Images of Occupation in Dutch Film: Memory, Myth and the Cultural Legacy of War 9789048527090

Table of contents :
Table Of Contents
Acknowledgements
List Of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1.Representation, Occupation, And Dutch War Films
Chapter 2.The Image Of The Enemy
Chapter 3.Dutch Identity And ‘Dutchness’
Chapter 4.Life Under Occupation
Chapter 5.Resistance And Collaboration
Conclusion
Notes
Filmography
Bibliography
Glossary Of Dutch And German Terms
Appendix Top Dutch Films By Box Office Admissions
Index

Citation preview

i m ag e s o f o cc u pat i o n i n du tc h f i l m

FRAMING

FILM framing film

is a book series dedicated to

theoretical and analytical studies in restoration, collection, archival, and exhibition practices in line with the existing archive of EYE Filmmuseum. With this series, Amsterdam University Press and EYE aim to support the academic research community, as well as practitioners in archive and restoration. s e r i e s e d i to r s

Giovanna Fossati, EYE Filmmuseum & University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Leo van Hee, EYE Filmmuseum Frank Kessler, Utrecht University, the Netherlands Patricia Pisters, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Dan Streible, New York University, United States Nanna Verhoeff, Utrecht University, the Netherlands e d i to r i a l b oa r d

Richard Abel, University of Michigan, United States Jane Gaines, Columbia University, United States Tom Gunning, University of Chicago, United States Vinzenz Hediger, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany Martin Koerber, Deutsche Kinemathek, Germany Ann-Sophie Lehmann, University of Groningen, the Netherlands Charles Musser, Yale University, United States Julia Noordegraaf, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands William Uricchio, Massachusetts Institute of ­Technology, United States Linda Williams, University of California at Berkeley, United States

WENDY BURKE

IMAGES OF OCCUPATION IN DUTCH FILM Memory, Myth, and the Cultural Legacy of War

a m s t e r da m u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Published by EYE Filmmuseum / Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Erik and Alex tango scene from Soldaat van Oranje (Paul Verhoeven, 1977). © Rob Houwer/Nedfilm & TV B.V. [mmxvi]. From the EYE Filmmuseum collection. Cover design and lay-out: Magenta Ontwerpers, Bussum Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 854 9 e-isbn 978 90 4852 709 0 doi 10.5117/97890896485490 nur 670

© Wendy Burke / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS



Acknowledgements  7 List of Illustrations  9

| 5



INTRODUCTION  

1

REPRESENTATION, OCCUPATION, AND DUTCH WAR FILMS  



Representing the past: The case of film  24 Nationhood and identity  28 Myth and memory: The re-writing of history  29 The Netherlands and World War Two: German occupation  35 Post-war considerations  40 Dutch film history: An overview  46 Dutch war films: Historical and cultural perspectives  51

2

THE IMAGE OF THE ENEMY   69 Who is the enemy?  70 The end of forgetting: The image of the enemy in the early 1960s  72 After the absence: War again on the agenda  88 Growing ambiguity: Portraying the occupiers in 1986  102

3



11 23

DUTCH IDENTITY AND ‘DUTCHNESS’   109 Big skies, far horizons: Dutchness in films from the early 1960s  112 Speaking the same language?: Blurred boundaries in 1977  121 Bitter cold, fading Communism: Portrayals from the 1980s  127 The legacy of the Dutch landscape in painting and in film  132

4

5



LIFE UNDER OCCUPATION   139 We’re all in this together: Images of family life in 1960s films  142 Division, suspicion, and the war against Dutch Jews  153 Fractured lives, crushed hopes: Trauma and the disintegration of family and friends in the 1980s  164 RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION   183 Irresistible resistance: Heroic resistance in the 1960s  186 Pushing the boundaries: Collaboration breaks through, 1977-1978  190 Shattered myths, bleak truths: Assimilating collaboration and resistance in the 1980s and beyond  200

CONCLUSION  

211

6 | Notes  215 Filmography  231 Bibliography  235 Glossary of Dutch and German terms  245 Appendix. Top Dutch films by box office admissions  249 Index  251

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Richard Howells at the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London for his advice and encouragement with this book, and for his insightful supervision of the doctoral research on which it is based. My thanks to David Barnouw for warmly sharing his expertise and for assisting with my initial research at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam. Francesco Izzo helped in accessing newspaper archives at the Filmmuseum Amsterdam. I am grateful to Amsterdam University Press, in particular to my editor Jeroen Sondervan, and to Chantal Nicolaes and Atie Vogelenzang-De Jong, for their enthusiasm for the book and their tireless assistance throughout its production. Many thanks also to Roel Vande Winkel, Leen Engelen, Egbert Barten, Frank van Vree, Peter Bosma, Ginette Vincendeau, Libby Saxton, Philip Morgan, and my colleagues in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Lastly, I would like to thank the many others who have inspired and encouraged me during the writing of this book, including Cath Brooks, Sandra Burke, Terry Burke, Judy Benson, Claire Swail, Raj Nahil, Russell Bailey, and Diane Myers. The biggest thank you of all goes to my husband, Rob Riemsma, for his wonderful positivity and unstinting support throughout, and for inspiring me to learn Dutch all those years ago, without which I could never have embarked on this book nor interpreted these remarkable films. This is for you, Rob.



| 7

NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS The translation of quotations from Dutch publications and Dutch film dialogue are my own, as the majority of the written and filmic material exists only in its original language. Two of the films analysed (Als Twee Druppels Water and Soldaat van Oranje) include English subtitles in their commercial DVD releases; however, I have used my own translations of the dialogue as there are occasional inaccuracies in the commercial subtitling. I would like to thank Rob Riemsma for helping with the translation of some of the German dialogue spoken in the films. The glossary lists Dutch and German terms commonly used throughout the text.

8 |

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Blumberg survives—at what cost? In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (Ate de Jong): page 30 2. Leiden freshers endure ‘hazing’ in 1938, Soldaat van Oranje (Paul Verhoe­ven). Left to right: Nico, Jacques, Erik, and Alex: page 22, 55 3. Ebernuss interrogates Ducker, Als Twee Druppels Water (Fons Radema­kers): page 68, 85 4. Sch- sch- Scheveningen! Erik and Guus, Soldaat van Oranje (Paul Verhoe­ven): page 92 5. Sergeant Schulz and young Anton Steenwijk, De Aanslag (Fons Radema­kers): page 105 6. Hannie Schaft’s arrest, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (Ben Verbong): page 108, 129 7a. The Avenue at Middelharnis, 1689, by Meyndert Hobbema. ©The National Gallery, London: page 134 7b. Eppie Bultsma, De Overval (Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse): page 134 8. Grandmother knits while the raid is planned, De Overval (Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse): page 143 9. Ria argues with Ducker, Als Twee Druppels Water (Fons Rademakers): page 149 10. Student friends, Soldaat van Oranje (Paul Verhoeven). Left to right (standing): Alex and Erik; left to right (seated): Jan, Guus, Jacques, and Nico: page 138, 157 11. The Blumbergs celebrate Jewish New Year, In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (Ate de Jong): page 178 12. Piet Kramer and the Leeuwarden resistance, De Overval (Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse): page 187 13. Poerstamper’s resistance trial, in absentia, Pastorale 1943 (Wim Verstappen). Left to right: Schults, Eskens, Ballegooyen, and Hammer: page 197 14. Anton Steenwijk and Cor Takes discuss the assault, De Aanslag (Fons Rademakers): page 182, 202

| 9

My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing certain except the past—were always with me. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945)

Introduction

A Dutch middle-aged couple enter the headquarters of the Sicherheits­ dienst (SD) in a district of Amsterdam. They walk across a marble floor to a soldier behind the reception desk. Several swastika flags hang in the foyer. The middle-aged woman tells the SD soldier that their neighbours’ belongings and furniture have been picked up. These neighbours were Jews. The couple’s own bicycles were in their neighbours’ shed and these have also been taken. There is a moment’s pause before she asks: ‘We happen to know where two Jews are hiding out… Can we get our bicycles back if we give up the two Jews?’ The soldier says that will not be possible, but the going rate for giving up a Jew is seven and a half guilders per Jew. She nods slightly and he hands her a form. She and her husband look at the form, look at each other, and nod their assent to each other. Scene from In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986)

This book examines shifting images of occupation in Dutch feature films about World War Two, with an emphasis on films made between the 1960s and the 1980s. It explores the complex, evolving role played by film within Dutch post-war cultural memory and asks to what extent film can represent and assimilate the experiences and collective legacies of war. The book views film as a cultural text—a representation of the past that reveals the concerns of society from the time it was made, whether this happens consciously or not. In this way, the Dutch films examined in this volume form part of collective social memory, bringing to light how Dutch society sees itself—or saw itself— during the decades after the war. Though its apparent subject is Dutch films with war as their theme, Images of Occupation in Dutch Film is at the same time an exploration of how the films of a nation re-tell the stories of its past.

| 11

12 |

The book argues for a progression from ‘black-and-white’ responses to Germany’s 1940-1945 occupation of the Netherlands—reflected in the tendency in films of the early post-war decades to portray ‘good’ Dutch citizens against ‘evil’ occupiers—towards a much more nuanced, intricate image in later films of the moral choices faced by ordinary Dutch people during occupation. This alteration in images of occupation portrayed in Dutch films is reflected in an increasing ‘greyness’ and ambiguity in depictions of ‘the enemy’, Dutch identity, life under occupation, and the resistance and collaboration. This exploration of what Dutch society chose to remember, and to forget, revealed across the decades in films about war and occupation, offers compelling evidence of the connections between filmic representation, memory, trauma, national identity, and a nation’s cultural legacy of war. What we can call the ‘sociology of representation’ helps us understand what films from the Netherlands might tell us about the times in which they were produced—the societies behind their production. The sociology of representation is not about seeking documentary truths about what is or is not being represented—in Dutch war films in this case—but rather about how and why these events are thus depicted and how visual representation can be used as a reflection of society’s latent concerns from that particular film’s era. Interestingly, films themselves often become sources of history and historical facts to viewers, either at the time of a film’s release or retrospectively, yet what interests me are the deeper layers of contemporary society’s concerns that film can and, I suggest, does reveal, often unconsciously. This is echoed in Siegfried Kracauer’s contention that ‘The films of a nation reflect its mentality’ (2004: 5),1 which resonates with one of the underlying assertions in Images of Occupation in Dutch Film: that we are not examining factual evidence or historical truths about the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War Two, nor judging historical authenticity in portrayals of real events within these Dutch films. I do not attempt to recount ‘what really happened’ in wartime Holland. Instead, I seek to understand and explore, through close analysis of cultural texts—the films themselves—shifting attitudes of Dutch society towards aspects of the war. As Dutch public opinion about the war altered over the post-war decades—including attitudes to the 1940 to 1945 occupation, Jewish persecution, the enemy, deprivations, resistance, and collaborators— so too did the presence, or indeed absence, of these elements in subsequent films. The historical trajectory of Dutch recovery and reconstruction—politically, economically, and, most difficult of all, psychologically—came to be revealed, often unconsciously, in the films from that time. Representation is a term with many interpretations, but its meaning in the context of this book is a re-presenting of facts, historical eras, people, and situations within cultural forms: in this case, Dutch feature films about the war. A

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

cultural representation of a historical event or time (for example, a painting, film, music piece, novel) can never actually be what it is meant to represent or imitate, just as the films I examine in this book can never fully recapture ‘reality’ nor accurately copy real-life events, as those moments in time have passed. Instead, I am interested in the reasons why films as a form of cultural representation are created in particular ways. My analyses recognize that images of many aspects of wartime occupation in Dutch film are social constructs. They are versions of that historical period and of those events and characters, mediated through certain learned cultural, societal, and ideological codes from the time they were produced. This corresponds to the social constructionist approach to cultural studies and representation in which Stuart Hall argues that culture is a set of meanings constructed according to systems of representation (1997: 25). Partly we give meaning to things ‘by how we represent them— the words we use about them, the stories we tell about them, the images of them we produce’ (1997: 3; emphasis in original). Hall suggests that meaning and representation depend on the practice of interpretation (62) and that the study of culture (in this case, Dutch war films) ‘underlines the crucial role of the symbolic domain at the heart of social life’ (3; emphasis in original). It is this suggestion from Hall of the symbolic and societal nature of representation, together with its interpretive quality, that resonates with my interpretive, thematic analyses of Dutch films about the occupation. An understanding of the notion of myth is key to understanding the evolving role played by film within Dutch post-war cultural memory. Myth has intricate associations with themes such as resistance and collaboration, images of the enemy, and Dutch identity. I do not mean myth in the sense of a simple falsehood or invention; instead, I suggest a far deeper societal construction. The ways in which the legacy of war and occupation for the Dutch is articulated through filmic representation is intrinsically significant. In this book I look at the occurrence and creation of myth, meaning, and social memory concerning that period in Dutch history and how this is disseminated and reimagined over time through the medium of film. Myths about the occupation in the Netherlands are examined: the myth of the resistance (and its apparent opposite: collaboration), of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’, and the powerful human potential for mythologizing through film the events, characters, and circumstances of war.2 Society’s tendency selectively to remember, or indeed to forget—whether consciously or not—certain aspects of its collective, arbitrary experiences is relevant when thinking about post-war Dutch films about the occupation. I examine the construction of myth in post-war Dutch societies and ask how and why mythogenetical representations evolve and are maintained.3 Remembering the past and mythologizing the war take place firmly within a cultural and socio-political landscape, with the media as

I nt r oduction

| 13

14 |

one of society’s main means of transmitting such myths. We discover that it is via the cultural form of film and its re-presentations and revisions of events that myth finds one of its strongest modes of expression. David Morgan sees popular culture (to which these Dutch films belong) as a vibrant, significant aspect of daily life, shaping part of society’s collective memory. The cultural artefacts surrounding us in everyday life tell us about who we are ‘by shaping our memories of the people, places, institutions, and events that have formed our lives—often in utterly forgettable yet tenacious ways’ (1998: xi). This collective consciousness and memory, especially Morgan’s emphasis on ‘tenaciousness’, is interesting in the context of Dutch collective mentality and how this is influenced by, and influences, the nation’s works of filmic representation. It also acknowledges the potential power of popular cultural forms in people’s real-world experiences. Mieke Bal describes cultural memory as consensual and collective rather than individual, with cultural memory called upon in order to ‘mediate and modify difficult or tabooed moments of the past—moments that nonetheless impinge, sometimes fatally, on the present’ (1999: vii). Bal’s understanding of cultural memory is closely connected to an underlying theme in this book of cultural coping, whereby Dutch society’s inherited traumatic memories and experiences (of long-term occupation) are re-mediated in cultural forms such as novels or films. Cultural coping also relates to the re-writing of history in which preferred versions of events are shaped and myths about war and occupation are created, particularly when some of the harrowing realities of what happened may be too difficult fully to acknowledge. As brief background to the German occupation that informs the analyses of Dutch films in this book, war began for the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 when German forces invaded, on the same day that they invaded France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Within a very short time all Dutch borders were infiltrated, and by 15 May 1940 the country capitulated under the threat of further bombing, having suffered the severe aerial bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May. The Dutch army had attempted to defend its country but was unable to resist the invading forces and had been overwhelmed. Thus began the five-year occupation of the Netherlands—a territory highly prized by the Nazi regime both for its innate wealth and also for the anticipated spreading of the Nazis’ racist ideology throughout the Dutch population once they were occupied (Lagrou 2000: 7).4 For the next five years, the Netherlands was subject to German rule under the administration of the Austrian Reichskommissar (‘Reich Commissioner’) Arthur Seyss-Inquart. The Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, fled with her cabinet to the relative safety of England to escape the threat of German bombing, where she remained in a safe house in London for most of the rest of the war. The Dutch government continued to operate in exile as best it could for

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the duration of the war. The Netherlands remained under occupation until Germany capitulated on 5 May 1945. The economic, social, and psychological consequences of five years of occupation—culminating in one of the worst winters on record, the hongerwinter (‘Hunger Winter’) of 1944-1945—were to make the post-war recovery and reconstruction of the Netherlands especially difficult. Images of Occupation in Dutch Film identifies and explores compelling links between Dutch post-war society—especially during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s—and the films made in this period about the German occupation of the Netherlands. It seeks to unravel the interconnections between the two as a way of understanding the one (Dutch society) by engaging in critical analysis and interpretation of the other (its films about the war). This provides a basis for investigating the sociological, political, and cultural trajectories of Dutch post-war society from the 1960s to the 1980s, which was a period of significant cultural and societal change in Europe and beyond. Through detailed analyses of seven Dutch feature films made between 1962 and 1986, and taking into account other films produced up to 2014, all dealing with the German occupation, this book probes contemporary social and cultural developments in post-war Holland. In dealing with any cultural form—in this case, film— and its representation of war, the tension existing between cultural works and socio-political concerns cannot be ignored. In this regard I also look at ideological issues behind the construction of filmic representations. A text-first approach is used in my analyses of these Dutch war films, for whilst the context of the films’ production inevitably is important, it is the film texts themselves that are my particular focus.5 I seek to draw out what the films might reveal about their historical contexts in order to interpret how people might wish to see themselves reflected on the screen. My focus is on the symbolic relationship between film and collective memory. With its emphasis on films as texts and as expressions of a society’s latent or underlying concerns, this book inhabits a multidisciplinary position embracing the spheres of film studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology, memory, and identity as well as Dutch war and post-war history and the occupation’s cinematic legacy for the Netherlands. Images of Occupation in Dutch Film draws together these disciplines to seek a better understanding of society’s (often unconscious) motivations and the cultural and psychological stimuli behind these compelling filmic images of war. This book deals chiefly with Dutch feature films about the war made in the period 1962 to 1986, each of which depicts the German occupation of the Netherlands in different ways. The seven films analysed in detail represent a significant era of quality in Dutch film production, embracing an evolving image of occupation. 1962 was the year the first Dutch feature film about the occu-

I nt r oduction

| 15

16 |

pation—De Overval (The Silent Raid, Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse)—appeared after a decade-long hiatus during the 1950s. The following 24 years brought significant changes in depictions of the war, changes that are at the core of this book’s interpretive, theme-based film analysis. Paul Verhoeven’s Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange) was released in 1977 and came to be highly regarded, advancing the international careers of many of its cast and crew, especially Verhoeven. Fons Rademakers’ 1986 film De Aanslag (The Assault) won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film: thus the end point of this book’s 24-year timeframe corresponds with a film of high quality and critical acclaim. In the world outside of film production, which nonetheless affected the choice and tone of the films’ topics, changes were happening in the Netherlands, especially during the political and social uncertainties of the 1960s and 1970s. The films reflect and encompass an era of significant Dutch cultural and social change. Alongside De Overval, Soldaat van Oranje, and De Aanslag, the other films examined in detail are: Als Twee Druppels Water (The Spitting Image, Fons Rademakers, 1963), Pastorale 1943 (Wim Verstappen, 1978), Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (The Girl with the Red Hair, Ben Verbong, 1981), and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (In the Shadow of Victory, Ate de Jong, 1986).6 I also look at Paul Verhoeven’s 2006 film Zwartboek (Black Book). With one exception, the films are set during the period of wartime occupation7 and were made by directors and producers living in the Netherlands when the films were made and therefore part of Dutch culture and society.8 I chose these particular films because they represent popular and for the most part critically acclaimed Dutch films.9 They illustrate notable shifts over time in filmic depictions of the war, evident even after initial viewing, and are intriguing indicators of the shifts in Dutch public consciousness about the occupation. Although there is an impressive body of academic work on the history of the wartime occupation of the Netherlands and its consequences for Dutch society—including J.C.H. Blom (1998; 2007), Chris van der Heijden (2003), David Barnouw (1986; 2005), Adriaan Hakkert (2003), Pieter Lagrou (2000), Jan van Miert (1994), E.H. Kossman (2005), and Louis de Jong (1969-88)—the majority of which has yet to be translated from the original Dutch, scholarly work in the English language on the subject of occupation within Dutch films remains very scarce. Barnouw’s 1986 article ‘The Image of Occupation’, Johan Swinnen’s chapter on Soldaat van Oranje in Ernest Mathijs’ edited volume The Cinema of the Low Countries (2004), and Peter Cowie’s brief paragraphs on Als Twee Druppels Water, Soldaat van Oranje, and Pastorale 1943 in his 1979 book Dutch Cinema are rare exceptions. Considering the impact of World War Two on the Netherlands together with its relatively recent place in history, one might expect a reasonable number of publications examining filmic repre-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

sentations of war to exist, but this is not the case. A number of relevant Dutch language articles and book sections touching on films about the war have been published—François Stienen (in Albers, Baeke, and Zeeman eds. 2004), Egbert Barten (1990), Frank van Vree (1995), Mieke Bernink (2003), and Hans Schoots (2004)—but no deeper study deals with representations of occupation in film. For existing Dutch research, English translations are not available. Images of Occupation in Dutch Film is the first book in English (or any language) to explore the evolving role played by film within Dutch cultural memory by closely examining changing representations of the German occupation of the Netherlands in Dutch post-war feature films. Its interdisciplinary themes of film, memory, myth, representation, identity, and the cultural legacy of war come together to form a framework for the analysis of Dutch war films, supplemented by references to a range of other films. It aims to bring these fascinating and original film texts from the Netherlands—most of them rarely seen or written about, even in their home country—to a wider, English-language readership. I hope that my readings of the films, particularly in chapters two to five, breathe life into them for readers for whom they are at present unknown and offer insights into these valuable cultural documents and the historical and social contexts of their production. I am interested to see if a connection can be traced, over time, between the stages of historical post-war recovery in the Netherlands and images of occupation in Dutch films. We might expect to find links between the phases of Dutch post-war reconstruction—as identified by Chris van der Heijden (2003) and J.C.H. Blom (2007)—and depictions of wartime events and characters in subsequent films. David Barnouw’s suggestion that there were already signs of ‘war weariness’ in the Netherlands as early as 1949 (1986: 21) indicates a connection between public perception and appetite for film subjects on the one hand and the films that are consequently produced on the other. It is worth remembering that the films analysed in this book, like most films, are produced by ordinary people, not by policymakers or historians. Yet films are also made for entertainment and profit, and filmmakers are rarely completely autonomous. Along the chain of production from initial concept to a film’s screening, pressures about how to deal with certain subject matters inevitably come into play. These may include concerns about the persecution and murder of Dutch Jews (and non-Jewish collusion in this), the extent of wartime collaboration, or depictions of torture and violence. Through my readings in this book, I attempt to discover whether images of occupation within Dutch war films reveal as much ‘through what is not shown, as through what is’ (Hall 1997: 59; emphasis in original).

