret his Ebernuss. actions. He says that it is true that Anton's family would still be alive if Ploeg had not There are many similarities in the themes of been killed, but nothing more. If the family the two novels. The lives of both of the main had lived in another house when he was characters are altered by the occupation and killed, then that would also be true. But Ploeg they try to come to terms with this. The could also have lived in another house and occupation is described as chaos and a total then it might still have happened. According destruction of the life that they have lived to Takes, those are the truths that are useless until then. Anton does not understand the to us. The only truth that is of any use to us is chaos that he sees a a child, but at the end of that a person is killed by the person who killed the novel he is resigned to this apparent lack him and not by someone else - Ploeg by of order. In the case of Osewoudt, however, Takes and Anton's family by the Germans. If this is the only period of his life when he has Anton believes that they should have killed some sense of identity; when order is restored, someone else, he should also accept as a fact in the sense that the war is over, he cannot that it would have been better if the human justify himself to the rest of the world and he race had not existed, given its history. All love meets his death. and happiness and goodness in the world cannot make up for the loss of even one child. Chance plays an important role in both novels, His own, for instance. Takes feels that in spite as has been mentioned. At some point in De of the consequences, man has to act and fight donkere karner van Darnokles, Osewoudt the enemy, in this case the Germans, rather ponders: than to sit by passively, as Anton's father did (p. 155). Dorbeck has similar motives for How would your life have turned out if your continuing to sabotage the Germans' actions. mother hadn't been sick, if you hadn't had to look after her? Would you have married Ria? Would you have been standing behind the In Vestdijk's Pastorale 1943 the main counter in a cigar store like a retired sailor or character, Johann Schults, has various reasons a crippled racing cyclist? But if I hadn't done for joining the resistance. Born in Holland, he it, I would have been completely dependent is the son of a German father and a Dutch on uncle Bart. In any case I would never have 182 Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies mother and he has a brother, August, who is amateurs. The members of "Maathuis" spend an Obersturmfuehrer in the German army. He a lot of time talking about the need for action has changed his name from Schultz to before they decide that Poerstamper must be Schults. He is a teacher of German, who refers killed. When they do reach their decision they to that language as a "rottaal" because of the squabble about how it must be done. Much atrocities perpetrated by its speakers. By humour is derived from the description of the fighting against the German presence in disguises, involving moustaches and badly Holland he hopes to prove himself worthy of fitting uniforms that are worn by members of his Dutch nationality. In a sense, then, he is the execution party;/their first attempt to kill the druggist faihf because they waste time similar to Henri Osewoudt in that he hopes to talking to him, and not one of them has any establish his identity by working for the experience at killing a man. In De donkere underground. On his release from prison, kamer Hermans also depicts the underground although he is warned both by his brother and as a group of bungling amateurs. There by Obersturmfuehrer Wernicke to refrain from appears to be no central organization; for further anti-German activities, he decides to instance, spies sent from England have badly ignore their warnings. According to him there forged documents and money that has not are still thousands of Germans too many in the been used for years. Netherlands. Heintends to keep working for his local resistance group "Maathuis" and Another feature that both Vestdijk's and continue to kill if that is necessary. As the Hermans' novel share is the description ofthe narrator comments: petty annoyances suffered by those in prison and in hiding. Osewoudt and Schults in prison Everything for his fatherland - that's the and those in hiding at Bovenkamp's farm may way it was, one could not express it more be in danger of death, but especially in succinctly and precisely: everything for the Vestdijk's novel, the daily annoyances of fatherland; and because he was half German, being confined in a small space with other it truly was his fatherland and he could not men without their liberty are described in even stray an inch from the course that every Dutchman had to take. [4] great detail. With this Kafkaesque treatment the authors suggest that it is precisely these His patriotic sentiments, therefore, and at the little concerns of everyday life,· such as same time his strong opposition to the worrying what there will be to eat, whether or Germans' treatment of the Jews, determine his not one will catch a cold, that prevent one actions. He argues with his fellow prisoners from facing the more fundamental questions about their anti-Semitic prejudices, and he - in the words of Mulisch and Hermans, the arranges a hiding-place on a farm for his ultimate reality that is one's death. friend Cohen. After Cohen and the others hiding on the farm ofBovenkamp are betrayed In summary, we can say firstly that all three and taken by the Germans, he takes part in the novels, different as they are, deal with the execution of the Dutch Nazi druggist individual's reaction to the occupation of the Poerstamper, who he believes is responsible Netherlands by the Germans and its for the betrayal. consequences. Anton Steenwijk is marked for life by the killing of his parents and brother. The members of the underground in Pastorale As a result of their execution he questions the 1943 are depicted as rather funny, bungling need for action. In De aanslag, Mulisch also examines the role that chance plays in human Coming to terms with the past and searching for an identity: the treatment of the occupied Netherlands 183 destinies. Henri Osewoudt in De donkere for his anti-German activities, but rather as kamer finds a purpose in life and an identity revenge by the Nazi collaborator Mies by working for the resistance, but at the e~d of Evertse, whose sexual advances he rejected. the novel he discovers that no one will believe Thus we see - and it is our second conclusion him. The only reality that is left to him in the - that behind the human interest lies the view end is his death. In his depiction of Osewoudt that humanity is the plaything of chance and Hermans paints a bleak: picture of the human can look forward to death as the only condition, relieved at times by black humour. certainty. Life is ruled by forces bver which the individual has little or no control. Vestdijk's NOTES description of life during the occupation is gentler and more ironic than that of the other 1 Harry Mulisch, De aanslag (Amsterdam, 1982), p. two. There is a war going on, but people 252. All translations are mine. continue to live their life with all of its petty 2 Herbert van Uffelen, "De aanslag, ein Anschlag auf concerns. One main theme that his novel die Zukunft von gestem," Tijdschrift voor Nederlands shares with the others is that man's actions en Afrikaans 1 (1983), 148. often fail or succeed because of the actions of others or because of chance. Poerstamper, the 3 , De donkere kamer van Damokles (Amsterdam, 1971), p. 54. collaborator, is killed, but he is killed for the wrong reasons. He did not betray those hiding 4 Simon Vestdijk, Pastorale 1943 (Amsterdam, 1966), on Bovenkamp's farm; it was Jan in't Veldt, p.280. one of those hiding there. Schults is not jailed

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