I nt r oduction

| 17

THE LEGACY OF OCCUPATION

18 |

The German occupation of the Netherlands left behind an enduring imprint of occupation that affected the Dutch socially, culturally, economically, politically, and, perhaps most persistent of all, psychologically. The special circumstances of long-term civil occupation over and above ‘usual’ conditions of combat and warfare, and the fact that it endured for a five-year period, led to an even greater likelihood of long-term effects. Being occupied implies far more than dealing with the immediate consequences of military invasion, for the interventions of an occupying power permeate all aspects of daily life. The war’s legacy for the Dutch (in its negative sense) is fundamental to this book’s investigation into filmic images of people’s communal, arbitrary experiences of occupation and the socio-cultural reasons why these experiences are recreated and re-animated in certain ways in film. After the end of World War Two in the Netherlands, there was a period of jubilation. However, the euphoria of liberation was soon replaced by the stark reality of post-war reconstruction and of having to come to terms with the occupation and its consequences, some of which were devastating. The war’s aftermath, during which the population went through several stages of reconciling (or failing to do so)10 with the trauma of long-term occupation, had a considerable impact on the Dutch nation, as Lagrou describes: Any study of the consequences of the occupation must take into account the tremendous effort to reconstruct the nation’s self-esteem. The social consequences of war and occupation cannot be deduced mechanically, since they are refracted and recast through this prism of ideological and political context. (2000: 2-3) Lagrou’s statement on the enduring effects of war and occupation resonates with this book’s exploration of how a nation copes—psychologically and culturally—with the legacy of repression, lack of autonomy, deprivation, torture, collaboration, resistance, and reconstruction that such an extended period of occupation entails. My readings probe the subsequent reworking of these traumatic, arbitrary experiences—a re-writing of the past, a therapeutic cultural coping11—in filmic representations. A national tendency to make success out of failure, though not limited to the Netherlands, is nevertheless one that rings true here. I do not suggest that occupation was a failure for the Dutch, but it was unexpected and problematic. It lacked the traditional community dynamics of active warfare and had far-reaching consequences. Long-term occupation creates a wholly different mood to that of active combat, yet there exists a similar tendency for a nation liberated from an occupying power to create

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and glorify heroes and martyrs and create positive narratives out of traumatic circumstances. A British example of this tendency is the Gallipoli campaign of 1915: an unmitigated disaster in military terms, with poor decision-making, failed objectives, and high numbers of Allied and Turkish casualties. Yet it was the successful evacuation of troops from the Gallipoli peninsula after a pointless nine-month campaign that was emphasized to the British public. This ‘successful’ withdrawal endured within historical consciousness, leading to the ‘myth of Gallipoli’ as legions of returning heroes who had tried their best in difficult terrain on an alien shore.12 Subsequent feature films about Gallipoli focused on small moments of bravery or cameraderie rather than military sucesses which had not, of course, happened. Echoes of this same mythologizing tendency can be detected in later, unsuccessful US or British military arenas such as the Falklands, Vietnam, or Gulf Wars, though filmic renderings of these more recent conflicts tend to be more nuanced. A drive to mythologize or extol communal negative experiences can even be recognized in national attitudes to sport—even if only occasional success is achieved, there persists a tendency towards an ‘at least we did our best’ attitude, a self-serving defeatism acting as a balm to a nation’s bruised ego.13 National responses to defeat, or failure to acknowledge damage inflicted upon other nations during military campaigns, resonates with Dutch society’s conscience and wounded ego after the May 1945 liberation. It is little wonder that a combined effort on the part of the government, the media, and society led to the swift suppression of certain facts and memories about the occupation and to the mostly consensual remembrance of those aspects deemed to be more heroic and steeped in myth—that is, to what could be coped with at the time. Interpretive analysis within this book takes place according to four core themes that correspond to chapters two to five. The themes are: the image of the enemy, Dutch identity and ‘Dutchness’, life under occupation, and resistance and collaboration. The films are a means to an end; they are not analysed from start to finish in a linear, narrative way. Instead, the book’s thematic framework allows strong ‘snapshots’ to be pinpointed that may illuminate (or even obfuscate) our understanding of the depiction of the occupation within Dutch films. My first chapter, ‘Representation, occupation, and Dutch war films’, acquaints the reader with a solid background to the key areas of representing the past, nationhood and identity, the re-writing of history, and myth and memory in film—including mythologizing war in popular cultural memory. It also sets in context the historical background to the Netherlands during World War Two and discusses the German occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945 as well as post-war considerations. An overview of Dutch film history follows, after which I take a closer look at Dutch films about the war from both a historical and a cultural perspective.

I nt r oduction

| 19

20 |

In chapter two, ‘The image of the enemy’, I commence the detailed readings of the films according to each chapter’s theme. Here I examine portrayals of the German occupiers as the Netherlands’ wartime enemy, in contrast with images of the Dutch population. The chapter addresses the filmic representation of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’, where Dutch citizens are the heroes and the German invaders are the villains, and evaluates the shifting image of the enemy over the films’ timeframe. Chapter three, ‘Dutch identity and “Dutchness”’, looks at national identity, ‘being Dutch’, and how this is represented in films about the war. My readings look at presumed Dutch core values and images, such as bicycles, canals, dykes, the quiet countryside, big skies, and windmills, and consider the prevalence of water in Dutch history and the nation’s psyche. The influence of the landscape’s topography (flatness, borders that are difficult to defend, no hiding places for the Dutch army) on the progress and outcome of the occupation is considered, together with representations of the Dutch personality and infrastructure, and what it was about the Netherlands and its people that provoked German interest in invasion. Chapter four, ‘Life under occupation’, analyses images of family, relationships, and friendship bonds during the war. I examine filmic depictions of the home and family life and the role of women and men at a time when the domestic arena became empowered, taking on a critical role. Deprivations and losses of liberty of many kinds—the persecution of Dutch Jews, famine and the severe Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, Dutch men deported to German labour camps, punishments, and the loss of continuity in social, economic, educational, and leisure domains—are revealed. I also address the war’s impact on families and friendships as families were torn apart, relatives and friends lost, and Jewish families in particular were persecuted or forced into hiding. In chapter five, ‘Resistance and collaboration’, I look at images of perhaps the most powerful theme of all concerning the Dutch experience of occupation. Resistance and collaboration are the most prone to re-visioning, re-writing, and transmitting into the realms of myth, and in this chapter I analyse depictions across the spectrum of these contentious elements within Dutch war films. In so doing, I attempt to trace correlations between filmic portrayals of the resistance and collaborators over time and changes in society’s attitudes towards them, as public awareness altered over the post-war decades from a black-and-white separation of ‘heroic’ resistance fighters and ‘traitorous’ collaborators to more realistic shades of grey in which clear-cut moral distinctions were no longer so certain. The conclusion takes stock of the images of war and occupation evaluated in Dutch films, especially those made between 1962 and 1986. It contends that

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

a shared society of occupation came to exist for the Dutch during the war years, a scenario that was to shape much of the post-war re-writing and re-imagining of occupation. I ask how formerly occupied countries such as the Netherlands might make sense of their shared communal memories of invasion and occupation and begin to assimilate and recalibrate their histories, over time, through the medium of film. The conclusion argues for the significance of film as a remarkably powerful means through which the psychological implications of war for society are worked out. It recognizes that the imprint of occupation is, indeed, a lasting one.

| 21

I nt r oduction

CHAPTER 1

Representation, occupation, and Dutch war films What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. […] In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw. William Maxwell, So Long, See you Tomorrow (1996: 27)

This opening chapter acquaints readers with a background to the key areas of representing the past, nationhood and identity, the re-writing of history, and myth and memory in film—including mythologizing war in popular cultural memory. These form a basis for my in-depth readings of Dutch films about the occupation in the following chapters. In this chapter I also provide the historical background to the Netherlands’ experience during World War Two and assess the German occupation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945. Post-war consequences and the legacy of the occupation are also examined. I then give an overview of Dutch film history, followed by a closer look at Dutch feature films specifically about the war and occupation from both a historical and a cultural perspective. Representation in the context of this book means a re-presenting of events, historical eras, and people within popular cultural products—in my case, Dutch feature films about the war. Cultural representations can never actually be what they try to represent or imitate: the films I examine throughout this book can never fully recapture ‘reality’ nor accurately copy real-life events, as those moments in time have long gone. I am interested instead in why films as cultural representations are created in particular ways, especially across the decades of the 1960s to the 1980s. In this way, images of the occupation in Dutch films become social constructs—versions of the histories, events, and characters of that 1940-1945 period—mediated through the prism of certain cultural, societal, and ideological codes from the time they were produced.1 This sociology of representation in the context of this book looks closely at images of occupation in Dutch films to help us understand what these films might tell us about the times in which they were made. Interestingly, films themselves can become sources of history and historical facts to viewers either at the time of a film’s release or retrospectively. Yet what interests me are the

| 23

24 |

deeper layers of present-day society’s concerns that film can and, I suggest, does reveal, often unconsciously. This is echoed in Siegfried Kracauer’s contention that ‘the films of a nation reflect its mentality’ (2004: 5).2 Kracauer’s statement resonates with one of the underlying assertions of this book: I am not examining factual evidence or historical truths about the German occupation of the Netherlands from 1940-1945 nor gauging the accuracy of portrayals of real-life events within these Dutch war films. I do not attempt to recount or establish ‘what really happened’ in occupied Holland. Instead, I seek to understand and explore, through a close analysis of cultural texts (the films themselves), the shifting attitudes of Dutch society towards aspects of the war. As Dutch public opinion about the wartime occupation altered over the postwar decades—including attitudes to the 1940 to 1945 occupation, Jewish persecution, the enemy, deprivations, resistance, and collaborators—so too did the presence, or indeed absence, of these subjects shift in subsequent films. The historical trajectory of Dutch recovery and reconstruction—politically, economically, and, most complex of all, psychologically—came to be revealed, often unconsciously, in the films from that time.

REPRESENTING THE PAST: THE CASE OF FILM Cinema was still in its infancy when it discovered ‘History’ and then established a long-lasting involvement with the representation of the past. Pierre Sorlin (1991: 173)

Sorlin’s quote above describes the close bond that has evolved between film, history, and representation. He points out that historians have long recognized films as ‘important pieces of evidence for any study of the twentieth century’ (1991: 5). Walter Benjamin recognized too that ‘every image of the past that is not recognised by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably’ (1999: 247v). Sorlin and Benjamin’s words correspond with this book’s sociological, cultural, text-first methodology in dealing with representation in Dutch films about the war—one that recognizes the importance of history whilst acknowledging that in an interdisciplinary study of images of occupation, history is one perspective but not the sole influence. Part of Dutch post-war public consciousness may well be shaped by films and their portrayals of the Netherlands during the occupation, and films can themselves be shaped by these same societal mind-sets. But why are portrayals of the occupier, Jewish citizens, collaborators, the resistance, and life under occupation presented in certain ways in these films, even though these por-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

trayals may be considered inaccurate? Collective memories expressed in subsequent films may be inaccurate, but nevertheless they are still important. Yet a film’s historical accuracy is not the issue here. Throughout my readings of these Dutch communal remembrances of occupation, re-imagined into film, I do not seek to correct any ‘falsehoods’ detected but hope to bring them from their shadowy subconscious state into a more open arena of discourse. Sorlin makes a fundamental point about reality and its historical representation: Images are not the reality but they are our only access to reality. Our relationship with events and people is mediated by images; some we produce ourselves but most are assigned to us by the society we live in and are therefore common to virtually all members of the group. (1991: 6) The representations depicted within our Dutch films are not the reality of the war in the Netherlands. Rather, they are deliberately created representations and reproductions of certain versions of reality. In fact, feature films are not our ‘only access to reality’, for there are documentary programmes, oral history, newsreels, historical accounts, magazines, and photographs, which to many people also represent access to the ‘reality’ of the historical past. But the popular dominance of feature films means that they are the main access to reality, in a visual sense anyway. Official war histories, accounts, diaries, and publications may be read, but it is chiefly the visual texts I examine. It is within moving images that a ‘likeness’ of real-life events can be attained (though these images can only ever portray representations of certain versions of reality). Sorlin’s idea that our relationship with people and events is ‘mediated by images’ lies at the heart of my exploration of Dutch society’s relationship with its past—or rather, its several pasts—mediated through representation in film. Though the emphasis of this book is on representations of the occupation within film, it is important to recognize that film is a form of representation itself, containing layers of representation within it. Allied to this idea of film as both a form and a means of representation is its problematic relationship to reality. The debate about reality and film is complicated because whilst films seem to possess a potential immediacy and apparent realism not held by other, non-photographic media, films are also simulacra, imprints of versions of reality that cannot ever fully reproduce human experiences. Paintings or photographs can look ‘realistic’ yet are static images, whereas film is capable, visually and aurally, of simulating human actions and emotions, making it appear more ‘real’. Kracauer writes that common themes in fiction films of the time reflect society’s ideologies, and by recognizing and interpreting those themes, ideology’s grip on society can be lessened:

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 25

In order to investigate today’s society, one must listen to the confessions of the products of its film industries. They are all babbling a rude secret, without really wanting to. In the endless sequence of films, a limited number of typical themes recur again and again; they reveal how society wants to see itself. (1995: 294)

26 |

The idea of film revealing things ‘without really wanting to’ speaks to us at the level of society’s zeitgeist and reminds us that film does not always express the filmmaker’s intent. Filmmaking is a less conscious, collective process behind which the influence of public consciousness looms large. By attuning ourselves to themes inherent in Dutch war films, we might deduce from these films certain truths about their contexts, see what ‘rude secrets’ they are ‘babbling’. By paying close attention to these visual texts, we gain insight into underlying sociological, cultural, and psychological concerns hidden within them. Richard Howells argues in Myth of the Titanic (2012) that ‘it is these representations which provide an illuminating textual manifestation of the mentalités of the societies from which they arose’ (2012: 21). I too emphasize films as cultural and sociological texts, representations of the past and part of collective social memory, revealing glimpses of how Dutch society sees itself—or saw itself—in post-war decades. But it is the film text itself that forms my focus of the interpretation and understanding of societal truths behind images of war in Dutch films. The text-first approach used by Howells and advocated in this book can help to ‘elucidate from popular film the underlying social and cultural forces at work’ (Howells 1999: 435). Roland Barthes’ concept of ‘what goes without saying’ (2000: 11) is also useful in helping to look beyond what is overtly stated within filmic texts and to question what is hidden but nevertheless is understood to exist.3 By investigating these ideological codes concealed within cultural products and practices, we can question whether things do ‘go without saying’, prompting us to examine the reasons for Dutch society’s representations of events, behaviour, and history. Kees Ribbens explains historisch besef (2002: 367)—meaning ‘historical consciousness’—as a way in which modern society relates to its past. Focusing on the Dutch context, Ribbens describes popular historical culture as a framework in which ordinary people (rather than professional historians) integrate and process history into everyday life. This idea of popular historical culture is significant, as the war films I examine are produced by non-historians. The producers, directors, and writers associated with the films are, after all, ‘ordinary people’. In fact, so much of our history, especially cultural history, is produced by non-historians—by people who are neither theoreticians nor policymakers. One of the key ‘functions’ of popular historical culture, according to Ribbens,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

is nostalgic fascination. He points to the wave of nostalgia emerging in the Netherlands since the 1970s and suggests that this is not only connected to a search for roots or present-day social criticism (2002: 375). Instead, nostalgia is an enrichment of present-day life using facts and artefacts from the past, with a focus on positive and attractive aspects of the past. Ribbens points out that awareness of these contrasts between past and present play an important role in modern historical culture, often leading to a distant, somewhat ironic treatment of history: Nevertheless, the past is regularly represented and regarded as accessible […] An important element of this is to visualise history. A story of the past without pictures—preferably moving pictures in full colour—is hard to sell nowadays. History should be visible, or even tangible. (2002: 376; my emphasis) | 27 This accent on ‘visualizing’ history—on making it accessible—links to the representation of war in the visual medium of film. A film can never precisely reproduce human actions and experiences; nevertheless, film’s verisimilitude regarding human characters and conditions allows it to assume a potentially powerful ‘nostalgia’ function. But Ribbens’ emphasis on ‘positive’ and ‘attractive’ elements of the past within the Dutch wave of nostalgia since the 1970s does not quite tally with our retroactive look at the wartime period of occupation, which inhabited much darker experiences overall. Except that, as we will come to recognize through the readings of these films, people, society, and filmmakers alike have a tendency to mythologize their pasts and re-write those aspects deemed too unpalatable to deal with at the time. Ribbens admits that emotions can be provoked when the past is interpreted and historical culture is thus shaped. Despite this ‘risk of controversy’, he believes that World War Two occupies a special place in the Netherlands’ existing historical culture: ‘more than anything else it functions as a moral landmark’ (2002: 375) in which the emphasis, after the first post-war years, was ‘not on glorifying heroes but on commemorating the suffering and the victims that are associated with current affairs’ (2002: 375). War acting as a ‘moral landmark’ in the Netherlands points to a link between society’s communal moral preoccupations and the changing face over time of images of the past in Dutch war films. These depictions may be of resistance members, collaborators, victims of the Jewish persecution, or ordinary people dealing with the occupation on a day-to-day basis. This moral landmark reminds us too of the potential psychological function of film. If war functions as a communal moral barometer, then its legacy for a formerly occupied country is even more enduring and powerful than for a non-invaded nation. Filmic representations

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

of war, perhaps above all other subject matters, are subject to the oscillating psychological dispositions of the home country’s consciousness, as emphases on what is acceptable or not—what can be ‘coped with’ at the time—ebb and flow with the generations. My readings suggest that these dispositions, these products of conscience and the Dutch psyche, can be both diagnosed from, and communicated through, one of the strongest, most immediate forms of cultural expression—a nation’s films.

NATIONHOOD AND IDENTITY

28 |

National identity and a ‘sense of self’ are bound up intrinsically in people’s cultural experiences and social histories. Communal histories have a considerable impact on the production and reception of their reflections in art and popular culture. This is the case with Dutch films about the occupation. A sense of self and of national identity has particular significance when addressing filmic portrayals of one country invaded and subsequently occupied by another, as with the 1940-1945 German occupation of the Netherlands. My readings examine how German occupiers, ordinary Dutch people caught up in the conflict, Dutch Jews, ‘heroes’, and ‘collaborators’ are represented, and how those images are tied to previously held notions of sense of self and of individual and national identity. People want and expect their culture and identity to be portrayed in certain ways, whether in literature, plays, films, portraits, or in oral history, regardless of whether they are consciously aware of their expectations. Likewise, they expect to see others (from different cultures or nations) portrayed according to perceived or accepted notions of that (other) country’s value systems, codes of behaviour, and history. Sorlin considers these preconceived notions of identity in relation to the portrayal in films of European nationalities: Apart from the classics, which were preponderantly American, the various European nations wanted a depiction of indigenous themes related to their own cultural and historical backgrounds; they longed to find on their screens some of the characteristics which, rightly or not, were assigned to their particular citizens. (1991: 2) Sorlin suggests that many European films shown in other counties, either in Europe or wider afield, are chosen by distributors because they are felt to portray a ‘national personality’. They closely match the inhabitants’ expectations of characteristics and values from the country of origin and/or production. Allied to this perception of national identity is the notion of self and the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

other, a dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’, present in many film narratives where an enemy is depicted, or is a latent or actual threat. The ‘self’ is usually the native population—the ‘good’ character/s—who are contrasted with ‘the other’, usually the enemy or ‘bad’ persona/e. This goes beyond a simple comparison of characters in a film and relates to deeper, underlying feelings about other cultures and nations in which otherness tends to have negative connotations—the others are enemies, traitors, invaders, and criminals. This self/other relationship can be seen as a device in which the home country is identified and characterized in relation to its enemies.4 As Howells states, ‘we unwittingly define ourselves by the way in which we represent others’ (1999: 428). This is apposite for the depictions of heroes and villains, resistance fighters and collaborators, and German occupiers versus indigenous citizens in Dutch films about the occupation. It also points to deeper, societal reasons why these images are created and why they endure. | 29

MYTH AND MEMORY: THE RE-WRITING OF HISTORY Understanding the notion of myth is key to understanding the evolving role played by film within Dutch post-war cultural memory. Myth is intricately associated with themes such as resistance and collaboration, images of the enemy, and Dutch identity. I do not mean myth in the sense of a simple falsehood but rather something that signifies a far deeper societal construct. The ways in which the Dutch legacy of occupation is articulated and re-written through subsequent feature films is intrinsically significant. What interests me is the creation of myths about the war in the Netherlands and the potential for mythologizing, or rendering into widely believed stories and anecdotes, the narratives, events, characters, and circumstances of occupation. The deeply pervasive myth of the resistance in Dutch society concerns the actual numbers of men and women taking part in wartime resistance activities, contrasted with perceived numbers in Dutch popular memory, in turn reflected in oral history as well as in films, literature, and television programmes. According to popular memory, the vast majority of people fought in the resistance. In reality, however, the number of people who actively took part in the official resistance movement was very small: around 25,000 people up until September 1944 out of a wartime population of nine million (Louis de Jong 1976, vol 7: 1012). This figure represents less than 0.3 per cent of the population at the time. Likewise, the numbers of men and women collaborating with the German occupiers are subject to a kind of ‘reverse myth’: in the Dutch popular imagination, only a small number of collaborators co-operated with the enemy, most of them members of the Nationaal-Socialistische

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

1. Blumberg survives—at what cost? In de Schaduw van de Overwinning

Beweging (‘National Socialist Movement’), or NSB, a minority political party in the Netherlands that had been established prior to the German occupation. Barnouw describes the widespread mistrust of NSB members by the general population during the occupation. Though numbers of these collaborators were prone to exaggeration, Barnouw states that nevertheless more than 20,000 Dutch people took the extreme collaborative step of joining the Waffen SS—the armed unit of the SS or Schutzstaffel (‘Protective Squadron’), the Nazi party’s security and military organization, which had a heavy presence in the occupied Netherlands (1986: 18-19). The similarity in the numbers of official resistance fighters and (extreme) collaborators is remarkable. The grey areas surrounding resistance and collaboration and filmic images of these seemingly opposite camps form a central part of my interpretive readings of these films, above all in chapter five. Attempting to define collaboration brings with it challenging questions about the nature and extent of collaborating with captors. Collaboration is no straightforward term and does not have to imply acts of deliberate allegiance with an enemy, though this is its primary depiction within cultural texts. It can also describe more ‘passive’ collaborative acts like continuing to work even if this means working for the enemy, toeing the line, failing to assist others who are being arrested or harassed, and keeping a low profile in order to survive unanticipated attacks and punishments by the occupiers. Even these

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

passive acts can be interpreted as simply trying to get through the war. Barnouw points out that differences in people’s attitudes during the occupation appeared obvious: Being ‘in league with the enemy’ […] was ‘wrong’. Resisting the Forces of Occupation and their propaganda; producing, printing and distributing illegal broadsheets, helping people go into hiding were the actions of ‘good’ Dutch citizens. (1986: 18) In retrospect, the apparently opposite camps of resistance and collaboration were much less distinct. Myths about resistance and collaboration, evident in kernel form during the occupation and steadily growing in intensity throughout the post-war years, are difficult either to substantiate or dispel in the face of more than 70 years of post-war reconstruction. They reinforce what Howells describes as retrospective mythogenesis (2012: 33), in which meaning is created at later stages out of negative and harrowing events. In the case of Dutch war films, myths about heroes, villains, resistance fighters, and collaborators were created for the most past after the war and the occupation. Hence Dutch society is re-animating history (or its preferred versions of history) into myth via film. Society’s tendency selectively to remember or forget—whether consciously or not —aspects of its collective arbitrary experiences is key when considering post-war Dutch films about the war. Remembering the past and mythologizing society’s arbitrary experiences of occupation takes place firmly within a cultural and socio-political landscape, and it is via the cultural form of film and its re-imaging of events that myth finds one of its strongest modes of expression. Examining myth, war, and popular culture, Paul Fussell depicts World War One as ‘relying on inherited myth, it was generating new myth, and that myth is part of the fibre of our own lives’ (1977: ix). Though Fussell refers to a specifically British myth-making context in relation to World War One—in terms of patriotism, myths of the Hun and the Bosch, keeping a stiff upper lip, camaraderie, and the phrase ‘What did you do in the War, Daddy?’—his perspective is useful when thinking about Dutch myths of occupation and the cultural legacy of war. Fussell adds that ‘the whole texture of British daily life could be said to commemorate the war still’ (1977: 315). This ‘texture’ of quotidian life commemorating the war long after its end indicates the lingering power of traumatic events and their infiltration into numerous areas of everyday life—which is very relevant in a Dutch post-war context. It also provides us with a potent illustration of society’s tendency to venerate, idealize, and remember people and circumstances long after they are gone, until it is the act of remembering that takes precedence over documented historical events.

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 31

32 |

As well as the human need to remember those who have died in battle or natural disasters or who have carried out dangerous or ‘heroic’ feats, there is also the ideological drive to emphasize and mediate what is commuted into the realms of communal memory and myth. Think of the plethora of visual and written representations of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, indicating that the period of transition between actual (harrowing) events and their metamorphosis into myth can be a short one (though not always).5 Although the flames of patriotism burned particularly brightly in US cultural memory in the years immediately following the collapse of the World Trade Centre Towers, repeated re-presentations of images of aeroplanes flown into skyscrapers and the towers’ disintegration, alongside the creation of other cultural texts based on the events, undoubtedly leads to the forming of an enduring ‘Twin Towers mythology’.6 This mythology both influences and is influenced by dominant modes of thinking about the incident and its repercussions. Kracauer argues that films reflect society’s psychological mentalities. He describes cinema as ‘acquainting us with the world we live in’ and by doing so, it ‘brings us face to face with the things we dread’ (1997: 304-305). This resonates with my readings of Dutch filmic representations of war and occupation and their associated ‘dark’ themes of torture, the Holocaust, starvation, deprivations, forced or voluntary collaboration, reprisals, and betrayal. Kracauer suggests that people come to depend on film for its reflections of events that would otherwise be too dreadful to see in actual life. One reason, then, for Dutch society’s creation of audio-visual representations of traumatic wartime experiences is in order that they might be able to watch them, second-hand, through the safety net of film: In experiencing the […] litter of tortured human bodies in the films made of the Nazi concentration camps, we redeem horror from its invisibility behind the veils of panic and imagination. (Kracauer 1997: 306) In Haunted Images, an exploration of the ethics of filmic representation and spectatorship in the sphere of Holocaust images and of film’s role as witness to atrocity, Libby Saxton argues that ‘all films occupy ethical positions, just as all films occupy political ones, whether or not they seek to make these explicit’ (2008: 120).The presence or absence in Dutch films of the most harrowing aspects of the Netherlands’ war experience does not happen in a political or ethical vacuum. In this book I examine the inclusion or scarcity of such filmic images of trauma across the post-war decades. People who are not easily able to come to terms with the horrors of war, especially if they have been part of that lived experience, can instead play out these fears and anxieties through

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the ‘filter’ of cultural texts. This is known as cultural coping and re-writing history. These processes describe the sense of a nation coping with its history, both at the time and over the following generations. In the historical situation of occupation, which is a particularly unusual circumstance of war, people cope on a day-to-day basis by whatever means they are able. This can include choosing to collaborate or joining the resistance, though within this apparent dichotomy lie a myriad of degrees of resistance and collaboration.7 Later generations must deal with the memory of events and come to terms with this, justify it (whilst not always accepting it), and play out their anger, guilt, shame, curiosity, and traumatic feelings retrospectively through cultural means—for example, the production of books, plays, and films. Representations of the horrors of war and of occupation can serve a mythologizing purpose, echoing Howells’ retrospective mythogenesis (2012: 33), in which meaning is created at a subsequent stage out of harrowing, often arbitrary experiences. In this way, myths are upheld and reinforced, truths are glossed over, and preferred versions of history are created—versions that help ordinary people live with themselves in a morally complex, post-traumatic world. These re-writings of history tend to emphasize images of valiant heroes and sentimentalized stories of hardship and horrors in which family, love, bonds of friendship, unity in conflict, victory, and recovery are the primary motivations. Thus cultural representation acts as a kind of filter for society’s social, moral, and psychological concerns. Psychological consequences for the Dutch nation both during and after the war are also linked to social memory and social amnesia. These terms represent society’s communal remembrance and—crucially—forgetting of its often arbitrary experiences. If people, facts, and events are ‘falsely remembered’, as in the vagueness surrounding the actual numbers of resistance fighters and collaborators, why do people cling to these misconceptions, these myths of resistance and collaboration, these versions of unreality? With this in mind, Dutch war films can be interpreted as metaphors for Dutch society—not the wartime society of 1940 to 1945 but the later societies of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (and beyond) which produced the films. How might those changing societies transmit their inherited experiences, histories, memories, and myths into mythogenetical filmic images, as a form of cultural coping? In Myth of the Titanic, Howells stresses the importance of people’s attitudes and beliefs about history, which come to have meaning alongside the factual details of difficult historical events. He analyses the popular cultural reaction to the sinking of the Titanic liner in 1912 and the potential for society to mythologize arbitrary (harrowing) events and to realize these myths through popular culture (2012: 23).8 Howells suggests that social memory can provide a basis for social action, and that this should be considered seriously ‘if we are

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 33

34 |

to get to grips with a thorough understanding of why people behave the way they do’ (2012: 20). Howells’ focus on the importance of a cultural approach to history ‘which focuses on beliefs as much as it does on realities’ (2012: 20), together with his cultural emphasis on society’s views on historical events, are useful when considering Dutch society’s efforts to convince itself of a history which may or may not have happened and to play out these concerns via cultural means. Cultural memory (inextricably linked to myths about the war) plays a key part in Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present (Bal, Crewe, and Spitzer eds. 1999). Underlining the importance of cultural memory within cultural studies, Bal argues that the ‘discourse of cultural memory’ is called upon in order to ‘mediate and modify difficult or tabooed moments of the past—moments that nonetheless impinge, sometimes fatally, on the present’ (1999: vii). Bal discusses the concept of memories for the present and emphasizes ‘the presentness of memory, in which the past is ‘adopted’ as part of the present’ (xv). This presentness, as Bal describes it, stimulates us to think about memory and the present in the context of the production of our Dutch war films. It prompts us to ask who is doing the remembering, what is the value of the remembering within a culture, and what might the dangers be of escapist nostalgia? Bal describes cultural memory as consensual and collective, not just individual, and names cultural remembering as ‘an activity occurring in the present, in which the past is continuously modified and re-described even as it continues to shape the future’ (vii). In Crises of Memory and the Second World War (2008), Susan Rubin Suleiman contends with issues of memory, trauma, representation, and forgiveness, and the Holocaust as a site of collective memory. She raises questions about the nature of memory and remembrance of the past. Suleiman points out that ‘psychologists, as well as historians, have shown that the memory of past events is not fixed but changing, influenced by the individual’s or the collective’s present situation and projections for the future’ (4). Bal and Suleiman’s work provide a different angle on memory and myth that is especially apposite with regard to traumatic recall, in which Bal identifies a need for other people to act as witnesses to difficult past events. Suleiman’s suggestion that communal memory is ‘influenced by the individual’s or the collective’s present situation’ reinforces my point that memory (and filmic representation) is constituted in the culture in which those traumatic experiences and remembrances live. This idea of memory not merely existing in an individual’s psyche but rather within a larger cultural sphere resonates with the connection between cultural coping, creating myths, and re-writing history, and the assimilation of these processes in Dutch post-war films. One of the mechanisms by which Dutch society deals with the issue of war and occupation is through the anaesthetizing filter of mythologization.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Of course, memory is not just about what is remembered but also about what is deliberately forgotten. An example of this is what happened to the Netherlands’ Jewish citizens during the war—their isolation, persecution, abuse, and virtual annihilation (Moore 1997; Hakkert 2003).9 The suppression and recalibration of memory, the re-writing of history, and the process of mythmaking persists until a point is reached at which, according to Howells, the war’s mythical significance can eclipse its historical importance (2012: 1).10 In this book, I analyse war’s legacy and its articulation via cultural representation in Dutch feature films. My readings explore how these films can be viewed as products of social consciousness in which myth, memory, and the re-writing of history work alongside each other to shape part of the (cultural) legacy of society’s communal, arbitrary experiences. I take inspiration from Kracauer’s ‘small moments of material life’ (1997: 303), the petit-reconstructions of moments from the past, and interpret this as Dutch society taking into cultural consideration aspects of its history, reanimating them and inscribing them, as it were, onto film.

THE NETHERLANDS AND WORLD WAR TWO: GERMAN OCCUPATION I will now put the Netherlands’ experience during World War Two into context and discuss the German occupation as well as its aftermath for Dutch society. Post-war consequences of the occupation were enduring and extensive and were to have a powerful impact on subsequent cultural interpretations of Dutch experiences of war. The war began for the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 when German forces invaded, on the same day that they invaded France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The invading forces came mainly into the west of the country, via extensive parachute drops of soldiers. Within days all Dutch borders had been infiltrated, and by 15 May 1940 the country capitulated under the threat of further bombing, having already suffered the severe aerial bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May. The Dutch army had attempted to defend its country but was unable to resist the invading forces and had been overwhelmed by German troops and artillery. Dutch military equipment was old, with some weapons dating back to the 1890s and 1900s, and the army itself was tiny, consisting of some 300,000 soldiers (Kossman 2005).11 The non-involvement of the Netherlands in World War One set it apart from other occupied countries of Western Europe (France, Belgium, and Luxembourg) who had recent military experience and whose defence budgets were relatively larger. It had been hoped that the Netherlands’ neutrality—which had been ‘honoured’ by Germany in the 1914 to 1918 conflict—would again be respected during World War Two. The

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 35

36 |

May 1940 invasion therefore came as a particularly unexpected and severe setback. Thus began the five-year occupation of the Netherlands, which was a territory highly prized by the Nazi regime for its economic wealth and industrial production capacity (which the Nazis wanted to preserve) and also for the anticipated expansion of the Nazis’ racist ideology once the country was occupied (Lagrou 2000: 7). Considered capable of a degree of Nazification, it was not Germany’s intention to destroy Holland or to decimate its population; there was a rather more insidious future in mind for the citizens of the Netherlands. The Dutch royal family acted quickly to escape detention—or worse—by the occupiers. Queen Wilhelmina fled with her cabinet to the relative safety of England to escape the threat of German bombing where she remained in a safe house in London for most of the rest of the war. Other members of the royal family travelled on from England to spend the war years in even greater security in Canada. The queen issued a statement explaining her reasons for leaving her country behind. She declared that it was in Holland’s interest that she remained safe in exile: in this way she would be free to act on her people’s behalf (which would have been impossible had she been captured by the Germans) and she could safeguard the interests of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). She also declared that she would fight Germany as best she could from England and that London was now to be considered the capital of Holland.12 The Dutch government-in-exile operated to the best of its ability from London for the duration of the war. Queen Wilhelmina maintained regular contact with her populace by means of radio broadcasts via illegal radio stations, Radio Oranje (‘Radio Orange’) being the most well-known. Why did Britain choose to assist the Dutch queen and her government in this way for five years? Lagrou suggests that the Allies supported the cause of exiled representatives of the German occupation to legitimize a broad Allied front, thus fulfilling a public relations function as well as a diplomatic one (Lagrou 2000: 26-27). On 26 May 1940, Hitler announced the establishment of a German civil government in the Netherlands to be administered by the fanatical Austrian Nazi Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Seyss-Inquart swiftly set about implementing policies directly from Berlin, including the forced migration of Dutch men of working age to German labour camps, the economic exploitation of the Netherlands, and the persecution of Dutch Jews, though he ruled that Dutch laws would remain in force until further notice.13 Nonetheless, his administration abolished the Dutch Communist and Socialist parties straight away and took control of all media (including film production). Seyss-Inquart’s intention was to maintain as much as possible the existing structure of Dutch administration and government sectors—from local mayors and councillors in towns and villages to the higher levels of the civil service—in order to

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

encourage the public’s acceptance of measures such as rationing (see Anderson 1995). This created a dilemma for the many thousands of Dutch officials and civil servants who were now expected to comply with the occupiers or face the loss of their jobs or other consequences if they did not. The ordinary public, too, were expected to observe the occupier’s rules—which were somewhat softened by the fact that they were disseminated via familiar channels—or risk punishment. The acquiescent, possibly even complicit wartime role played by Dutch civil servants and bureaucrats, especially regarding the systematic persecution of Dutch Jews, is highly controversial in the Netherlands. In his forthcoming book on wartime administrative collaboration in Nazi-occupied Western Europe, Philip Morgan recounts how even prior to the wartime occupation, the Dutch government had in 1937 devised a set of detailed guidelines and instructions for its top civil servants about how they should behave and respond in the event of an enemy occupation, indicating that the situation was already being considered ahead of war breaking out.14 The occupation of the Netherlands continued for five years until the German capitulation on 5 May 1945, after which time Queen Wilhelmina and the government returned from exile. Lagrou considers the queen to be the ‘unquestioned champion of the struggle for national liberation’ (2000: 29). However, more imagination would be required to turn the Allied victory of 1945 into a national victory for Holland. The economic, social, and psychological consequences of such long-term occupation—culminating in one of the worst winters on record, the hongerwinter (‘Hunger Winter’) of 1944-1945— meant that post-war recovery and reconstruction for the Netherlands would be especially difficult. The failure of the Rhine Allied offensive (Operation Market Garden) in October 1944 significantly worsened the experience of the final months of the war for many Dutch people. Allied troops had liberated the south of the Netherlands already by the autumn of 1944 but were unable to liberate the remainder of the country. They would even reach Berlin before liberating Amsterdam and the northern, eastern, and central areas of Holland (Lagrou 2000: 96-97).15 This waiting period had a profound effect on the majority of the Dutch still under occupation. On Tuesday, 5 September 1944, prompted by rumours of an imminent liberation, about 65,000 NSB members and their families fled to Germany—many of them on foot, as there were few trains—in fear of retribution by fellow Dutch citizens. At the same time, people gathered in the streets with orange flags as well as British flags to welcome the liberating forces, who did not in fact appear that day. Part of the country had been liberated, so there was both heightened expectations that liberation for the rest would quickly follow and widespread panic for the occupiers and collaborators (2000: 59-60). Although Dolle Dinsdag, or ‘Mad Tuesday’ as it became

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 37

38 |

known, was a false alarm, from that day onwards the psychology of occupied Holland was no longer the same. Those parts of the country that were still under occupation went on to suffer the harshest winter of the war, known as the ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944-1945. Whole districts were cut off by frozen canals and a transport infrastructure that was in ruins, and this led to flooding, starvation, hypothermia, disease, and strikes, leaving the country in chaos. By January 1945 there was no electricity, coal, wood, or even running water in certain areas, and people were forced to eat tulip bulbs and, in some cases, family pets.16 De Jong describes the Hunger Winter as ‘one of the major calamities in Dutch history’ (1981: part 10b, 1st half: 153-266) in which about 16,000 people died of starvation. In May 1945, some 250,000 citizens were estimated to be suffering from malnutrition-related illnesses (Lagrou 2000: 100-101).17 As a result of these severe conditions, half a million people lost their homes, one and a half million lived in damaged housing, eleven per cent of farmland was flooded, and 900 bridges were destroyed along with many trucks, boats, and over 80 per cent of railway equipment. Shoes and clothing were very scarce, forcing many children to go barefoot. In fact, everything was in short supply. From a pre-war population of around nine million people, 250,000 Dutch people lost their lives during the occupation, including more than 100,000 Dutch Jews killed in concentration camps (Barnouw 1986: 17). The Jewish population of the Netherlands at the start of the war had been 140,000. By its end, 107,000 Dutch Jews had been deported.18 Only 5,000 of these deported Jews survived the concentration camps, bringing the total number of Dutch Jews killed to 102,000, which is nearly 75 per cent of the pre-war population. This is the highest percentage of Jewish people deported and executed during the war of any other European country—an incredible, shocking, and sobering fact. This book argues that the collective memory of such experiences of persecution, hardship, and scarcity in Dutch society, alongside all the other personal, economic, social, and cultural consequences of occupation, influenced the drive towards subsequent filmic representations of these subject matters, whether consciously or not. These could be depictions in films of ordinary people’s daily lives during occupation, resistance heroes, collaborators, people helping each other, loss and deprivation, or glorifying the ‘positive’ traits of survival, honour, and camaraderie, no matter how true or untrue those elements were. Choices about how to represent the events of the occupation appear to have been created and disseminated at two levels: at the governmental level immediately following the war, with the creation of policies on war monuments and commemoration strategies; and at the level of ordinary people, whose coping strategies, relief, guilt, and negative thoughts about the war helped to create and fortify those myths about the occupation that would

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

become so enduring, especially with regard to the resistance, collaborators, and martyrs. Traditional historical perspectives detailing the period of occupation of the Netherlands include Louis de Jong’s comprehensive Het Koninkrijk Der Nederlanden in De Tweede Wereldoorlog (‘The Kingdom of the Netherlands during the Second World War’), published in twelve parts between 1969 and 1988. De Jong had broadcast for Radio Oranje from exile in London during the occupation and was commissioned after the war to write this immense and detailed official war history. Most volumes of Het Koninkrijk Der Nederlanden provide a detailed account, on an almost day-to-day basis, of the actions, personalities, and decisions affecting the Dutch nation during the occupation. De Jong is respected by Dutch academics and the general public alike for the thoroughness of his research and his knowledge of historical sources. According to De Jong, to write about history one had to write about the small events and experiences of individuals set alongside the broader outlines of the war’s chronology. He does not avoid controversial issues, dedicating part of the volumes to criticism of individuals and politicians, plus an account of fascism in the Netherlands. In De Lage Landen (2005), E.H. Kossman meticulously documents Dutch (and Belgian) history during the war years and in the two successive decades. Several other authors deal with aspects of Dutch war history such as the persecution of Jews in Holland, life under German occupation, the resistance and collaborators, and the attempts at post-war recovery and reconstruction (Blom 1989; Hirschfeld 1991; Moore 1997 and 2000; Van der Veen 2003). These texts provide a valuable historical background to the chronology of the occupation and its aftermath, which helps our understanding of subsequent cultural re-interpretations of events and experiences within Dutch war films. Works with a cultural and/or sociological perspective on the Dutch experience of occupation are even more directly relevant to the theme of this book. Adriaan Hakkert (2003) considers the history of World War Two in the Netherlands in the context of the changing face of Dutch post-war society and the war’s long-term effects on politics and the structure of society. Chris van der Heijden (2003) argues against the traditional goed en fout (‘right and wrong’) dichotomy in Dutch texts about the war. He explains instead that most Dutch people existed in a ‘grey area’ where circumstances, chance, and opportunism were more the influencing factors in people’s behaviour rather than clear-cut moral choices. Van der Heijden reflects a modern, critical stance on the controversial topics of National Socialism, collaboration, and the persecution of Dutch Jews. Awareness of such ‘grey areas’ in Dutch public consciousness is crucial when considering images of occupation in subsequent Dutch war films, as that grey zone existed even during the wartime occupation (where

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 39

40 |

it had traditionally been thought that people allied themselves to a ‘black’ and ‘white’ / resistance versus collaborator division). My readings examine the slow permeation of these shades of grey into Dutch post-war society, especially the gradual manifestation of moral ambiguity and the recognition of everyday choices and ordinary behaviour in Dutch war films. Kees Ribbens (2002) discusses Dutch historical culture—the role that history plays in subsequent cultural works, including popular culture—which relates to images of war in Dutch films. Ribbens’ focus on nostalgia and the constant flow and progress of historical culture, alongside an emphasis on ‘visualising’ history (2002: 376), links to my themes of cultural memory and the representation of communal experiences of occupation in films from later decades, though Ribbens does not specifically address how war is tackled in feature films. Lagrou (2000) portrays how patriotic memories were constructed in the occupied countries of Western Europe in the period of national recovery after World War Two. He illustrates how collective memories of the resistance, forced labour migration, and persecution by the Nazis were all shaped by ‘the straitjacket of post-war patriotism’ (2000: 3). He considers that the ways in which these memories are interpreted after the events are ‘indeed more revealing about the subjects than the objects of these memories’ (2000: 3). Lagrou’s premise intersects with my own here, focusing on the reasons why collective commemorations are created in the ways they are and what they might tell us about the subjects doing the commemorating (rather than about the war itself). Yet Lagrou clarifies that his research is not solely about post-war collective memories, as if the events they are concerned with never happened. He does not consider history to be solely about representations, and neither do I. Nevertheless, he attempts to begin constructing a social history of World War Two’s consequences. I agree that whilst historical facts are relevant and important, they are not always the only, or major, focus.

POST-WAR CONSIDERATIONS When liberation finally arrived for the remainder of the Netherlands there was an immediate, tangible sense of celebration and euphoria, but this was soon replaced by the stark reality of post-war reconstruction, of coming to terms with the occupation and its consequences—some of which were far-reaching. Many of these lingering effects related to the ethical dilemmas and psychological trauma that the occupation had engendered. These repercussions were compounded by the social, economic, and infrastructural damage wrought by the war. The occupation was not a traditional combat or military situation; it was principally a civil one where it was difficult to know who was in charge.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

The Dutch may still ostensibly have been in charge, albeit operating under the administration of Seyss-Inquart, but they lacked real autonomy. Whose rules, then, are to be followed in such circumstances? Here lies the heart of a moral dilemma facing Dutch people both during and after the war: in order to survive occupation by the Germans, Dutch citizens needed to comply with ‘the enemy’; but at the same time, in order to avoid being tarred with the label of ‘collaborator’, they needed to be seen by their contemporaries to ‘resist’ that enemy. This problematic dilemma of collaboration/ resistance reached far deeper into the Dutch psyche than outsiders looking in on that window of history and its consequences can fully understand. It caused much post-war debate in the Netherlands—debate about the punishment of collaborators and the veneration of resistance fighters. For Dutch people, this was and still is an uneasy part of their shared history as they come to terms with not only the humiliation of defeat but also the possibility of not having resisted enough. While the war may finally have come to an end for the Netherlands on 5 May 1945, what remained was the troubling legacy not just of the war but also of occupation, as the problems of dealing with the abiding aftermath of collaboration, resistance, and reconstruction persisted into the post-war decades. The German invaders were to leave behind an enduring imprint of occupation, an ideological branding that permeated many areas of social and political life. This imprint affected Dutch people socially, physically, culturally, economically, and, most pernicious of all, psychologically. The impact of this imprint of occupation would be felt in government policy, economic activity, the media, family life, and in the general public consciousness. Something was required to raise the country’s self-esteem and confidence. That something was the kernel that would ultimately become the myth of the resistance. Lagrou suggests that the final moments of the occupation were particularly unheroic, with the Netherlands experiencing a ‘triple demonstration of national impotence’ formed by the accumulation of unprecedented military defeat in the early stages, humiliating long-term occupation, and finally liberation by foreign armies (2000: 2). What had occurred between the collapse in 1940 and the ‘national victories’ (also in Belgium and France) of 1945 had been deeply traumatic, involving an array of negative experiences: defeat, collaboration, deportation of the workforce, economic plunder, violence, sectarianism, and widespread persecution. Lagrou suggests that immediately after the war, the resistance was used as a coping mechanism to help the Dutch nation push some of these negative memories away: The threatening memory of, at best, impotence, humiliation and loss of meaning and, at worst, complicity could be dealt with only through the prism of resistance and patriotism. (2000: 2)

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 41

In the Dutch post-war context, Lagrou’s ‘prism of resistance’ can be seen as society’s mythologizing the traumatic events of occupation and re-writing history in cultural works such as films. Although active resistance had been the (quite radical) choice of only a small political minority, it nevertheless became the symbol of national recovery in the Netherlands: The dominating collective experience was not heroism: it was, rather, economic hardship, individual suffering, humiliation and arbitrary persecution. The liberated societies of Europe were traumatised, and their now fragile national consciousness was in urgent need of the kind of patriotic epic that only the resistance could deliver. (2000: 2)

42 |

Resistance was seen as ‘the vigorous element of the Nation’s moral health, it was the symbol of rebirth, of the fundamentally new’ (Lagrou 2000: 22). The restoration and reconstruction of the Netherlands seemed to be—psychologically at least—dependent on eliminating the war’s negative influences: the fascists, traitors, and collaborators. It was also dependent on overcoming political instability, defence weaknesses, social injustices, and on integrating the resistance into social consciousness. For the Dutch, ‘being liberated’ was not enough—what was needed was the creation of a myth as a means of bolstering society’s post-war recovery. In his chapter on resistance in the Netherlands, Dick van Galen Last suggests that the myth of a unified and heroic resistance helped Dutch society shape a stronger sense of national unity and that the newly liberated nation gained validity from the struggles of that organized resistance against the enemy (2000: 207). The resistance was ‘thus proclaimed as the vanguard of national resurrection and served as the legitimizing source for the restoration of the democratic state’ (2000: 207). How ironic that in the months and years after liberation, the real ex-resistance members and groups (not the myth of resistance appearing in literature and films) were effectively sidelined in Dutch society. Lagrou describes the Dutch post-war enigma of ‘the incredible shrinking resistance’ (2000: 64), illustrated by the absence of a prominent, visible presence of resistance veterans in public life and policy and by the ostracism of such groups.19 Van Galen Last concurs that the Dutch resistance was not to play a key role in the country’s reconstruction, despite the view within some resistance groups that they had the right to ‘set the tone’ for the rebuilding of the Netherlands, more so than the discredited civil servants (2000: 207). This was in stark contrast to France and Belgium, where veterans’ associations were the main protagonists or channels of war commemoration, remembrance services, and social policy. But the evanescence of the Dutch resistance was not due to an innate weakness in Dutch resistance movements or a lack of willingness to join together

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and claim their legacy. On the contrary, they were deliberately and systematically dismantled, boycotted, and discouraged. The veterans’ associations were eliminated as part of a deliberately executed state policy on the consensual commemoration of the war regarding monuments, medals, memoirs, and exhibitions (Lagrou 2000). This says much about how the post-war Netherlands dealt with the shame, guilt, and negativity associated with the occupation. The deliberate quashing of Dutch resistance veterans’ groups is one such illustration of an attempt to re-write the country’s past. The fact that many of the resistance members were Communists who resumed their pre-war marginal and ostracized political positions after the war was no doubt a major factor in their gradual state-assisted suppression and disappearance. Although resistance veterans were sidelined in Dutch post-war policies of reconstruction and public memorialization, the monuments that were produced in post-war Holland would have as their subject the commemoration of: the suffering of oppression, impotence in the face of supremacy, the irreparable grief that hit so many of us, the lawlessness, the material hardships and the fear for survival; the dogged resistance, the faith and pride of the powerless, the solidarity of all who knew that they were united against the oppressor, the inner certainty of victory, the hope for liberation, the final triumph and the deliverance of the heavy burden, all that we, as a people, want to transmit to posterity, as the experience of this dark epoch that almost ended our existence as a nation.20 This quotation from the 1947 Commission for War Monuments in The Hague applies similar ‘mythologizing’ language found in reflections on war, acts of terrorism, and bravery in later decades: ‘solidarity’, ‘the inner certainty of victory’, ‘heavy burden’, and ‘dark epoch’. Interestingly, it also mentions ‘dogged resistance’, despite the national marginalization of official former resistance groups (particularly those that were Communist-affiliated). Such a statement helps us understand how subsequent filmic images of occupation might be created according to a combination of government policy and societal myths. It also offers an insight into the mind-set of post-war Dutch society coping with reconstruction and recovery, which in turn affects the perspectives of later generations, including some of those behind the creation of films about the war. During the period of post-war reconstruction, the Dutch population went through several stages of reconciling—or being unable to do so—with the trauma of long-term occupation. According to Chris van der Heijden (2003: 343-345), the initial phase, from 1945 to 1950, was one in which the resistance

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 43

44 |

was mainly in charge and wanted to exact revenge on Dutch collaborators. The horrors of war and the occupation were glossed over, and simple explanations were used to justify what happened. The next phase, from 1950 to the early 1960s, saw Dutch people wanting to forget all about the war and focus instead on rebuilding the country and looking to the future. Another phase lasting until the 1990s was one in which Dutch society interpreted its history of occupation as either ‘black’ or ‘white’—people were either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, courageous or lazy—extremes with no grey areas in between, though there was a growing realization during this period of the extent to which Dutch Jews had been persecuted. Van der Heijden recognizes a final phase that has emerged since around 2000 in which further facts have come to light: the post-war relief operations for Dutch Jews, the conduct of institutions and civil servants during the occupation, and the ‘ubiquity of minor acts of collaboration’ (2003: 399). J.C.H. Blom distinguishes five phases of post-war recovery in the Netherlands (2007: 123-131): sadness and distress resulting from the war (from 1945 to 1950), difficulty in talking about the war and mounting resentment towards Communists (from 1950 to the 1960s), growing realization of the extent of Dutch Jewish persecution and the degree of Dutch collaboration (from the 1960s to the 1980s), greater understanding of the position of those who had fought in the Dutch East Indies (during the 1980s), and further understanding of the extent of Jewish losses, and of the trauma of occupation (in the 1990s). Though the stages identified by Van der Heijden and Blom should be viewed as guides rather than historical certainties, they are valuable indicators of post-war public consciousness about the war that can be taken into account when examining the changing face of occupation re-imagined in post-war Dutch films. One example illustrating the confusion in both occupied and post-war Holland about resisting or collaborating with the enemy is a speech given by the Dutch Minister for Transport Steef van Schaik on 17 September 1945 (reprinted in Van der Heijden 2003: 370).21 The speech was to commemorate the Dutch railway workers who organised a strike a year earlier, in September 1944, in an attempt to demonstrate their anti-Nazi feelings, even though by that stage the war was nearly over for Germany. Van Schaik noted that although trains were used during the occupation years to transport tens of thousands of Jews to transportation and concentration camps, to move young men to Germany to be used as forced labour or drafted into the German army, and to transfer Dutch treasures and precious works of art to Germany, in the hearts of the railway workers there was resistance. He argued that these railwaymen could not be blamed for continuing to work throughout the occupation—in fact, he considered their continuing to work honourable because it was their duty demanded by the Dutch government (at that time in exile in

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

England). According to the minister, transport was and remained one of the pillars of Dutch economic life. This speech is certainly not subtle in its support for ‘enforced’ collaboration, and Van der Heijden uses it to illustrate the complexity of reconstruction after occupation. He demonstrates how attempts at a balance between ‘justifying’ collaboration and ‘rewarding’ resistance were made from a very early stage in Dutch post-war society. Although it is tempting to react with indignation at the idea of ordinary Dutch train drivers and guards continuing to work even when their passengers were travelling to their deaths, unless we comprehend more fully the unique circumstances and effects of long-term civil occupation, it is difficult to have a full understanding of ordinary people’s values and judgements. The situation for Holland’s Jewish population during and after the war was a perilous one, with the Nazi genocide resulting in the deaths of almost 75 per cent of the Dutch Jewish population. The question for historians and the public alike is why so many Jews from the Netherlands were killed when they were surrounded by, and engaging in everyday life with, other (non-Jewish) Dutch citizens? What were the particular circumstances that made this genocide possible? It is a reminder of the likelihood of countless small acts of collaboration contributing to this state of play. This is a deeply controversial issue still amongst Dutch and other Jewish groups today. Though I deal in this book with the representation of these aspects of the Dutch war experience, and not the actual history, the (mainly) passive role of non-Jewish Dutch citizens when confronted with the systematic isolation, deportation, and execution of their fellow Jewish inhabitants plays a pivotal role in post-war Dutch consciousness, especially from the mid-1960s onwards. I am particularly interested in the absence of images of Jews and Jewish persecution in the early 1960s films. This absence gradually moves towards a remembrance and on-screen presence of Jewish experiences in the films of the 1970s and 1980s. The State Institute for War Documentation (Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, RIOD), renamed the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, NIOD) in 1999, was almost dismantled in 1948, such was the distaste of people for war issues. It was thanks to the intervention of the director of the institute at the time, Dr. Louis de Jong, that this was avoided. Fortuitously, De Jong had influential contacts from the time he spent in exile in England. He was able to ensure not only the organization’s survival but also the continuing visibility of the memory of the war in everyday life through publications, television documentary series, and his publication Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (19691988). NIOD is today the leading institution in the Netherlands for the study of World War Two and related topics, housing a large collection of books, publications, diaries, official documents, photographs, and personal accounts.22

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 45

One of the effects of the subsequent re-working of history through the medium of film is a cathartic one. I consider the re-writing of history, the cleansing—even admonishing—aspect of communal memory, and the mythologizing function of cultural representations to be potentially cathartic. I do not suggest that filmic expressions of cultural coping are always a positive force, but I do believe it is highly likely that they fulfil a psychological function for the society that produces them. Whether filmic representations of war in the Netherlands bear any relationship to the ‘reality’ of the experience of wartime occupation is not my aim; rather, it is the point at which their mythical and symbolic significance surpasses their basis in historical fact that is my focus,23 together with how and why the films to be analysed are shaped by the powerful legacy of Dutch society’s communal, arbitrary experiences of the occupation. 46 |

DUTCH FILM HISTORY: AN OVERVIEW In chapters two to five, which make up the core of this study, I examine in detail images of war and occupation in seven Dutch feature films made between 1962 and 1986. I also look at Zwartboek made in 2006. To set these films within their national cinematic context and to acquaint readers with Dutch cinema, I will now provide a brief historical overview of Dutch films, followed by a closer view of films made specifically about the occupation. From its emergence in 1896 to the present day, film production in the Netherlands has evolved along an eclectic course, showing prominence in certain genres including documentary and animation. There had been a thriving silent movie industry in the early 20th century (chiefly involving melodramas, newsreels, and some documentaries) that achieved international recognition with the output of the Hollandia and Hague studios between 1912 and 1923. But by the advent of the ‘talkies’ in the late 1920s, the state of Dutch film was very poor. The new sound films proved to be a considerable linguistic barrier for film production in the Netherlands, as films could no longer be exported in their indigenous language (as they had been in the ‘silent’ era), thus isolating and hindering the development of the fledgling Dutch film industry (Cowie 1979: 13-15). Despite this, Dutch documentaries and short factual films developed strongly from the late 1920s and early 1930s onwards and documentary films in particular were celebrated worldwide for their quality and diversity, especially from the late 1940s to the late 1960s. Tracing the development of documentary film in the Netherlands provides valuable background information on the future creators of feature films who evolved, or broke away from, these documentary foundations.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Why was it that the Netherlands became so proficient in documentary cinema? One reason Cowie gives is that Dutch short factual film relied on visual impetus, particularly in its early years, with language being no barrier to an appreciation of the film (1979: 10). Many of these early short films were silent, with no dialogue or even music. Joris Ivens’ early work in the 1920s and early 1930s was produced this way, including films such as De Brug (The Bridge, 1928) and Regen (Rain, 1929), a twelve-minute visual ‘symphony’ of rain falling on the streets, canals, buildings, and people of Amsterdam conveyed through camera movement, orchestrated action, and editing. Later versions of Regen were released in 1932 and 1941 as sound films with dedicated music scores.24 Voice-over narration or commentary became a more regular component of documentary films from the mid-1930s, as did music soundtracks, but still the visual structure, photography, and editing rhythms—the choreography of the film—were the dominant influences. Joris Ivens was the Netherlands’ most important chronicler of the Dutch fight against an ever-encroaching sea and of land reclamation schemes such as polder construction. His Nieuwe Gronden (New Earth, 1934) depicts the closing of the final gap in the Afsluitdijk, the great barrier dam across the north of the Zuiderzee. Through dramatic montage sequences, Ivens portrays both the economic struggles—thousands of people would lose their sea-based occupations as a result of land reclamation—and the relentless power of nature symbolized by the sea. Cowie suggests that the flat landscape and particular quality of light in the Netherlands, which had influenced many of the great Dutch painters, played a role in the strength and proficiency of Dutch documentaries. Documentary filmmakers, with their alternative film ‘canvas’, were also inspired by this light quality, with no high mountains or undulating hills and valleys to ‘distract the realist’s gaze’ (1979: 9). Cowie suggests that the demands of landscape and geography subsequently ‘animated the Dutch’ (1979: 9).25 This strong Dutch documentary tradition, already extant before World War Two, continued into the post-war decades with further works from Ivens (whose soubriquet was ‘The Flying Dutchman’ due to his love of travel and his penchant for filming all over the world), including Indonesia Calling (1946) and Rotterdam-Europoort (1965). It reached its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s with the films of Bert Haanstra, whose Spiegel van Holland (Mirror of Holland) won the short film grand prix at Cannes in 1951. Haanstra also achieved widespread recognition and a 1959 Academy Award for best short documentary for his film about glass production entitled simply Glas (Glass, 1958). Other short films of his are Strijd Zonder Einde (The Rival World, 1955)26 and Rembrandt, schilder van de mens (Rembrandt, Painter of Men, 1957). Haanstra also made the longer observational films Zoo (1962) and Alleman (Everyman, 1963), which

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 47

48 |

attempts to capture the rhythm of Dutch life in the early 1960s using candid camera shots to record people behaving naturally, apparently without artifice. Haanstra later moved into the production of longer feature films, achieving acclaim for the pastoral comedy Fanfare (1958) and for De Stem van Het Water (The Voice of the Water, 1966) and Dokter Pulder Zaait Papavers (When the Poppies Bloom Again, 1975). During World War Two, all Dutch film production—newsreels, dramatic films, documentaries, and animation—was controlled by the principal German film conglomerate Universum Film AG (‘Universal Film Limited’) or UFA, which had been set up in Berlin in 1917 initially to produce and disseminate World War One propaganda films before eventually becoming the film arm of the Third Reich. Such was the priority of the German invaders to ‘Nazify’ the film industries of occupied territories, again for use as propaganda tools, that control was taken of film production organizations in the Netherlands within a few weeks of the 1940 invasion and remained in place until the 1945 liberation (Zeeman 2004: 85). The occupiers’ knowledge of the impact and popularity of film is a reminder of its power and potential: film is not only relevant in aesthetic terms, or as part of the scholarly study of history and popular culture; the production and viewing of film can itself constitute, and contribute to, significant moments in world affairs. Between the end of the war and the establishment in 1958 of the Nederlandse Film Academie (NFA),27 Dutch cinema was represented almost exclusively by the documentary film (with films by Ivens and Haanstra alongside those of Charles Huguenot van der Linden, Herman van der Horst, Hattum Hoving, John Ferno, Louis van Gasteren, and Johan van der Keuken, amongst others), though a small number of short dramatic films and longer features were also made (Cowie 1979: 47-48). The founding of the NFA was an important milestone marking the start of a new era for Dutch film, especially regarding fiction feature films. Significantly, the films examined in detail in this book begin in 1962, soon after the NFA’s inception, corresponding therefore with the beginning of a Dutch ‘new wave’ in film production that was sustained for around 20 years. Many prominent practitioners in the Dutch film world today (and several of those who directed and produced the films I analyse) began their careers at the NFA. The film magazine Skoop was launched in 1963 by two of the leading lights of this new wave of Dutch filmmakers—Wim Verstappen and Pim de la Parra, who were also NFA alumni. Skoop provided a platform for debate about the aims and achievements of this new generation of filmmakers.28 Cowie describes how De la Parra, Verstappen, and their colleagues ‘were united in their determination to reject the documentary image of Holland as a country of dikes, cheese, and tulips’ (1979: 82). De La Parra’s most prominent work is Frank en Eva (Living Apart Together, 1973) and Wan Pipel (One People,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

1976). Among Verstappen’s best-known films are Blue Movie (1970), Alicia (1975), and Pastorale 1943 (1978). Other feature film producers and directors coming to prominence during this era were Fons Rademakers, Paul Verhoeven, and Rob Houwer. Rademakers had worked as assistant director to Vittorio de Sica in Rome, Jean Renoir in France, and Charles Crichton in England. He went on to direct Het Mes (The Knife, 1961), Als Twee Druppels Water (The Spitting Image, 1963), Max Havelaar (1976), and De Aanslag (The Assault, 1986) in the Netherlands. Paul Verhoeven’s Dutch directing credits include Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight, 1973), Keetje Tippel (Cathy Tippel, 1975), Spetters (1980),29 De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man, 1983), and his most renowned Dutch film, Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange, 1977).30 Rob Houwer produced most of Verhoeven’s Dutch feature films before the director’s move to a new production base in Hollywood in 1985.31 In 2006, Verhoeven directed Zwartboek (Black Book), whose story is set towards the end of the occupation and chronicles a young Dutch Jewish woman’s attempts to find out who betrayed her family during the war. She infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters and takes on dangerous undercover work for the resistance. Zwartboek was financed by the Netherlands, Britain, and Germany, was filmed mainly on location in Holland, and had Dutch, German, English, and Hebrew languages spoken throughout. It represented a return for Verhoeven to his European and specifically Dutch film roots, albeit this time with a budget of sixteen million euros (the most expensive Dutch film to date32) and an international co-production. Director Ate de Jong and cameraman Jan de Bont also migrated to America in the late 1980s, having first worked in Dutch film production for ten and twenty years respectively. De Jong had directed Een Vlucht Regenwulpen (A Flight of Rainbirds, 1981), Brandende Liefde (Burning Love, 1983), and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (In the Shadow of Victory, 1986) in the Netherlands, and De Bont had worked as cinematographer for several Dutch directors on productions already mentioned: Blue Movie (1970), Turks Fruit (1973), Keetje Tippel (1975), and De Vierde Man (1983), before his move to Hollywood. Both subsequently achieved a fairly high degree of commercial success internationally.33 Ate de Jong then followed Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek lead in returning to the Netherlands to direct the 2012 Dutch film Het Bombardement (The Bombing), set at the time of the May 1940 bombing of Rotterdam.34 Slightly preceding the founding in 1958 of the NFA from which these Dutch film production talents sprang, the Nederlands Productiefonds (‘Netherlands Production Fund’)—now known as the Nederlands Filmfonds (‘Netherlands Film Fund’)—was created in 1956, though it only began to take effect on the national film scene in the late 1960s. This Film Fund comprised a sophisticated system of film financing and has proven to be an invaluable resource

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 49

50 |

without which most of the ‘new’ Dutch feature films, especially from the late 1960s onwards, would never have been completed.35 The Film Fund continues to operate as a vital component of contemporary film production in the Netherlands, offering stable, long-term, and interest-free loans of up to fifty percent of total film production budgets. Having initially gained recognition for its documentary expertise, the Netherlands film industry continues today to produce relatively successful and varied feature films. Dutch films have often been represented at international awards ceremonies. Eight Academy Awards have been won by films from the Netherlands over the course of the Academy Awards’ history, three of which were for Best Foreign Language Film: Fons Rademakers’ De Aanslag in 1987, Marleen Gorris’ Antonia (Antonia’s Line) in 1995, and Mike van Diem’s Karakter (Character) in 1997.36 For such a small country, this is a considerable achievement, yet the concept of a nationally recognized, cohesive Dutch cinema remains problematic amongst filmmakers in the Netherlands, affected inevitably by factors such as the size of the country, its minority language, the interruption to indigenous film production during the war years, the overall legacy of the occupation for Dutch society, and the seeping egress abroad of acting and production talents.37 Discrete aspects of cinema history tend to be the focus of scholarly works on Dutch film: for example, pioneers of the silent film era (Blom 2003; Bishoff 1988); the arrival of talking pictures (Dibbets 1993); the growth or decline of cinema buildings (Bertina 1970); the documentary tradition (Bakker 1999); or specific directors or cinematographers (Haanstra 1983; Bernink 2003). The fragmentary nature of Dutch film heritage means there is a scarcity of works on a national ‘cinema of the Netherlands’ or on developments in feature film since the new wave of talents from the early 1960s onwards, though publications have focused on Dutch experimental film (Abrahams et al. eds. 2004), cultural history and film (Schoots 2004), and an eclectic overview of film topics relating to Dutch film history (Albers et al. 2004). The first attempt at an inclusive history, Dutch Cinema, was written only in 1979, by English film scholar Peter Cowie, and though its focus is indeed Dutch films from the post-war period, the book’s date (1979) means it does not take into account more recent developments. The Cinema of the Low Countries (Mathijs ed. 2004) asserts an interconnectedness between the films of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg in terms of genre, language, format, and local and international importance, in contrast to their long being regarded as isolated texts with no sense of national identity in their countries of origin. Though only one chapter concerns a Dutch feature film about the war (Swinnen’s essay on Soldaat van Oranje 2004: 141-148), Mathijs’ emphasis on the importance of a film text itself as well as its cultural context intersects with my own text-first approach in this book.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Hans Schoots (2004) uses a cultural-historical approach to describe Dutch feature films of the 1960s and 1970s in relation to their production contexts. He considers films as reflecting the society of their time and broaches themes such as the nostalgia of Dutch film from the late 1950s, the growing depiction of sex, the 1970s and women’s liberation, and new acting and directing talents. From Bert Haanstra’s 1958 bucolic comedy Fanfare, about internecine rivalries within an idyllic Dutch village’s brass brand, to Paul Verhoeven’s 1980 film Spetters, concerning the aspirations of three young motorcycle racers, Schoots focuses on the relationship between film producers and the political and social situations in which they work, as well as the influence of film critics and government policy. Schoots’ original approach is akin to my own in this book in terms of viewing films as reflections of the zeitgeist of their creation, though it is the more popular, commercial Dutch films of the 1960s and 1970s—such as Blue Movie (1970), Wat Zien Ik? (1971), Turks Fruit (1973), and Twee Vrouwen (1978) that form his frame of reference.38 He does not give priority to films made about the war and occupation or how these might be interpreted in terms of Dutch social memory, cultural coping, the mythologizing of society’s arbitrary (negative) experiences, and assimilating, re-presenting, and re-animating them within filmic texts.

DUTCH WAR FILMS: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES In order to situate the films examined in the following chapters within their chronological and cultural settings, I move now to a closer view of Dutch films made specifically about the war. I deal here with full-length feature films, not documentaries or short fiction films, though brief reference is made to these when required. Films produced during the occupation in Holland from 1940 to 1945 are not included, as these were made under the auspices of German company Universum Film AG (UFA), which was in control of all Dutch film production during the occupation years. Though my analyses concentrate on films made between 1962 and 1986, a broader overview of the production of Dutch war films will now be given in the interest of context. In his article ‘The Image of Occupation’ (1986), David Barnouw analyses the output of Dutch film about the war and the occupation. His work and that of Egbert Barten (1990) encompasses both a historical overview and a cultural/ societal perspective with regard to writing about Dutch film, a perspective that comes closest to my approach in this book.39 Of the four war films produced in the Netherlands between 1945 and 1949, the first was Bezet Gebied (Occupied Territory), directed by Frans Dupont in 1946. Set in Haarlem, the film depicts the many forms of resistance during the whole period of occupation, and

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 51

52 |

‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are clearly demarcated. Dutch resistance fighters are shown as resolute and brave individuals, while apparent ‘traitors’ are dishonourable and untrustworthy looking (Barnouw 1986: 20). According to Barnouw, this ‘apparently clear distinction’ in film between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’—in other words, between those who resisted the enemy invaders and those who collaborated—was to play a key role in depictions of the occupation in the following decades, with little or no attention paid to the majority of people existing somewhere between those two extremes (1986: 20-21). The short feature Zes Jaren (Six Years) was made in 1946 by Henry M. Josephson and Charles Huguenot van der Linden. It comprises a long flashback about the impact of the Nazi invasion on Leiden’s student population and the dilemma of the young Dutch men sent to forced labour camps in Germany. The film maintains a heroic mood, looking to the possibility of a better world after liberation. The students are shown reading recipes to each other during a time of food scarcity, and although a young Jewish man knows he is not likely to survive, his friends support him loyally (Cowie 1979: 25-26).40 Niet Tevergeefs (But Not in Vain), directed by Edmond Gréville, appeared in 1948 and was an official war remembrance film commissioned by the Dutch government.41 The film was dedicated to the former Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, who that same year had handed the crown over to her daughter, Juliana. The film concerned the experiences of a farming family and the onderduikers (people forced into hiding) they sheltered during the occupation. Two versions of this film were made at the same time—a Dutch and an English version, with English actors taking the three main roles in the English-speaking version. French director Gréville had made films in France, England, and now the Netherlands, but Niet Tevergeefs fared very badly at the box office and was poorly received both by audiences and critics. The fourth Dutch film about the war in the post-war period was commissioned by the major Dutch resistance organisation LO-LKP.42 The film, entitled simply LO-LKP, was made in 1949 by Max de Haas and concerned the exploits of that resistance organization. Barnouw comments that the film introduced itself as ‘the story not of heroes but of “normal orderly citizens”’ (1986: 21) and that it was another ‘black-and-white depiction’ without the many shades of grey between these extremes that formed the everyday wartime experiences of most people. The following year, in 1950, De Dijk is Dicht (The Dike is Sealed) appeared, directed by Anton Koolhaas. This film marked a shift in the portrayal of the war, as it recaptured the wartime atmosphere but contained an emotional story of trauma and rehabilitation at its core. Barten suggests that this is the first Dutch war film to grapple with assimilating the war in terms of the emotional and material loss experienced (1990: 229). Schoots points out that films made in the Netherlands in the first five post-war years tended to portray

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

a glorified image of heroism, especially with regard to the work of the resistance, and a sense of duty (2004: 40). There then followed a decade-long silence in the production of films with war-related themes—a remarkable hiatus which may well have articulated the mood of the Dutch in that phase of postwar recovery. A contributing factor to this gap in indigenous war film production from 1951 to 1961 was the popularity of imported German entertainment films during this period, which can be considered rather ironic given the Nazi domination of the Dutch film production industry just a decade earlier. But though Dutch domestic film production inevitably suffered the lasting effects of the wartime lack of autonomy and damage to its infrastructure (as had happened in so many other areas of economic, social, and cultural life) it seems that there were other factors at play—an active public shunning of all things war-related that influenced and indeed articulated this decade-long silence.43 In 1962, De Overval (The Silent Raid) was made by Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse, described by Barnouw as ‘the last real resistance film’ (1986: 23). It was a reconstruction of a real-life successful, non-violent raid on a prison in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden in December 1944 to liberate a number of resistance fighters imprisoned there. Historian and writer Louis de Jong had been responsible for the screenplay, thus lending kudos to the production and seeming to reinforce the historical accuracy of the film’s sources. Two other Dutch war films were made in the 1960s. Als Twee Druppels Water appeared in 1963, adapted from Willem Frederik Hermans’ novel De donkere kamer van Damocles (The Darkroom of Damocles) and directed by Fons Rademakers. This film tackled the issues of resistance and possible collaboration as a complex game in which there was no longer room for heroes (Barnouw 1986: 23). The film’s central dilemma—a man’s search for his identity—is exposed when the main character, Ducker, is shadowed by his doppelganger, a double, a man who is ‘the spitting image’ of him, and yet it seems only Ducker has ever met him. Alter ego Dorbeck’s own misdeeds during the war bring Ducker’s morality into question, especially after the liberation. The film raises pertinent issues about anonymity in wartime, the thin line between collaboration and resistance, and the serious implications of mistaken identity. The other film during this decade was De Vijanden (The Enemies, 1968), a Dutch/Belgian co-production written and directed by Belgian author-turned filmmaker Hugo Claus. De Vijanden was set during the Ardennes Offensive of December 1944-January 1945 and depicts the circumstances that force an American soldier, a German soldier, and a young Belgian man from Antwerp to try and survive the offensive together. An attempt was made to show what war was really like, and the film’s message is ultimately an anti-war one, though it was not considered a success and was criticized for a lack of authenticity in terms of its mise-en-scène. However, the ‘authenticity’ of ‘historical reproduction’ in film is not a primary

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 53

54 |

concern in my research, focusing as it does on the sociological and cultural aspects that underpin the creation of filmic texts. Many years would pass after De Vijanden before other feature films would be made about the occupation. Louis de Jong’s television documentary series De Bezetting (The Occupation) had been screened on Dutch television between 1960 and 196544 and was successful in reawakening interest in the war among the public (after an absence of interest and output during the 1950s) and bringing it to the attention of a new post-war generation. De Bezetting depicted the grim elements of the occupation yet at the same time appealed to people’s patriotic feelings. It is likely to have been viewed by the future creators of Dutch war films from the 1970s and 1980s. It was to be fourteen years after the last wholly Dutch war film (Als Twee Druppels Water, as De Vijanden was a Dutch/Belgian co-production) before Paul Verhoeven directed the acclaimed 1977 film Soldaat van Oranje. It was the first of its kind—a film openly dealing with the dilemmas and divided loyalties faced by the Dutch under German occupation. A Bridge Too Far (made by British filmmaker Richard Attenborough in the same year) was also filmed in the Netherlands and focused on the enormity of the conflict and its battles. But Soldaat van Oranje turned its gaze on the ambiguities confronting ordinary people and the tensions arising from choosing different paths of resistance, collaboration, or maintaining day-to-day passivity as a means of surviving the occupation. Verhoeven had become interested in the mid-1970s in the memoirs of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema (Swinnen 2004: 146), a resistance fighter who had fled to England after the occupation, flew as a pilot in the Royal Air Force, and returned to the Netherlands after liberation as aide-de-camp to Queen Wilhelmina.45 Verhoeven’s resulting film based on elements of Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s story focused on the smaller aspects of life under occupation rather than on stories of death and bravery, though its focus turns in the film’s second half towards heroic resistance set pieces and a mix of traumatic and optimistic outcomes for the film’s central group of friends. But there is always an undercurrent of war within the film; a recognition that the state of play, of occupation, is an unnatural one. The film traces the experiences of the main character Erik Lanshof (based on Hazelhoff Roelfzema) alongside several of his friends from his pre-war student days in Leiden to his emotional post-war return to Holland at the side of Queen Wilhelmina. Cowie notes: Not many film-makers would have dared to show the anti-Jewish feelings that existed in Holland, or the quasi-Fascist initiation ceremonies among the university students in 1938, or the Dutch crowds pressing flowers into the hands of Nazi soldiers as they marched through the streets. (1979: 103)

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

| 55 2. Leiden freshers endure ‘hazing’ in 1938, Soldaat van Oranje. Left to right: Nico, Jacques, Erik, and Alex

This suggestion of a developing ambiguity in portrayals of Dutch reactions to occupation within Verhoeven’s Soldaat van Oranje resonates with shifts over time towards greyness and ambiguity I identify in my readings of these Dutch war films over the following chapters. Barnouw suggests that the filming of well-known war books became the trend in the boom in war-film production after Soldaat van Oranje appeared in 1977 (1986: 27). This is certainly true of the films examined in this book, most of which are adapted from, or based on, works of literature. Five out of the seven films I look at closely were produced between 1977 and 1986 and thus are included within this period of ‘boom’. Barten concurs that it was not until the end of the 1970s that war films were again on the agenda for the Dutch after a significant interval, though he recognizes that this was not the end of their ‘absences’ from the screen (1990: 215-216).46 Indeed, there was to be another substantial period from 1986 until the present day during which only eight Dutch films with war as their main theme were made (not many over a period of 30 years).47 There had already been the decade-long silence in Dutch war film production in the 1950s alongside which can be added the hiatus from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s and the current long phase of relative scarcity from 1986 to the present.48 These peaks and troughs in the production of Dutch war films are important, particularly with regard to why periods of

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

56 |

boom and bust occurred in relation to what was happening on a society-wide level. It is not only the creation of these war films and their contexts that is interesting but also the gaps over time in filmic images of war. To date, no indepth cultural and sociological examination of Dutch war films, or of these phases of ebb and flow in filmic representations of war, has been written in either the English or Dutch language—until this book. Of the two Dutch war films made in the 1970s, the second was Pastorale 1943 directed by Wim Verstappen in 1978 and adapted from the novel Pastorale by Dutch author Simon Vestdijk.49 It was a film about resistance but was less heroic than Soldaat van Oranje made the year before. The film concerns the inhabitants of the small fictional Dutch town of Doornwijk during the German occupation who make many blunders when attempting to undertake resistance activities. They are neither well-armed nor well-trained but are haphazard, clumsy, and unprepared for the more violent aspects of resistance work.50 When the resistance group tries to execute a local collaborator whom they are convinced betrayed the whereabouts of onderduikers, it turns out they kill the wrong man, even though they tried to dispense justice in a way they considered fair. Dutch audiences would certainly discover through this film that the resistance was not everything it was made out to be in its myths. Eight Dutch films on the subject of war were released in the 1980s. These were: Charlotte (Frans Weisz, 1980), Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (The Girl with the Red Hair, Ben Verbong, 1981), and Bastille (Rudolph van den Berg, 1984). Three films were made in 1985: Het Bittere Kruid (Bitter Sweet, Kees van Oostrom), De IJssalon (The Ice-Cream Parlour, also known as Private Resistance, Dimitri Frenkel Frank), and Soldaten zonder Geweren (Soldiers without Guns, Kees Hin). The following year, 1986, saw the release of two war films: De Aanslag directed by Fons Rademakers and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning by Ate De Jong. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981) was based on the 1956 biography of resistance figure Hannie Schaft written by Theun de Vries. The film concerns the resistance in Holland and the real-life personality of Hannie Schaft as a symbol of that movement. Though the film’s production values were high, especially in terms of its cinematography, it became controversial for two main reasons: whilst Theun de Vries left readers of the original biography in no doubt of Schaft’s Communist sympathies, the film’s director Ben Verbong chose not to follow this particular interpretation in his film, which left a gap in the Schaft character’s supposed motivations. De Vries was himself a communist and had his own agenda in prioritizing Schaft’s Communism in his biographical novel. This raises interesting questions about films as adaptations and interpretations of literature, which can in turn be versions of real-life events and personalities, leading to a complex multi-layering of representa-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

tions and interpretations in the final filmic texts. The assimilation of war and occupation in Dutch literature is not the main focus of this book, yet even so, five out of the seven films studied here are based on Dutch works of literature about the war. A further criticism of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar relates to its focus on Hannie Shaft’s femininity rather than her intelligence and firm motivations for resistance work. The film’s title The Girl with the Red Hair has a child-like connotation, stressing the protagonist’s hair colour and gender rather than her aptitude as a member of the resistance.51 Het Bittere Kruid (1985), based on the semi-autobiographical book of the same name by Margo Minco, also gave rise to considerable controversy. The film centres on the destruction of a Dutch Jewish family during the occupation, with only the young daughter Sara surviving the war. The controversy arose when Minco took the filmmakers to court for straying too far from her source novel (Barnouw 1986: 26). Director Kees van Oostrum had created an additional core relationship in the film between Jewish protagonist Sara and the members of a Dutch NSB family, particularly Greet, the NSB family’s daughter. Minco strongly rejected the construction of this relationship, as it conflicted with the spirit of her book and in turn her own experiences (Minco cited in Barnouw 1986: 26). She requested that the film’s name be changed and that screening of it be prevented, but her court case was unsuccessful. The judge ruled in favour of producer Rob Houwer and director Van Oostrum, as the film project would face financial ruin were its name to be changed or screenings prevented. This case again prompts questions about the truth content of fiction and film, and whether film creates on-screen seemingly juxtaposed relationships for dramatic effect alone. And we wonder if the situation here—a fabricated friendship between a Jewish girl and a daughter of a NSB member—was even that far from being possible in wartime Holland, especially considering the numbers of wartime NSB members. In 1986, Fons Rademakers’ Academy Award-winning De Aanslag was released. Based on Harry Mulisch’s best-selling novel of the same name,52 the film is a compelling portrait of the war experience of a twelve-year old boy, Anton Steenwijk, who, during the Hongerwinter in early 1945, witnesses the murder of his parents and brother and the burning of his house as reprisals for an arbitrary act of resistance that had no connection with the Steenwijks. Anton is disoriented and unsure what has really happened, and why. Over the following decades he is unable to come to terms with his past. As Barnouw points out: ‘the protagonist is not a hero nor a coward, neither right nor wrong, but nor was he ordinary; his war experience was far from ordinary’ (1986: 29). Anton’s own traumatic wartime experiences can only finally be assimilated and dealt with after three further episodes of real-life war and occupation— Korea in 1952, Hungary in 1956, and Vietnam in 1966—and one event full of

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 57

58 |

hope and optimism: the large Dutch peace demonstration of 1981. The film traces Anton’s life over 40 years of public and private events, which force him finally to recall his childhood memories and question the circumstances of the occupation. Though seemingly a war film, De Aanslag develops into a portrait of the period between the war and the present day, with Anton as a representative of individuals and nations affected by forgetting, then remembering, the overwhelming and traumatic events of war and occupation.53 In the same year, Ate De Jong’s In de Schaduw van de Overwinning came out, a film about differing degrees of resistance and the choices people made during the occupation. It is a film of contrasts and choices—choosing between confrontational, violent resistance or using one’s intellect in a dangerous game with the occupiers that appears to blur the boundaries of collaboration. Artist Peter Van Dijk chooses the resistance path of action and violence, whilst Jewish doctor and emigration officer David Blumberg chooses an intellectual route of deception, inventing a German general and a list of Jews who will apparently gain safe passage to Switzerland. Reminiscent of Oscar Schindler’s list, Blumberg’s task entails a great deal of risky deception to maintain the believability of his invented ‘Von Spiegel list’. In de Schaduw van de Overwinning raises questions about ambiguous choices made during occupation and the strengths and weaknesses of traditional notions of fighting the enemy. The film’s fluid depictions of resistance and of ordinary life under occupation, in particular its portrayal of the Jewish experience of war and persecution in the Netherlands, sets it apart in this strong decade of filmic renderings of the occupation within Dutch cinema. Since 1986, which formed the zenith of international acclaim with De Aanslag’s Academy Award win, only eight films specifically about the occupation have been produced in the Netherlands. This is a modest figure given that the period spans 30 years54 and in view of the significance of the war in Dutch social and cultural history and memory. De Zondagsjongen, made by Pieter Verhoeff in 1991, was the first of these, appearing five years after De Aanslag and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. The film concerns a young boy born to Dutch and German parents during the war who struggles with issues of nationality and in adulthood tries to conceal his true identity. It is not a particularly wellknown or celebrated film. The true story of a resistance member’s attempted escape from a notorious solitary confinement cell at Amersfoort concentration camp forms the basis of De Bunker, written and directed by Gerard Soeteman in 1992, although it, too, was not well-received. Soeteman had worked previously as scriptwriter on Verhoeven’s Turks Fruit (1973), Soldaat van Oranje (1977), and De Vierde Man (1983) as well as for Rademakers’ films Max Havelaar (1976) and De Aanslag (1986). A full ten years would pass before the next Dutch film touching on the sub-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ject of war appeared. This was De Tweeling (Twin Sisters), made in 2002 by Ben Sombogaart.55 De Tweeling, based on the novel by Tessa de Loo, is a love story in which the war plays a part through its tale of twin sisters Lotte and Anna, separated in childhood in 1920s Germany and brought up by relatives. One sister grows up on her uncle’s poor and primitive farm in rural Germany, the other with a staunchly socialist but nevertheless affluent aunt in Holland. The sisters meet again by chance as young adults during the war, and their differing situations force them even further apart. One marries a German SS officer, while the other’s Jewish fiancé is deported to Auschwitz. In many ways the twin sisters represent the closeness of Germany and the Netherlands (in many respects, not just geographical) and the tensions, traumas, and long-term repercussions of the war. De Tweeling follows the sisters’ attempts to resolve their differences, and when they meet unexpectedly at a health spa as elderly women, one in particular hopes that reconciliation may finally be possible. The next Dutch film about the occupation was Zwartboek, made in 2006 by Paul Verhoeven when he returned to his native Holland to make this film. Zwartboek is ostensibly an old-fashioned war story about the survival and journey into resistance work of a young Jewish singer, Rachel Stein, after she witnesses her family’s murder (and is nearly killed herself). The film portrays Rachel’s courage in infiltrating the local Gestapo headquarters disguised as blonde chanteuse Ellis de Vries in order to extract information crucial to the resistance. On another level, Zwartboek subverts assumptions about the innate ‘goodness’ of the resistance as Rachel realizes that, having apparently collaborated with the German occupiers, she may in the end have less to fear from the so-called enemy than from a vengeful post-war Dutch public or even from her ‘resistance hero’ colleagues. In many ways, Zwartboek can be viewed as a companion piece to Verhoeven’s own Soldaat van Oranje from almost 30 years earlier. But Zwartboek’s characters inhabit an even greyer shade of moral ambiguity than the earlier film. Alongside Zwartboek’s protagonist Rachel Stein, we realize with shock that resistance heroes are murderers and schemers and that collaborators emerge from unexpected sources. Since Zwartboek in 2006, four Dutch films about the war have been made. Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime), a 2008 film by Martin Koolhoven based on the novel by Jan Terlouw, is a small film but was well-received at the box office. It tells the story of young teenager Michiel’s inadvertent entry into resistance work when he discovers and helps a wounded British air force pilot. Set in the time of the Hunger Winter, the film conveys the difficulties of occupation and Michiel’s burgeoning resistance work in opposition to his father, the local town mayor. Aimed at a younger audience, Oorlogswinter somewhat simplistically depicts the occupation and does not convey the extent of the deprivation and starvation that the Hunger Winter entailed, yet it still delivers a surpris-

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 59

60 |

ing twist and raises questions about who to trust and what resistance means. Het Bombardement, directed by Ate de Jong in 2012, is seemingly about the May 1940 bombing of Rotterdam. It contains fine cinematography but was not well received due primarily to its narrative favouring of a class-divide love story amidst the bigger story of the devastating Rotterdam air attacks. Süskind, directed by Rudolf van den Berg, was also made in 2012. The film tells the story of Jewish Council member Walter Süskind—who worked with the SS to arrange the transportation of Jews to Westerbork holding camp—and his efforts to rescue hundreds of children from deportation to the concentration camps. The film touches on themes seen in In de Schaduw van de Overwinning and Schindler’s List such as forced or seeming collaboration, playing a dangerous game of deception with the occupiers, and the attempted rescuing of Jews from deportation. Oorlogsgeheimen (Secrets of War), made by Dennis Bots in 2014, is based on the novel of the same name by children’s author Jacques Vriens. It offers a view of the occupation from the perspective of two young boys and a girl. Their families have different loyalties: one boy’s father is in the resistance, while the other’s family obeys the occupiers. The film reveals the consequences of errors and prejudice in wartime, seen very much through the eyes of children. Of these Dutch films about the war and occupation, the seven I examine in detail over the following chapters are: De Overval (1962), Als Twee Druppels Water (1963), Soldaat van Oranje (1977), Pastorale 1943 (1978), Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981), De Aanslag (1986), and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986). I also consider Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek from 2006. I chose these films because they represent a significant era of quality in Dutch film production and because they embrace an evolving image of occupation. The number of films analysed must necessarily be limited due to the in-depth nature of my readings of these films and in order to avoid an all-inclusiveness that risks inadequately probing these valuable filmic texts. De Overval appeared in 1962 after a decade-long hiatus in films about the occupation, and over the next 24 years there were significant changes in depictions of the war. 1977’s Soldaat van Oranje was highly regarded and initiated the international careers of many of its cast and crew,56 and Pastorale 1943 from 1978 is a lesser-known yet high-quality re-imagining of the occupation. The same can be said of In de Schaduw van de Overwinning from 1986, perhaps in the shadow of the also excellent and critically acclaimed De Aanslag made the same year. Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek (2006), though made 30 years after his Soldaat van Oranje, has strong thematic links to his earlier film, hence its inclusion. In the world outside of film production, fundamental changes were taking place in the Netherlands, Europe, and around the world during the times in which these films were made, especially during the political and social instabilities of the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

1960s and 1970s. This book aims to seek out the connections between Dutch society throughout the post-war decades and the films of those eras as a way of understanding the one (the society) by engaging in a critical analysis and interpretation of the other (its films). Cultural and sociological perspectives on Dutch films about the war are very scarce in scholarly work. Very little has been written explicitly on sociocultural interpretations of Dutch film, especially films about the occupation. This book, the first to examine the representation of the occupation in Dutch feature films, aims to address this gap and bring these important Dutch films to a wider audience. David Barnouw (1986; 2005) and Egbert Barten (1990) have written valuable articles that provide cultural and societal contexts for Dutch war films as well as a more traditional historical approach. Pierre Sorlin (1991), Johan Swinnen (2004), and Ernest Mathijs (2004) also write persuasively on the topic, yet only in chapters or segments. Unsurprisingly, a chief preoccupation of this group of mainly Dutch scholars is the representation of the resistance and its apparent antithesis, collaborators, in war films from the Netherlands, a significant theme throughout my readings of the films. Barnouw (1986) and Chris van der Heijden (2003) evaluate the period of reconstruction and renewal in the Netherlands immediately after liberation, in which the Dutch military authorities attempted to restore normality and sought to punish those on the ‘wrong’ side. Around 100,000 Dutch people who were regarded as collaborators or were accused of other crimes were arrested and imprisoned shortly after the liberation (Van der Heijden 2003: 349).57 The majority waited for long periods for their trials—even several years—in very poor conditions (Barnouw 1986: 19-20). Capital punishment, which had been abolished in the Netherlands in 1870, was briefly re-introduced after the war years, and 32 of the 132 Dutch citizens sentenced to death were executed (Barnouw 1986: 20).58 Within a short time, however, a tendency developed in the courts towards milder punishments and the pardoning of offences deemed less serious. Alongside military measures, it was apparent that the government’s role in rebuilding the country after five years of occupation would be a challenging one. A government radio broadcast from April 1946 refers to the potential role that film might play in this economic, political, social, and cultural renewal: We must create a new life for the people. They must be purged of the influence of Nazi propaganda, they must be re-convinced of the superiority of several fundamental moral norms and spiritual principles, they will have to be re-educated in their faith in the superiority of democracy as an environment. The demands which the government makes and must make in reconstruction must be made clear. Film can and must play a

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 61

significant role in this […] Again, a balance will have to be found between individual enterprise and conscious intervention by the authorities, which will have to add the functions of supervising, encouraging and subsidising to its activities. (cited in Barnouw 1986: 20; my emphasis)59

62 |

The fact that film is mentioned in a broadcast to the public so soon after the end of the war and is considered part of the ‘tools’ of civic reconstruction and renewal laid out in a government proposal shows again the importance of film in real world affairs. Yet after the first war films had been made following the liberation in 1945, Barnouw suggests that there were already signs of what he calls ‘war weariness’ as early as 1949, with publishers of war and resistance novels having problems selling enough copies (1986: 21). Even before this date, several publishers had rejected Anne Frank’s diary prior to its eventual publication in 1947. Barnouw suggests that the initial resistance films made in the Netherlands during this time (1945 to 1949) may have contributed to an aversion of all things war-related. ‘War weariness’ helps in understanding the ebb and flow of public interest—including filmmakers—in the subject of war. This relates to the stages of post-war recovery in the Netherlands suggested by Van der Heijden (2003: 343-345) and Blom (2007: 123-131) discussed earlier. Certainly Van der Heijden’s initial phase of recovery, from 1945 to 1950, corresponds to that first foray of Dutch films into the topic of war (films such as Bezet Gebied from 1946 and LO-LKP from 1949). A second phase, between 1950 and the early 1960s, in which people wanted to forget the war completely, corresponds to a complete absence of films on the topic of the occupation during this period. In this book I explore the complex, evolving role played by film in Dutch cultural memory and the connections between films and public consciousness. It is interesting to note that films sometimes, but not always, reflect society’s mind-set at the time; but usually they take longer, in some cases a very long time, to assimilate society’s communal experiences. Depictions of resistance and collaboration tend to be the focal points for existing scholarly writing on Dutch war films, though as we have discovered this is not abundant. Sorlin (1991) does not deal specifically with Dutch films, but he usefully highlights what European films might tell us about the cultures that produced them and also whether those films are capable of affecting social change. He discusses resistance films made in Europe (particularly in Italy, France, and Germany) in the 1940s and 1950s and points out the problems inherent in depicting resistance fighters or ‘heroes’. Resistance is a difficult topic in films, Sorlin suggests, fluctuating between ‘a biased use of real documents and a fording of “authentic” fakes, between an awkward representation of actual resistants and the building up of a mythical figure for the “perfect” secret fighter’ (1991: 61). This ‘mythical figure’ echoes the myth

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

of resistance persisting in Dutch cultural memory and reflected in films about the occupation. Sorlin further points to the moral ambiguities surrounding the unusual circumstances of occupation and resistance: Fighting Britain wonders whether she would have resisted if she had been occupied—or rather she takes it for granted she would have done but finds it useful to demonstrate it. In occupied or defeated countries a common preoccupation can be detected: did we passively accept or did we resist? (1991: 57) This raises an interesting point about the depiction of the resistance in the films of a formerly occupied country such as the Netherlands in contrast to one that had remained autonomous (in Sorlin’s example, Britain). It also compels us to wonder how formerly occupied countries like the Netherlands could begin to synthesize their communal memories of occupation in order to make sense of them and to ask how such a society arrives at re-animating history (or its preferred versions of history) into myth via popular culture—for example, through its filmic texts. Egbert Barten’s chapter (1990) charts the assimilation of World War Two in films produced in the Netherlands and embraces both a traditional historical approach and some socio-cultural perspectives. He draws attention to the fact that of all Dutch films on any topic produced since the end of the war, very few concern the German occupation.60 Of all Dutch films with war-related themes, most have been made from the late 1970s onwards. Barten asks why, after a brief peak just after the liberation in 1945, there was a long period of silence in war film production (with a brief appearance again in the early 1960s). This gap in Dutch war films remained until the substantial phase of war films began in the late 1970s, which formed an integral part of Dutch film production (Barten 1990: 215). He also questions whether the burst of films produced in the 1980s—amounting to eight films in this decade alone—was just another ‘peak’ because the subject of war happened to be ‘in’ during this time (1990: 215). Outside of film production but coinciding with the starting point of the films explored in this book, significant social and political developments were taking place in the Netherlands as they were in the rest of the world. Barnouw encapsulates these Dutch social and cultural changes, particularly in the second half of the 1960s. The Netherlands was no longer associated with images of windmills and clogs but ‘Amsterdam as a Mecca for youth, where you could sleep in the Vondel Park and even for a brief period on the steps of the National Remembrance Memorial in the capital’ (Barnouw 1986: 24). Hippies became recognized beyond Holland with ‘their friendly anarchic actions’ making a

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 63

fool of authority (1986: 24). In March 1966, the Dutch crown princess Beatrix married German diplomat Claus von Amsberg, an unpopular choice of partner. The royal wedding was held in Amsterdam, and during the ceremonial procession, smoke bombs were thrown which ‘reached the front pages of the national and international press’ (Barnouw 1986: 24). The Netherlands had always been peaceful, and whilst the Vietnam demonstrations and student protests in the late 1960s were not exclusive to Holland, their impact on Dutch society was immense (1986: 24). The younger generation was becoming suspicious of older people who had lived through the occupation: The attacks on the established order also extended into the past. If the fathers and the grandfathers, the mothers and grandmothers, were a bad lot now, then precious few of their stories about the war would be true, with a few exceptions. (Barnouw 1986: 24) 64 | This younger generation from the 1960s began to doubt inherited stories from the past—myths about the resistance and collaborators and about who was ‘good’ and ‘bad’ during the war. I propose in this book that alongside (or later, in some instances) changing attitudes and social, economic, and political developments, cultural representations of past events evolve and change too. But it could also be argued that these old myths and re-writings of history about the occupation are only replaced by new versions of ‘reality’ or ‘unreality’. How would a new generation of Dutch filmmakers born after the occupation render these changing communal experiences, memories, and perceptions of the war onto the screen? Barnouw describes how young directors now had to refer to history books for facts about the occupation or to the knowledge of the staff of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (1986: 26). In this way, the particular histories and personal recollections of the German occupation faded from first-hand memory, becoming further removed by time. The making of war films therefore became a task of re-writing history and re-interpreting the past, both of which are relevant to my readings of these films. Sorlin describes the Europe-wide decline of the ‘resistance film’ up to about 1970 after the previous 25 years during which there was a reasonable degree of unity in how wartime resistance fighters were depicted (1991: 78-79). Early post-war Dutch films had played a key role in mythologizing the resistance in Dutch popular memory, a myth of resistance persisting across the decades of film production, perhaps more so in the Netherlands than in the other countries— Italy, France, and Germany—that Sorlin deals with (his study does not include the Netherlands). He attributes the growth of television documentary programmes on the subject of resistance as a contributory factor, if not

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the main reason, for this decline in resistance as a focus in feature films. European filmmakers from the 1970s and 1980s were now caught between a desire to return to the past and the necessity of looking around them at present-day society. Sorlin’s contention that ‘films are not reality but they never totally get rid of the actual situation’ (1991: 14) reminds us that we rely to some extent on the ‘reality’ depicted within films as one way of recognizing a society embodied in its films—even though I am not attempting to establish ‘what really happened’ during the occupation. An irony Sorlin notices in some films made about the resistance is that films that were intended to denounce the brutality and horror of the occupation were in fact a contributory factor in making images of screen violence more acceptable (1991: 215). The depiction of violence and brutality is a feature of my readings of these Dutch war films, and we might reason that changing appetites for what is tolerated or acceptable in terms of film subject matter also influence the representation of violence on film. Barnouw’s ultimate position is that, ideally, Dutch films about the war should focus on the interactions between people during the occupation rather than on historical accuracy or an attempt to depict what really happened. ‘No more messing around with swastikas, German helmets and yellow stars, that reality cannot be captured’ (Barnouw 1986: 29). Filmmakers should focus much more on how people react to each other and to their environment; ordinary relations among people during the war and the everyday choices facing them should be the most important aspects when thinking about the war as a subject for film (1986: 29). I agree that trying to ‘recapture reality’ in film does not work, as another era can never be fully recalled—that particular moment in time is gone and cannot be re-lived. That filmmakers should focus on how people related to each other and to everyday situations, how moral choices were compounded by trying to survive daily life in the face of potential reprisals—in other words emphasize the choices of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances—provides an interesting parallel to my exploration of images of occupation in Dutch war films. What Barnouw suggests as a focus for future filmmakers mirrors my analysis of the attitudes of societies behind a series of films that are already made: Films still concentrate on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and a deep-rooted gradation of this will only be possible when the Occupation has really been assimilated. Only then will the camera be able to tackle the largest group which had stood on neither the right nor the wrong side. (1986: 29) This reminds us of the ‘grey mass’ described by Van der Heijden (2003), meaning the ordinary people during the war who were neither goed (‘right’) nor fout

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

| 65

66 |

(‘wrong’) but who existed, like most of us would, in a moral grey zone somewhere in between. Sorlin states that ‘it is in images that most people’s awareness of their situation originates, and that is why images, distorted though they are, are significant documents for historians’ (1991: 206). This reinforces the notion of film as a barometer of society’s current concerns, in turn echoing Siegfried Kracauer’s view that in order to investigate a society, we must ‘listen to the confessions of the products of its film industries’, which are all ‘babbling a rude secret, without really wanting to […] they reveal how society wants to see itself’ (Kracauer 1995: 294). By attuning ourselves to the themes inherent in Dutch war films from 1962 to 1986, we may then be able to deduce certain truths about their cultural and sociological contexts, to see what ‘rude secrets’ they are ‘babbling’, as their themes are mediated through the filter of film. The tendency to mythologize the circumstances of the occupation is inherent in my readings of Dutch war films, for it is via film that myth finds a potent means of expression. As we proceed to the themed chapters, the importance of an understanding of myth is key to understanding the evolving role played by film in Dutch cultural memory and myth’s intricate associations with themes I explore such as resistance and collaboration, images of the enemy, life under occupation, and Dutch identity. A final point should be made before looking to the film texts themselves. For the Dutch, World War Two has always been referred to as simply de oorlog, meaning ‘the war’ (Blom 2007: 121).61 Such was its impact on the Dutch psyche that it required no further description. Blom refers to de oorlog as ‘undoubtedly the most harrowing period in recent Dutch history’ (2007: 121). The Netherlands had remained neutral throughout World War One, and it had been nearly 130 years since Dutch society had directly experienced war—not since the war against France during the Napoleonic era, after which the Netherlands was occupied by France between 1795 and 1813.62 Adriaan Hakkert describes the Netherlands’ situation prior to the German invasion in 1940 as one of ‘basking in the neutrality it had enjoyed since 1814 and a good measure of aloofness from the European stage’ (2003: 17). Thus by 1940 the Dutch experience of war was neither recent nor had it involved active fighting to any significant degree. Furthermore, and central to this book’s theme, the Netherlands’ Napoleonic war episode had also entailed a long period of foreign occupation, in that case lasting almost 20 years. It is little wonder that the 1940 to 1945 occupation by Germany generated such a huge impact—socially, politically, economically, and psychologically—on a small country unused to recent conflict yet with a significant historical connection to being occupied. This impact of occupation would filter down through family life, the media, education, government policies, and economic activity and into general public consciousness, both

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

during the war in Holland and in the years after liberation. It should not be surprising that this ‘new enemy’ of the Netherlands—the unexpected invading German force—made such an impression on subsequent cultural representations of the war, and as the next chapter will show, on the image of the enemy portrayed within a particular time-frame of post-war Dutch feature films.

| 67

Rep r esentation , occupation , and D utch w a r films

CHAPTER 2

The image of the enemy

Siegfried Kracauer wrote that ‘the films of a nation reflect its mentality’ (2004: 5).1 He considered that the collective nature of film was crucial in this. His contention that ‘films are never the product of an individual’ (2004: 5) but instead are organic, collaborative projects referred both to the production processes of films and to their ultimate audiences. Pervading a film’s narratives and visuals, ‘the “unseen dynamics of human relations” are more or less characteristic of the inner life of the nation from which the films emerge’ (Kracauer 2004: 7). This suggestion that society’s collective attitudes operate at more or less unconscious levels and that film is one of the strongest cultural means of unveiling our innate ‘psychological dispositions’ (2004: 6) echoes strongly the thread running through this book: that images of war in Dutch films reveal facets of society’s changing attitudes from the times the films were made whether society wants them to or not. My focus on shifts in cultural (specifically, filmic) representations of these communal undertows—about the enemy, national identity, the hardships of occupation, the persecution of Dutch Jews, and resistance and collaboration—over the arc of the films’ production eras, distinguishes my work from “peri”-conflict research addressing films made during the occupation years, or contemporary (wartime) personal journals and accounts. My aim in this chapter, and the three that follow, is to analyse Dutch feature films about the war according to one key theme per chapter, interpreting textual instances of, in this case, images of the enemy, with films discussed in chronological order. Working chronologically helps to illuminate patterns of change in a theme over time. Zooming in on selected film scenes or ‘snapshots’ for detailed analysis allows us to better identify shifts in the depiction of these aspects of the occupation. The visual and aural evidence identified can be considered in terms of its reflection—or refraction—of parallel shifts

| 69

in Dutch society’s attitudes to the war. This allows for an interpretation of the films in terms of what they might reveal about myths surrounding the occupation, remembrance and forgetting of the war, and the drive towards re-writing the past in film.

WHO IS THE ENEMY?

70 |

The etymology of ‘the enemy’ in the context of Dutch war films and Dutch society is an interesting one. Who do we mean when we talk of this ‘enemy’? What images are evoked in the mind? Such images can relate to a personal foe, a political figure, or the more abstract notion of a national enemy, which in peacetime can be more difficult to envisage. The purported ‘axis of evil’2 is an example of a conceived/perceived enemy of not just one country but of the entire Western world. In other epochs and contexts, ‘the enemy’ would assume a different guise according to when and where we find ourselves: the ‘Red Peril’ of Communism for the United States in the 1950s and 1960s; Protestants, Catholics, and the absolute enemy of the British army and government 40 years ago in Northern Ireland. But for the Dutch during World War Two, the enemy was undoubtedly the German invaders. Here I use the all-embracing term ‘German invaders’, though within Dutch war films this enemy might variously be described as Nazis, the Gesta­ po, National Socialists, occupiers, fascists, the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, the Schutz­staffel or Waffen SS, oppressors, Wehrmacht, or the Dutch term de moffen (­‘Jerries’). Distinctions often were made by the Dutch (both in these films and in wider society) as to which among these categories of the enemy were ‘worse’ than others. The Gestapo, in charge of the security police and concen­tration camps, were considered the arch-enemy—more hated than the Wehrmacht, the ordinary German armed forces. That there were these classifications and calibrations of the enemy indicates the complexity of life in the occupied Netherlands and points to the likelihood of similarly intricate reflections of this dual occupier/occupied existence being revealed in later films about the war. Images of the invading Germans in these various forms—as occupiers running a civil administration yet with abundant military forces, the Third Reich, ordinary soldiers in the armed forces, Nazi torturers, fascist persecutors—would remain a significant ingredient of Dutch feature films about the war for decades after the liberation. Changes can be sensed almost straight away in Dutch films from the 1960s moving to the 1980s regarding representations and distinctions among these classifications of the German invaders, in which different hues of enmity are depicted, and other accents come into focus.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

This chapter traces the changing face of that German enemy in Dutch war films, set alongside representations of the indigenous Dutch population. I am interested in why these re-shapings of the past occur in relation to Dutch society’s shifting patterns of thinking about the war and attitudes towards their former enemy. Textual evidence concerning the enemy might take the form of shots or scenes containing iconic symbols—visual or aural—typically associated with Nazi Germany in the context of this war, at least from the perspective of Allied Western countries such as France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Examples of these images or sounds are: uniforms, tanks, swastikas on banners and flags, firing squads, the Nazi salute, rousing music, lines of troops, sound effects (rifle fire, marching feet), jackboots, military motorbikes, army trucks, military insignia, weapons, and other soldierly appurtenances. Evidence might take the form of quotations by German characters in the films and dialogue spoken about them by others. It may also take the form of personality traits, physiognomy, and other characteristics depicted in the films that may or may not conform to stereotypes of that enemy. Identifying and ‘classifying’ an enemy, both in terms of historical human experience and that enemy’s depiction in cultural forms, is deeply connected to the notion of ‘self’ and ‘the other’. Lack of information or understanding between ‘us’ and that which is ‘other than us’—both in real life and in cultural representations—can create a dichotomy in which there is a sense of threat from that which we do not fully comprehend or which we believe endangers us. This self/other dynamic is a common thread in the dramatic narratives of numerous cultural works including films, plays, and novels, with the self usually signifying the viewpoint of the home nation or ‘good’ characters, whilst the other tends to imply ‘bad’ characters, outsiders, or ‘otherness’. Representations of this self/other interplay stretch back along the timeline of international feature film production—whether in the guise of romance, adventure, horror, or conflict storylines—since the silent era. The roll-call of films with a main character or group pitted against a known or unseen enemy is a long one.3 In the context of Dutch war films, this threat of the ‘other’ principally takes the form of Sicherheitsdienst or SD commanders, besides the regular German Wehrmacht armed forces.4 The SD’s presence in particular affected Dutch citizens for the five years of the occupation and beyond. I suggest that images of this enemy in its varied forms, embodied and re-represented via subsequent home nation films, articulate Dutch feelings about the German occupiers from the time these films were made, not from the war era that is the films’ historical setting. For films reflect society’s current preoccupations, whether intentionally or not, and an enduring, human preoccupation is the meta-concern of war conflict, and those who might threaten us, as well as the

T he image of the enem y

| 71

72 |

remembrance over time of trauma and negative experiences. It follows, then, that images of the enemy in one guise or another form a substantial part of Dutch filmic images of occupation. The dynamic that exists between the self/indigenous population and other/oppressive invader is strongly connected to issues of personal and national identity and patriotism, which I explore in greater detail in chapter three. Disturbances to the existing equilibrium engendered by a nation invaded and subsequently occupied for five years also gives rise to a tendency in the films to portray the Dutch as ‘heroes’ against the German occupiers as ‘villains’— another self/other dichotomy, or so it at first seems. I look closely at this tendency and at changes over time in the depiction of an apparently strict division between goed and fout (‘right’ and ‘wrong’). There is another, equally significant goed versus fout dynamic detected in the film analysis, and that is the dilemma facing ordinary Dutch citizens about whether to resist the occupiers or to collaborate with them—or to avoid either of these and attempt to inhabit a middle ground of ordinariness as a means of surviving the occupation. This is a vast, contested, and controversial topic, still prominent in Dutch public consciousness and historical debate and (occasionally) as a subject matter for films. It gives rise to another interpretation of the enemy: collaborators as enemies rather than identifying the enemy solely as the German occupiers. In chapter five I analyse in detail representations in these war films of the Netherlands’ resistance members and collaborators, and the array of variations on these seemingly opposite camps. I now examine the portrayal of the enemy in Dutch films from the early 1960s, at which time the first Dutch feature film with the occupation as its theme, De Overval (1962), appeared after over a decade of silence in homenation-produced films about the war. This is followed by Als Twee Druppels Water made in 1963, 1977’s Soldaat van Oranje, and Pastorale 1943, made a year later. Finally, I evaluate representations of the enemy in a key film from 1986—the apogee of a decade yielding eight Dutch war films—De Aanslag.

THE END OF FORGETTING: THE IMAGE OF THE ENEMY IN THE EARLY 1960S De Overval (1962) When De Overval appeared in 1962, there had been no Dutch films made about the war in Holland since 1950.5 This significant gap in home-nation war films is remarkable considering the country’s recent history of occupation. It may well have articulated the Dutch public mood during that decade of post-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

war recovery. The gap is symptomatic of the ebb and flow of public—including filmmakers’—interest in all things war-related. Barnouw’s suggestion of a national ‘war weariness’ in the Netherlands (1986: 21)—after an initial five films had been made between 1945 and 1950—goes some way towards answering this question of silence about the war. Dutch society had wanted to forget the past during the 1950s and early 1960s and focus instead on rebuilding the country and looking to the future.6 The arrival of De Overval corresponds with the beginning of a phase, albeit a brief one, of re-kindled interest in the war, its return to prominence both in societal thinking and in cultural representations, including films.7 A slow pan across the flat, stark Dutch landscape set to an incessant, thudding drum beat is the long opening shot of De Overval. In fact it is comprised of three pans, one dissolving seamlessly into the next with the horizon as a constant so that it appears almost as one lengthy shot. Introductory text is superimposed on the screen over the monochrome landscape background, including the lines: ‘The fifth winter of the German occupation was here’, and ‘North of the rivers, the National Socialist terror raged’.8 This emphasis on a raging ‘National Socialist terror’, rather than describing it as an ‘enemy terror’ or ‘fascist terror’, is interesting in the light of the breadth of classifications of the German invaders in Dutch war texts.9 From these brief phrases we gain an insight into Dutch public opinion from 1962 about the occupying force, and can infer that National Socialism took precedence at this time as the designated threat. The particular focus of De Overval is a celebration of resourceful resistance and unified patriotism in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden, the capital of the Northern province of Friesland. In particular, the film portrays a real-life, non-violent raid on the local prison that took place in December 1944 to liberate a large number of resistance members imprisoned there. From the outset, the enemy is depicted—in fairly dramatic terms—as a menacing and negative presence. The film’s lengthy opening camera pan comes to rest on a small group of resistance men at the side of a country road. Dressed in black coats and eye-masks, they attempt to ambush a car carrying their comrade, Inspector Bakker, a Dutch policeman. He has been arrested on suspicion of resistance affiliation and is being taken to the Leeuwarden prison, accompanied by three Germans in the car. A close-up shot of Bakker’s handcuffed hands resting on his knees in the car confirms his prisoner status. But this roadblock and ambush attack is short-lived as more German soldiers arrive from the opposite direction in a truck and motorbike, rifle shots are fired, and the attempt to extricate Bakker is swiftly repelled. The thwarted rescuers manage to escape into the rural surroundings. Straight away in De Overval, although we are not yet familiar with the main characters in this resistance group, we are present-

T he image of the enem y

| 73

74 |

ed with a dynamic of two opposing camps: Dutch resistance heroes and the German enemy with some of their familiar markers—military cars, a motorbike, uniforms, and guns. A chilling repercussion of this attempted ambush on the vehicle transporting Bakker becomes evident when German soldiers enter the prison building the following day and select a group of seven prisoners who will be shot as reprisal for the resistance attack. The SD commander, Grundmann, who had given orders to select the prisoners, tells the prison warden that two of his men were wounded in that attack, hence the imminent punishment. It is a harsh penalty—the lives of seven men in retaliation for the wounding of two. Inspector Bakker is one of those chosen for execution, but Grundmann recognizes him and keeps him back for questioning. The scene of German soldiers collecting the prisoners from their cells bursts with stereotyped images of the enemy: troops’ legs march stolidly through frame; soldiers stand to attention, their rifles held in readiness; stern, rigid, soldierly faces await orders to fetch prisoners, one by one, and assemble them for transportation to the place of execution. Although not a quick-cutting montage sequence—in fact the pace here is fairly slow—this scene builds tension by its use of contrasting shots of cold, expressionless soldiers and the prisoners they are singling out. A hand-held close-up of soldiers’ boots marching up the prison’s metal staircase is followed by a wider shot of an elderly prisoner released from his cell and walking along slowly ahead of an armed soldier. Another prisoner is marched downstairs at rifle point as the camera tilts up to a German soldier ascending the next staircase level above and crossing through frame to retrieve his allotted prisoner. A close-up of a hand unlocking a prison door cuts to the cell door opening, revealing a very young man in close-up, his mouth moving nervously in anticipation of what may follow. There is no dialogue except for the calling out of prisoners’ names and cell numbers by the prison administrator, immediately repeated in German by the head soldier. The cumulative effect of these disparate depictions of soldiers and their targets is not only the build-up of tension but the reinforcement of a goed and fout opposition that runs throughout the film. The six remaining prisoners (after Bakker is held back in the prison corridor by Grundmann) are assembled with their hands behind their heads, looking tense but resolute. They are then loaded into an open-sided truck, sandwiched between armed soldiers. Considering that four of these six men are elderly, another is middle aged, and the sixth a very young man, at most eighteen, this military presence seems overdone, yet it quickly aligns with Dutch viewers’ expectations at the time De Overval was made of how the enemy might have behaved. This is not just because it mirrors Dutch people’s attitudes towards the enemy as a result

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

of personal experience (in 1962, the year of this film, the majority of people who lived through the war were still alive) but because it is how they expect, or imagine, that this German enemy should behave in filmic representations. This echoes Sorlin’s comments on the expectations of national characteristics in film, based on preconceived or accepted notions of how we want, or assume, ourselves and other nations to be depicted in cultural forms (1991: 2). It resonates with Kracauer’s suggestion that the representation of the enemy in film reverts to national stereotypes, and there is always a tension between objectivity and subjectivity in filmic depictions of an enemy.10 Regardless of how Dutch citizens from 1962 should have perceived Germans in everyday life—as significant political, cultural, and economic neighbours—how they are portrayed in film at this time conforms to underlying attitudes and prevailing stereotypes about the war within Dutch society, which still picture the Germans as aggressive, dominant, cold, unfeeling, and vengeful occupiers. It seems film does indeed reflect those ‘rude secrets’ Kracauer said society was ‘babbling’ about, whether it intends to or not. De Overval was made by English director Paul Rotha, who prior to this feature film had made his name in England as a director of documentaries.11 Dutch actor Kees Brusse worked as dialogue director for the film, as Rotha spoke no Dutch. Brusse also plays the part of Inspector Bakker, one of the film’s main roles. The choice of Rotha at the helm was mainly based on his documentary background and his ability to bring a certain ‘realism’ to the events re-created in the film. It was his aesthetic that was wanted by the film’s producer, Rudolf Meyer, an aesthetic favoured over that of Dutch documentarian and filmmaker Bert Haanstra who had been considered for the job.12 Despite being directed by an Englishman, De Overval firmly retains its Dutch film credentials. It was scripted and filmed in the Dutch language, shot on location in Friesland in the Netherlands, and the actors were all Dutch, with Kees Brusse mediating as dialogue director. Historian and writer Louis de Jong had written the screenplay, thus lending kudos to the film and seeming to reinforce the historical accuracy of the film’s sources due to De Jong’s status as the Netherlands’ foremost contemporary documenter of the occupation years. Friesian resistance veterans from the real-life ‘silent raid’ on the Leeuwarden prison in December 1944 acted as consultants on the film to ensure that it matched events as they really happened (according to their recollections and perspectives). The real-life ‘silent’ resistance raid of the film’s title had been a success in Leeuwarden in December 1944, and, crucially, no reprisals had resulted from it (because no shots had been fired—hence ‘silent’—nor German soldiers injured). It is therefore not surprising that the story was considered good material for a feature film, the Netherlands’ first film about the war in over a

T he image of the enem y

| 75

76 |

decade. Although intended almost as a kind of reportage of the events, and employing a documentary-like veracity, viewing De Overval now, with the distance of time and cultural context (I am not Dutch), the film reads convincingly as a fiction film. That said, it is a film with a sobriety of style, stark black and white photography, no music score except in the opening and closing scenes, and an accumulating tension as the main plan—the non-violent resistance raid on the prison to release Bakker and other prisoners—unfolds. Commander Grundmann questions the captured Bakker at SD headquarters about his alleged resistance contacts. In their first meeting, or rather interrogation, Grundmann is civil and reasonable initially, offering Bakker a seat and talking in a calm tone. He speaks to Bakker in a mixture of German and Dutch, which Bakker understands in the film and which would have been understandable to Dutch audiences in 1962 (there were no Dutch subtitles for this spoken German for original film viewers, nor are there in the current commercial Dutch-language DVD).13 Quite subtle camera shots are used to infer the power balance between the two men, with Grundmann leaning magisterially on the edge of his desk addressing the seated Bakker, whom we see from high angle shots more or less from Grundmann’s point of view.14 But later in the same interrogation, the portrayal of the enemy, Grundmann, soon alters from seeming politeness to one of unpleasantness and threat. The SD officer says to Bakker: There are consequences, my dear colleague. These pointless adventures from a handful of criminals…these so-called resistance heroes! In twenty minutes, six of your countrymen will be shot as a reprisal…unless you tell me (…) where and who Piet Kramer is. This shift of disposition from a veneer of civility to a colder, more clinical air resonates with a typical Dutch impression at that time of the German invaders as callous and unfeeling, particularly those in the higher echelons of the Nazi party (the SD, the SS, and the Gestapo). Piet Kramer, whom Grundmann mentions, is the leader of this Leeuwarden resistance group and a key character in the film. Bakker knows him, of course, though he denies any connection to him. This frustrates Grundmann, and a deterioration in his patience and temperament soon follows, which again preserves a conventional view of this enemy as angry and aggressive. Grundmann offers Bakker a cigarette, which is declined, after which he moves close to Bakker’s face and breathes cigarette smoke into it. He lays his own wristwatch on the table to emphasize to Bakker that within twenty minutes he must betray his resistance colleagues or there will be extreme consequences. Again, Grundmann is favoured in the camera shots, which are mainly fairly tight two-shots, once more indicating his

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

authoritarian position. ‘Shoot them!’ are his cold telephone orders to execute the six prisoners taken as reprisal when Bakker refuses to co-operate. ‘You apparently don’t hold much worth on the lives of others’, he tells Bakker, who replies quietly: ‘Nor for my own life, under these circumstances’. It is an unsettling moment. True to the increasingly nervous-looking Bakker’s expectations, Grundmann soon intensifies his threat. ‘If you don’t speak truthfully then I’m afraid I’ll be forced to make you speak using other methods.’ A prominent portrait of Hitler on the office mantelpiece is visible in several shots of Grundmann, aligning him spatially and visually with the symbolic ‘über-enemy’ of the Führer, even if we had not already gleaned that impression from his words, his clinical manner, and his pinched and fastidious appearance. The detached efficiency with which a telephone can be used to dispense instructions holds a singular appeal for Grundmann, on whose desk two large black telephones sit side by side. He again uses the telephone to give orders for punishment after Bakker continues to refuse to co-operate. We simply hear Grundmann state: ‘Johannson, a patient’, after which he replaces the handset and rises slowly to his feet, the camera tilting up with him as he moves to reveal most of the large Hitler picture behind him. He leans against the mantelpiece, touches his forehead and raps his fingers in frustration. A series of unhurried, midsized single shots of Grundmann, Bakker, and Grundmann’s secretary follows: Grundmann looking down at the seated Bakker, Bakker rubbing his face dejectedly, and the secretary inspecting her nails nonchalantly. These lingering shots of the three widely differing characters and the discrete emotional perspectives they evince (irritation, fear, boredom) indicate a tense wait for the summoned, mysterious Johannson. The sound effect of approaching feet is heard, stopping before Grundmann’s office door. The door is heard to open and we hear a ‘stomp’ of feet to attention, such as a soldier would do to a superior officer. Over the sound of these footsteps, three successive mid-shots are again shown—of the secretary, Grundmann, then Bakker— all of whom look up starkly at the sound of this person drawing near, though Johannson is still not seen. Although the film’s pace is measured here, a thoroughly dramatic portent of the treatment awaiting Bakker is accomplished with three single shots and the sound of approaching feet. Johannson’s threatening presence as an instrument of as yet unknown unpleasantness has been presaged by these audio and visual representations. It is the impending torture of Bakker that is the impetus behind the planned silent raid at the heart of the film: to rescue Bakker before he is tortured into giving away the vital resistance contact names and addresses he holds. Later representations of the enemy in De Overval show Bakker being dragged into and out of his prison cell for regular torture sessions. Though

T he image of the enem y

| 77

78 |

the torture is never explicitly seen, we see visual evidence of its effects when the camera slowly zooms in to a close-up of Bakker’s heavily bandaged hands and fingertips. The suggestion of whatever this torture could be (nail-pulling? burning or removal of fingertips?) is made stronger with this implicit depiction than by showing it overtly. Its cumulative effects on Bakker are agonizing and he confesses to the sympathetic prison doctor, Wartena, that he is weakening and is afraid he will give in to the torture. Within a few short scenes, a particularly strong image of the aftermath of torture is presented which serves only to reinforce the representation of the enemy (particularly Grundmann and Johannson, alongside the ordinary German soldiers) as evil, unfeeling, ruthless, immoral, and inhuman. One aspect of the depiction of the enemy that is preserved to appreciable extent throughout most Dutch war films is that of the German occupiers having no family or friendship connections. Although this subject is explored further in chapter four, it is worth mentioning at this point that it is sometimes what is not shown in the films that is as significant as what is shown. With this lack of depiction of meaningful interactions, dialogue, or relationships with family members or friends, even as a presence in family photographs, the German characters are uniformly dehumanized and alienated, which is in itself a classic propaganda technique. Ironically, some of the more extreme treatment administered historically by Nazi Germany to the Dutch during the war that was intended to dehumanize them—interrogations, curfews, torture, and executions—ends up dehumanizing the enemy when depicted in subsequent films. In portraying the German invaders as devoid of human feelings and familial connections, the films about the war tend consequently to render them out of context with the humanity of the other characters, the ‘Dutch’ characters (who usually retain their familial bonds and friendships), thus reinforcing that gulf between the ‘self’ (indigenous citizens) and ‘the other’ (enemy occupiers). Whether this specific dehumanizing of the German occupiers in the context of film is intentional or not is uncertain. But what is clear is that attitudes towards their wartime enemy were so deeply ingrained in the Dutch psyche in the decades immediately following the war that it was very likely these preconceptions and histories would infiltrate subsequent cultural works, including films.15 This again echoes Kracauer’s suggestion of films ‘babbling a rude secret, without really wanting to’ (1995: 294), revealing aspects of the ideologies and attitudes of the societies behind those films, whether consciously or not. If changes were to come about in filmic representations of this facet of the enemy—of them being inhuman and lacking family or friendship bonds— those changes might take a long time, perhaps decades, to materialize.16 In the final scenes of De Overval, during the successful raid on the prison,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the depiction of the enemy falls into two types.17 One is of a mixture of fallibility and seeming ignorance, in which Grundmann attempts to contact the prison several times from SD headquarters by telephone (once again, his communication medium of choice) and cannot understand why he is put through to the wrong people. The resistance have infiltrated the telephone exchange and disconnected his direct line to coincide with the timing of the raid. When Grundmann eventually gets through, after the raid’s successful completion, the telephone’s ring echoes in a deserted prison office as the last resistance men are about to exit the front door. They hear the telephone, pause, dismiss it, laugh, and exit the building, thus aligning Grundmann’s thwarted telephoning attempt with a victory for the resistance. Prior to this, another two German soldiers stand outside the prison building with a new prisoner whilst, unbeknown to them, the raid is in progress inside. They are let in under false pretences and eventually overpowered in the prison foyer, allowing the raid to continue as before. Both Grundmann and the overpowered soldiers hint at an enemy of frustrated fallibility and illustrate the film’s narrative drive to depict the resistance’s initiative and intelligence pitted against the Germans’ supposed might and ruthless efficiency. Despite being portrayed earlier as all-powerful and in control, in the end the German occupiers are outwitted by the keener, pluckier, cleverer Dutch. De Overval reveals a message that although the enemy is menacing and evil, it is nonetheless one that can be overcome by the combined mental and moral resources of homegrown resistance fighters. Such images point to a representation of Dutch national character as one of initiative, shrewdness, and courage in the face of far greater strategic and military might, for they are never going to beat the Germans militarily. The resistance fighters in De Overval gain both the strategic and moral high ground with their skilfully executed silent raid in which, crucially, no shots are fired. That the enemy is a formidable one but ultimately beatable is one of the film’s key messages, one suggesting Dutch society’s beliefs from 1962 about the enemy and about their own national character—or what they would wish that national character to be. The second image of the enemy in the final scenes of De Overval is that of impotence, or silenced threat, as the torturer Johannson is captured by the resistance just inside the prison door when bringing a new prisoner inside. This is our first glimpse of him, though we heard his footsteps approaching Grundmann’s office and witnessed in close-up the effects of his torture on Bakker’s hands. After resistance leader Piet Kramer recognizes Johannson and says his name aloud, several of the resistance group lunge at their enemy in fury. They are intent on killing him since they recognize him by name as the torturer of their friend Bakker and doubtless many others besides. The

T he image of the enem y

| 79

80 |

camera lingers in a wide group shot—no quick cutting here—adding to the tension of a protracted physical struggle with this hated figure. However, revenge and punishment cannot be meted out upon Johannson just yet. Piet Kramer is the voice of restraint, breaking up the scuffle and stressing to the men that in order to avoid further reprisals from the SD there must be no shooting, no violence at all. ‘Don’t be crazy!’ he shouts at them firmly, ‘What do you think would happen, eh, if we killed him? At least fifty other prisoners would be shot in revenge!’ This is a sober enough reminder for them to hold back and continue with the rescue of their comrades. It also provides an interesting example of representation by comparison, illuminating the portrayal of the enemy in comparison to the film’s Dutch characters, highlighting more clearly the differences between them. By contrasting the relatively self-possessed, civilized manner with which Kramer chooses to treat Johannson, attention is drawn more acutely to the clinical, uncivil, and punishment-oriented conduct of the German characters seen in the film. The incongruities between these two behaviours serve once more to accentuate the Dutch resistance’s position of the moral high ground. Shortly after Kramer’s moral coup in intercepting his resistance colleagues’ angry lynching attempt, Johannson is led along the prison corridor by his captors, his hands behind his head. The camera lingers in a wide shot, held at a high angle, again letting the action unfold in shots of quite long duration. Johannson is a large, fat, boorish, unintelligent-looking man, more like a wrestler or bouncer, with an odd, slightly smiling expression which could at once be arrogance or perhaps a form of defensiveness. But in the context of previous representations of German occupiers in this film, he conforms fairly accurately to one of the stereotypes of the Nazi torturer—that of an unfeeling, brawny tormentor. He represents a symbolic torturer, the torturer and spoiler of the Netherlands, upon whom the anger and frustration of the Leeuwarden resistance group—and indeed the viewers of the film—can be vented. Johannson is depicted in De Overval as a nemesis, an antithesis to the restrained and orderly Dutch characters. Though now captured and rendered powerless, in the end he remains a somewhat sinister presence, an enemy not quite conquered—the persisting hint of a smile suggests this. But the threat of this enemy has been silenced…for now. The recently freed Bakker and new prisoner Johannson pass by each other in the prison corridor. Separate close-up shots reveal a role reversal (we presume) of their prior meetings: now it is Johannson with his hands behind his head being led towards a cell. Briefly they look directly at each other; no words are uttered but Bakker’s expression resonates with remembered pain, though he remains stoical and makes no move to strike his torturer. Johannson’s face is almost expressionless, although that hint of a sneer can still be

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

sensed. These two men are represented in De Overval as opposite factions pitted against one another: torturer and victim, villain and hero in yet another example of representation by comparison. This goed versus fout distinction tendered in the closing stages of De Overval generates an image of the enemy adhering to a very black-and-white, two-dimensional representation of the Germans in this first Dutch feature film about the war in over ten years. One of the last images in De Overval is a tracking shot closing in on a picture of Hitler on the wall in the prison administration office. This is a different, smaller picture of Hitler than the one seen earlier in Grundmann’s office. The raid is now over, and freed prisoners and resistance men quietly leave the building. The office light is switched off as Kramer and his colleague Wim Douma leave the room. The camera rests on the picture briefly, not too close up. A faint light remains on the image, but it is dulled and fading. It is as though the switching off of the light has all but extinguished Hitler’s influence from this now very ‘Dutch’ environment. In one smooth and subtle camera movement, the symbolic ‘snuffing out’ of a potent enemy is implied and the enemy has been practically expunged from view. Prior to the raid, the prison was an austere place of punishment and imprisonment. This office, which belonged to prison director Foss—one of two overt collaborators in the film (alongside prison administrator Koopman)—was, by association, also a locus of the enemy. But this successful, non-violent, and silent raid seems to have transformed the prison into the setting for heroism, plucky intelligence, and national pride in the face of an apparently insurmountable foe.

Als Twee Druppels Water (1963) One of the few glimpses of the enemy revealed in the first half of Als Twee Druppels Water is of German soldiers on two motorbikes and a sidecar riding past the cigar shop owned by the film’s protagonist, Ducker. This is in the opening minute after the film titles. The next evidence comes almost twenty minutes later when soldiers are queueing to swim at a public baths. Neither snapshot presents what one might call a threatening image. At the queue for the public baths, the soldiers’ faces are not seen at first, as the slight-framed Ducker walks towards the camera between two long lines of tall, uniformed men to reach the front kiosk. Instead, we see rows of soldiers’ arms in close-up holding swimming towels and hear everyday, murmured conversation in German. Ducker’s own attempt to have a swim is thwarted when at the counter he is told he cannot because ‘vandaag alleen voor de Wehrmacht is’ (‘today is only for the German army’). The receptionist points to a sign beside her kiosk indicat-

T he image of the enem y

| 81

82 |

ing this. Interestingly, she had first asked Ducker for his Wehrmacht identity card, mistaking him for an off-duty German soldier. Whilst this exclusion is an inconvenience to Ducker, it can hardly be construed as an overwhelming loss of liberty. These opening images of the enemy in Als Twee Druppels Water speak of a more quotidian presence in occupied Holland, operating on many levels. The images underline the occupiers’ real, everyday background presence in cafes, swimming pools, residential streets, and public places. They suggest a subtler notion of the invaders: they are not all SS or SD, and they are not depicted at this early stage of the film as threatening. In fact, the opposite is true of the Wehrmacht soldiers in the swimming queue. They are young—around 20 years old at most—they wear the uniform of ordinary infantrymen, and they are polite as they patiently await their turn in the pool. Overall this presents a rather benign image of time off from duty (although the soldiers are in uniform), instead of the more stereotypical depictions of military aggression and clinical efficiency. This goes against the portrayal of Germans as cold, unfeeling, and evil, as presented in De Overval from a year earlier. Yet whilst Als Twee Druppels Water presents a muted image of the enemy at this early point, its representation of the German invaders soon changes to reflect those of its predecessor. This enemy is not in fact seen for much of this film.18 The narrative focuses instead more inwardly on the moral dilemmas faced by the Dutch during the war, reflected in the central, dual character of Ducker and Dorbeck. Ducker is the cigar shop owner searching for meaning in his life, and Dorbeck is the man who literally ‘falls from the sky’ on a parachute one evening just behind Ducker’s house. They are the ‘spitting image’ of each other, apart from hair colour, and both roles are played in the film by the same actor, Lex Schoorel.19 Dark-haired Dorbeck claims to be a resistance agent but it seems that only the meek, ineffectual, fair-haired Ducker has ever seen him. Ducker quickly comes to idolize Dorbeck without knowing anything about or checking any of his history. This alter ego’s apparent misdeeds during the war come to be blamed on Ducker due to the similarity in their appearance. Ducker, having faithfully carried out several so-called resistance missions under Dorbeck’s instructions, eventually faces trial after the liberation, both for his and his doppelganger’s actions. No one left alive at the end of the war believes that Dorbeck was real, except for Ducker, who repeatedly fails to provide evidence of Dorbeck’s existence and descends further into disorientation and madness. It is possible that Dorbeck may not even exist at all except in Ducker’s fragile imagination. Accused of collaboration, a notion that is anathema to him, he is unable to convey clear proof of his supposed resistance missions, which had resulted in the deaths of several ‘bona fide’ resistance people. It is almost an hour into the film before the enemy is depicted again in

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

any significant way after the queueing Wehrmacht soldiers. Ducker is arrested by the SD and ‘questioned’ about the shooting of a Dutch man, Glauert, who was working for the Gestapo. Ducker did shoot Glauert in one of the supposed resistance tasks set in motion by the enigmatic Dorbeck and carried out unquestioningly by Ducker. The arrest takes place whilst Ducker visits the cinema with his girlfriend, Marianne. Both the cinema environment and Ducker’s subsequent interrogations are intriguing in terms of their images of the enemy in Als Twee Druppels Water. A long-held wide shot shows the couple taking their seats amongst a rather detached-looking cinema audience. The soundtrack playing in the auditorium already alerts us that the spectators are watching a Nazi propaganda newsreel (screened prior to the main feature) before the shot cuts to the cinema screen and the newsreel itself with its crashing orchestral score and strident narration in Dutch. Dutch people generally understood the German language—at least at a basic level—during the occupation as well as in later decades as audiences of war films.20 Yet this Nazi newsreel is dubbed with a Dutch voice-over, providing evidence of the wartime Nazi propaganda imposed on filmgoers— both diegetically in this film scene and in cinemas in the occupied Netherlands—who were encouraged to listen to the newsreel with fuller attention as it was narrated in their own language. The newsreel forcefully proclaims a growing hatred of the Allies as the Americans randomly bomb French cities and villages. ‘This is how the “liberators” operate in France!’ clamours the narrator, with sarcastic emphasis on the word ‘liberators’. The newsreel ends with dramatic images of anti-aircraft guns firing into a night sky, with ‘The struggle for Europe continues!’ pronounced in earnest. This sensationalist newsreel excerpt, together with wide camera shots of cinemagoers unimpressed with the dramatic propaganda material regularly presented to them, suggests an antipathy in Dutch society towards the occupier and their propaganda at the time Als Twee Druppels Water was made. After the newsreel’s end caption, the tone abruptly shifts when a ‘Wanted’ poster including a photograph of a man is projected onto the cinema screen. This poster is accompanied by odd, almost comical, organ-based interlude music. Another albeit indirect image of the enemy is being presented, one in which yet again a cinema hall—usually a place of leisure and culture—is transmogrified into a site not only of propaganda but also for the dissemination of ‘Wanted’ posters and SD requests. The poster offers a reward of 500 guilders for information on Ducker, wanted for violent street robbery. By this stage in the film, Ducker has already killed three people, including SD informant Glauert. He undertook these tasks for the resistance, or so he thought, as he acted under Dorbeck’s orders. The pretence of a street robbery is a ruse by the SD to

T he image of the enem y

| 83

84 |

get the public to come forward with information—perhaps they think people will be too frightened to inform if they see ‘Wanted for murder’. Shocked to see his image projected on the screen, Ducker tells Marianne that the perpetrator of that incident must be Dorbeck. There is such a striking resemblance between the two men by this point in the film (Ducker has since dyed his blond hair dark too) that Ducker leaves the cinema auditorium for fear of being recognized. Nonetheless, moments later he is arrested by the SD in the foyer on suspicion of the Glauert murder. The representation of the enemy in Ducker’s consequent interrogation scenes is a rather schizophrenic one, embodied in the character of SD officer, Ebernuss. During their first ‘interview’, Ebernuss is at first cordial but thereafter menacing, threatening, and finally violent when Ducker stubbornly denies any connection to the attack on the collaborator Glauert. This echoes the mock civility with which SD commander Grundmann initially treats Bakker in De Overval, which soon descended into threats and torture. As with De Overval, Ebernuss speaks to Ducker in a mixture of German and Dutch with a heavy German accent, which Ducker understands, although he replies in Dutch. A wide shot establishes the SD office. Ducker is seated, his back to the camera, his arms bound behind his chair. One soldier types away to the side, another sits near Ducker, guarding him. Ebernuss enters the office all smiles and felicitous greetings. ‘We’re so glad that we are finally able to talk to you!’ However, this bonhomie quickly descends into anger and visceral violence as Ebernuss hits Ducker very hard on the face, knocking him and his chair to the ground. The two soldiers pick Ducker and the chair up and Eberness strikes him again, felling Ducker a second time. He then kicks him hard five times in the face. Ducker’s arms are bound behind his chair so he cannot defend himself from the blows. It is in close-up that we see Ebernuss kicking his captive, filmed from behind Ducker’s head at ground level. Ebernuss’ shiny black boots are also in the frame—powerful symbols of aggression. Cutting to closeups of Ebernuss’ face staring down at Ducker as he kicks him renders this a highly unpleasant scene, in view of the SD officer’s initial greeting of smiles and mock pleasantry. This veneer of civility which changes towards suggested or actual violence is a leitmotif we can recognize in the portrayal of the enemy in Dutch war films from the early 1960s. After this aggressive outburst, Ebernuss slowly walks round to sit once more at his desk. He asks Ducker ‘Do you really want us to lose our temper?’, as though what we just witnessed, and what the character of Ducker experienced, was not a loss of temper. Ebernuss’ violence in this scene corresponds with Grundmann’s and Johannson’s conduct from De Overval, though in Als Twee Druppels Water the violence is taken further. It is more visual and bloodier. We know Bakker’s fingers were badly damaged in De Overval because we witnessed him being carried off to the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

3. Ebernuss interrogates Ducker, Als Twee Druppels Water

torture room and saw its after-effects—the bandaged fingertips and Bakker’s facial expressions of pain. But in Als Twee Druppels Water we are shown Ducker being kicked viciously in the face, albeit from behind his head so we do not witness the full impact of those kicks. Throughout this scene, the administrative soldier steadily types his document in the background, pausing only to help the other soldier lift the bloodied Ducker and his chair upright after Ebernuss knocks him down. Whether he is working on an unrelated file or annotating this interrogation, the ambient sound of his incessant typing evokes another motif of Nazi German efficiency and is also an incongruous acoustic backdrop to the threat and violence taking place in the room. A portrait of Hitler hangs on the office wall above the fireplace—a ubiquitous reminder of the enemy’s presence watching over this violence, or the threat of it. It is the same Hitler image as shown at the end of De Overval, the portrait on which only a muted light remains as the resistance members leave the Friesian prison. These pictures of the Führer are another leitmotif in images of the enemy in these Dutch films. An instantly identifiable icon of the occupier, these Hitler portraits recur throughout films even into the 1980s and beyond, even if they are more prominent in the early 1960s films. In the second interrogation by Ebernuss of Ducker in a prison cell after his long-term incarceration by the SD, the image presented of the enemy is calmer though manipulative. In contrast to his former violence towards Ducker, Ebernuss employs a seemingly friendlier approach this time. Appearing to recognize Germany’s impending defeat, he pours them both a drink of jenever (Dutch gin). Looking dejected, Ebernuss tells Ducker that a long time has passed and much has happened since they last met. Yes, the Allies have already crossed the Rhine, remarks Ducker dryly. Ebernuss moves closer and sits down behind his prisoner in the dank cell, telling him earnestly that he

T he image of the enem y

| 85

86 |

wants to get out. He’s had enough, the war is over for him and the Americans will be there any moment. Ebernuss urges Ducker to take him to Dorbeck as he can give him some important documents; in other words, he wants to go over to the side of the resistance. Ebernuss at least believes that the elusive Dorbeck exists, but when Ducker fails to respond, he shifts his tone, turns hostile, and coldly informs Ducker that his girlfriend, Marianne, is pregnant. From the two-shot in which most of this scene has been played, we cut to an angry, anxious-looking Ducker in close-up. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he snaps at Ebernuss. ‘An awful lot’ is the ambiguous reply, heard but not seen as the shot lingers on Ducker’s agitated face. This is further textual evidence in the film of the enemy’s crumbling veneer of civility and sophistication. Ebernuss persists with trying to save his own life by forging an alliance with the resistance. Blackmailed with the implied threat to Marianne’s pregnancy (of what, we dare not imagine: enforced abortion? compulsory post-partum adoption?), Ducker is forced to help the SD officer meet some resistance contacts. Outside the resistance building they have travelled to together, Ebernuss urges Ducker to ‘Explain it carefully to them. I’ll put all my cards on the table. All I’m trying to do is to save my own skin. You trust me, don’t you?’ This speech reveals a marked change of dynamic. Ebernuss now seems largely dependent upon Ducker ‘selling’ the German’s story of wishing to defect to the resistance. Ducker is not highly regarded in this resistance group anyway, indicating the precarious situation Ebernuss is in. This is a different image of the enemy to that witnessed in the earlier brutal interrogation scene. The finale of the previous year’s De Overval depicted an enemy presence triumphantly expunged from the prison, but it did not show Germans ‘giving in’, clutching at straws, and seeking an escape route via the Dutch resistance. Once inside, Ebernuss reveals his pragmatic nature as he tells the sceptical group members in the dark resistance cellar: I sympathise with you and can offer my contribution, however modest, to handle things quickly. To fight for a gang who want to stay in power is a tragedy for every German. We can discuss this man to man […] although I probably look like a rat leaving a sinking ship. These last words resonate with the disloyalty to his country that Ebernuss’ words betray. This is a view of the enemy full of risk-taking, self-centred motivation, and survival instinct, yet it maintains a connection with the predominant representation of the occupiers so far as pragmatic and coolly intelligent. During this meeting in the resistance cellar, Ducker poisons Ebernuss’ drink. This was an instruction that came yet again from the shadowy Dorbeck whom

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Ducker met in one of the adjacent rooms, though no one else saw him. This act causes unforeseen complications for Ducker when interrogated by the Dutch police after the liberation on suspicion of carrying out anti-Dutch activities. One of the only people who could verify Ducker’s account of the existence of Dorbeck (instrumental in Ducker’s involvement in resistance tasks) was SD officer Ebernuss, who eventually did seem to believe Dorbeck was real. But Ducker has killed Ebernuss and along with him his only hope of exoneration. As occurs repeatedly throughout Als Twee Druppels Water, the enemy is portrayed as not only the German occupiers but also the voice of doubt playing out inside Ducker’s mind. Did Dorbeck ever really exist? If not, what might that mean for some of the dubious decisions Ducker made during the war and the assignments he carried out in the name of a resistance whose work he did not fully comprehend but to which he desperately wanted to belong? All of this contributes to an unexpected picture of the enemy, considering the film came only one year after such a patriotic, rousing production as De Overval, which celebrated victorious resistance and branded the occupiers as the iniquitous ‘other’. Als Twee Druppels Water offers a more inward-looking, psychological mood in which the first hour of the film is played out with minimal German presence. Despite this feeling of introspection, the film does reveal a traditional view of the enemy at times—for example, Ducker’s interrogation and torture by Ebernuss under the gaze of Hitler’s portrait. It raises questions about the implications of mistaken identity, motivations for joining the resistance, and just who the enemy might be. Als Twee Druppels Water speaks of the preoccupations with these wartime questions seeping into the ‘inner life’ of Dutch society in the early 1960s.21 The film answers the difficult question of who the enemy might be with the uncomfortable suggestion that the enemy looks very much like ourselves—in fact it can be the spitting image of us. Possibly because of its status as something of an ‘art’ film, with its modernlooking monochrome cinematography and jazz-influenced soundtrack, Als Twee Druppels Water can appear slightly out of place for the time it was made.22 While I trace shifts in the depictions of themes about the occupation in Dutch war films predominantly from the 1960s to the 1980s and their connections to society’s attitudes towards these war-related issues, we cannot expect always to find a smooth, linear progression from two-dimensional, black-and-white portrayals of the enemy to more nuanced, three-dimensional representations. Als Twee Druppels Water reminds us that the pathway of changing attitudes reflected in films is not necessarily a straight and simple one.23 It is more likely that the trajectory over the chronology of the films is one that progresses and rescinds but that nonetheless arcs towards three-dimensionality. And as avantgarde cultural forms tend to anticipate changes in the social consciousness

T he image of the enem y

| 87

more keenly than their mainstream counterparts (hence the ‘advance guard’ of cultural innovation and experimentation), Als Twee Druppels Water seems out of kilter with certain (though not all) currents of public opinion about the war from the time it was made. It is a useful reminder of the mutability and unpredictability of certain cultural texts within the wider context of the links between filmic representation, memory, myth, and Dutch society’s assimilation of the occupation that this book deals with.

AFTER THE ABSENCE: WAR AGAIN ON THE AGENDA

88 |

Fourteen years would pass before the next Dutch film with the occupation as its main theme appeared in the Netherlands: Soldaat van Oranje released in 1977.24 This ebb and flow of public interest in, and demand for, the subject of war which I examine in this book may well articulate Dutch society’s mentalité about the occupation across the various stages of post-war reconstruction. Blom points to the steadily growing realization between the 1960s and the 1980s of the extent to which the Jews were persecuted in the Netherlands and the degree of Dutch collaboration (2007: 123-131). Growing societal awareness of the less heroic elements of the Dutch war experience certainly accounts for a reluctance to broach these issues culturally, correlating with the significant gap in Dutch war films after 1963’s Als Twee Druppels Water. This gap can thus be explained to some extent by society’s mounting realization of the scale of Jewish wartime persecution, the perceived threat of Communism pervading the then collective consciousness, and an increasing awareness of the scale of collaboration. That war films were again on the agenda in the late 1970s was also part of a growing political and cultural re-evaluation of past certainties and a questioning of inherited myths about the occupation among the younger Dutch generation who had been born after the war. Perceptions of a wartime enemy inherited from older generations who had lived through the occupation had tended towards a polarized goed and fout rift between ‘good’ Dutch citizens and ‘bad’ Germans and had been perpetuated both in popular memory and via cultural texts such as films, novels, and plays. De Overval from 1962 is a classic example of this goed and fout divide. No longer so constricted by traditional images and expectations—both in cultural products and in wider social memory—of a malevolent enemy, of dignified and patriotic Dutch citizens, and of heroic resistance, these younger Dutch people—including, importantly, filmmakers—were better equipped to express their generation’s unquiet concerns. This growing distance between the Netherlands’ past of occupation and

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the present of the late 1970s prepared the way for an increasingly critical cultural response to complex issues surrounding the war years. These issues lingering at the threshold of openness included the treatment of Dutch Jews during the occupation both by the occupiers and by fellow non-Jewish citizens, a significant and controversial issue that had yet to be acknowledged in Dutch film. This younger generation pushed against the beliefs of their forefathers, expressing new questions and doubts about their inherited past through the conduits of political rallies, demonstrations, and via the cultural channels of literature and film. Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943 are examples of cultural texts reflecting this period of social and political change.

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) | 89 Some of the opening scenes of Soldaat van Oranje depict the Netherlands as absolutely ripe for Nazification. Images of shaven-headed freshmen students undergoing harsh initiation rites at the elite Leiden University in 1938 are reminiscent of the aggression, domination, and subordination inherent in fascistic regimes. Emerging like stunned, blinking newborns, the group of student friends at the core of the film are ‘released’ from a dark cupboard into the chaos of the main student hall whereupon they witness, then swiftly become part of, the brutal and eccentric ‘hazing’ rituals of their university fraternity society. The camera first hovers behind the group in darkness as the cupboard doors open, revealing the mayhem beyond. We then cut to a wide, high-angle establishing shot of the hazing spectacle, followed by closer action tableaux as the freshers are roughly handled and ordered to crawl, hop around on the floor, strip to their underclothes, and perform humiliating dances. As the older fraternity students commanding these initiations strut around in suits with walking canes, indiscriminately thrashing the new additions, this meta-scene is played out to a dissonant soundtrack of screaming, chanting, forced singing, and shouted orders. These vibrant early images in the film blur the boundaries of identity, as both new and older students could be seen as German, National Socialist, or fascist judging by their appearance and by the aggressive conduct of this elite university society. Yet when Erik Lanshof—a freshman and one of the film’s main characters—is grabbed by an older student and asked what he thinks of Hitler, his initial, hesitant reply of ‘He builds good motorways?’ gets him a whack on the head, mollified only by Erik’s second response of ‘He’s a bloody bastard!’ which gets him a congratulatory pat on the head. This points immediately to an ambiguity present in much of Soldaat van Oranje on many levels,

T he image of the enem y

90 |

not just concerning representations of the enemy. Neither we the viewers nor Erik know what the ‘right’ answer is until the pat on his head assures us that ‘Hitler is bad’ is the correct response. From the outset, this reveals a more ambiguous engagement in Soldaat van Oranje with notions of the enemy, demonstrated by the students’ shaven-headed appearance together with the vague, initially intimidating manner in which the older student asks Erik’s opinion of Hitler. That this Hitler question is posed by Jan Weinberg, a Jewish student and amateur boxer and one of the group of friends that Erik joins, makes the scene all the more fascinating. It pitches us thereafter into a film which presents a compelling mixture of ‘heroic’ resistance activities, ambiguous behaviour, and dark humour. Soldaat van Oranje was the first of its kind in the Netherlands—a film, as Johan Swinnen writes, that ‘openly looked at the dilemmas and the divided loyalties faced by the Dutch under Nazi occupation’ (2004: 144). It concentrates on the uncertainties that confront people during war and the tensions that arise from different choices being made whilst attempting to survive the occupation. Soldaat van Oranje depicts many instances of ordinary Dutch people co-existing and co-operating with the enemy, with varying degrees of acceptance or tension. A key instance of this co-existence is the sunny, daytime scene at Scheveningen beach early in the film (and early in the occupation) in which Dutch families and groups of friends relax and play alongside German soldiers, both on and off-duty. Nazi and Dutch flags fly together in the background around the beach’s entrance; the citizens enjoying themselves on the sand with beach chairs, ice creams, and beach balls seem oblivious to the swastikas encroaching upon their own red, white, and blue national flags. The occupiers are still shown to be formal and regimented—a uniformed German officer barks out orders to his swimming-trunked men to form a line, place down their towels, and run into the sea for a swim—but in the film there is a definite mingling of occupier and occupied. This is not portrayed without tension. On the beach, several Dutch women in bathing costumes talk, flirt, and play-fight with uniformed German soldiers. One woman—because of a teasing mock-fight over a soldier’s rifle—ends up falling onto a giant sandcastle being made by two of the group of university friends. Guus Lejeune, a main character in the film, shouts out: ‘Jerry slut!’ to which she replies, mockingly, ‘Mummy’s boy!’ This is a light-hearted treatment of the controversial issue of interaction between the German occupiers and the Dutch during five years of civil occupation. This pivotal scene depicts a shared society of occupation, showing people quickly adapting to change after the Dutch capitulation in May 1940. As this scene’s textual evidence reveals, Dutch and German couples already are forming, Dutch families carry on with everyday events, and the notion of ‘evil Nazis’

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

is far removed from what we see in this beach scene. In fact, much of Soldaat van Oranje depicts just such a quotidian ‘getting on’ alongside the invaders, who, because of their growing integration with the Dutch, are starting to lose their mantle of outright enmity. In this film from 1977 we can identify the shift from a rigid black-and-white portrayal of Germans versus Dutch citizens to a ‘greyer’ depiction of integration and acceptance. Whereas Als Twee Druppels Water showed the Wehrmacht queuing to swim in the public baths on a ‘Wehrmacht-only’ day, a scene still suggestive of the segregation and ‘otherness’ inherent in images of the enemy from the early 1960s, Soldaat van Oranje touches much more on co-habitation, adaptation, and survival alongside the enemy.25 Up to this point in Dutch war films, these social interactions and relationships between occupier and occupied had simply not been shown. Verhoeven’s film breaks new ground by broaching this significant issue for the first time. The screenplay for Soldaat van Oranje was based on the 1970 memoirs of Dutch resistance fighter Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema,26 who had escaped Holland and managed to reach England as an Engelandvaarder.27 Hazelhoff Roelfzema trained and flew missions as a pilot in the British Royal Air Force, and, as a member of the Dutch branch of British intelligence agency MI6, he took part in several daring missions including a dinghy coastal landing at Noordwijk beach to deliver radio transmitters to the Dutch resistance. He eventually returned to the Netherlands after the liberation as aide-de-camp to the Dutch queen, Wilhelmina. The resulting film that Verhoeven created concentrates as much on the smaller aspects of occupied life as it does on stories of heroism, though there is a tendency in the film’s second half towards a bigger, ‘adventure’ storyline, focusing on heroic set pieces with the film’s main characters. Scenes in Soldaat van Oranje relating substantially to images of Dutch identity, life under occupation, and degrees of collaboration and resistance are analysed further in chapters three, four, and five respectively. Early in the film, soon after the Netherlands’ invasion by Germany in May 1940, two of the film’s main characters, Guus Lejeune and Erik Lanshof, try to enlist in the Dutch army. They arrive at army headquarters during a Luftwaffe air raid attack on the base, and in a dramatic series of shots, the human carnage and structural damage caused by this brief period of bombing of Dutch defence systems is plainly shown. Soldaat van Oranje does not shy away from the visceral consequences of such an attack. A Dutch soldier writhes on the ground, screaming and clutching his footless, bloody leg stump—the missing foot lies metres away, a close-up shot revealing it still in its army boot with bone and gristle sticking out. Another soldier is on fire as his colleagues try to douse the flames. Seared flesh and clothing remnants are stuck to a door

T he image of the enem y

| 91

92 | 4. Sch- sch- Scheveningen! Erik and Guus, Soldaat van Oranje

frame in the bombed-out army recruiting barracks. While the enemy is not shown except in the form of two German bombers flying overhead and dropping missiles, the effects of their bombardment are clearly presented. This portrayal of damage inflicted by the Germans on the Dutch reverts to a more conventional representation of the enemy at this point in the film, though the grisliness of the scene is a new departure. It is indicative of a mounting antiwar and anti-violence attitude in Dutch society from the late 1970s, reflecting the effects of the post-Vietnam peace movement. In the midst of this bombing chaos, Guus and Erik are suspected by Dutch soldiers at the base of being German invaders in disguise, due to their stylish coats and tails attire from a university graduation party they attended the night before. They are also riding motorbikes, which apparently gives them an aristocratic, or German, air. An interesting point concerning language and an enemy’s identity can be noted here, for Erik and Guus are quickly absolved of the potential crime of ‘German-ness’ when Dutch soldiers ask them to pronounce any word containing the Sch- sound. This Dutch sound is found in place names like Scheveningen and Enschede, and in everyday words like schoonmoeder (‘mother-in-law’), schaduw (‘shadow’), and schuur (‘shed’ or ‘barn’). It is a very difficult sound for non-Dutch speakers, especially German natives, to pronounce, which is why the Dutch soldiers in this scene are so readily satisfied that Erik and Guus have passed their on-the-spot language

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and identity test. Erik and Guus are frustrated and at the same time amused that they are mistaken for Germans, and together they chant ‘Scheveningen, schoonmoeder, sch-, sch-, sch-!’ to which the main Dutch soldier acquiesces with ‘Well, yes…let them through.’ Whilst this snapshot does not show the enemy per se, it indicates a fragile line differentiating a Dutch person’s identity from an ‘enemy’ German one. This Sch- test is genuine—most Dutch people know they can distinguish an authentic Dutch man or woman this way. Although this lingual matter is delivered in quite a light-hearted way, Soldaat van Oranje is using dark humour to express a serious and significant issue, set in the context of a particularly grim moment in the Netherlands’ war history—the German bombings of May 1940. In the subsequent scene, Erik and Guus ride their motorbikes along a country road and notice several tangled white parachutes in the tall trees. Guus rides off and the camera stays with Erik, tracking ahead of him then cutting to his point of view as he approaches a small group of German paratroopers. They have just landed as part of the May 1940 invasion force, hence their parachutes caught in the trees. The parachutists stand near a horse-drawn milk cart. Erik slows his bike to a stop, its engine still running, and stares at the men. They return his gaze, saying nothing at first, just quietly drinking from bottles of milk. By its very ambience—the peaceful location, horsedrawn cart, German soldiers drinking milk—this is an unexpectedly benign image of the enemy. Nevertheless, there is a sense of uncertainty and tension as Erik watches the soldiers sternly and they stare back, the camera lingering on both in mid-shot. One paratrooper then smiles and asks Erik in German if he has been to a party (another allusion to his smart ‘tails’ outfit), to which he responds in Dutch that yes, he has been to a party. ‘With Schnapps and nice Dutch girls, eh?’ another adds, waving his arm suggestively and smiling warmly at this thought. It is interesting to note that the parachutists’ spoken German is understood by Erik, although he replies in Dutch, echoing Bakker and Grundmann in De Overval and Ducker and Ebernuss in Als Twee Druppels Water. This speaks again of the Netherlands’ readiness for Nazification: for if the Germans can speak their own language to the Dutch and be understood, then the two countries are not separated by so much after all, at least in terms of language. Also, Dutch film audiences of the original cinema release of Soldaat van Oranje in 1977 and of the first Dutch commercial DVD28 had no Dutch subtitles for these instances of spoken German. This indicates an intrinsic hierarchy from the era of the German occupation of the Netherlands and preserved throughout later decades of Germans not speaking Dutch and of the Dutch understanding German though responding in Dutch. It would have been a different scenario if Germany had invaded a country like Britain, as very few of the occupied pop-

T he image of the enem y

| 93

94 |

ulace would have understood the occupiers, causing a far greater degree of alienation as well as logistical and social problems for occupiers and occupied alike. The German parachutists pay the milkman for the milk they took, and as they gather up their rifles and ammunition to walk away, the rather bewildered, elderly milkman looks at the money in his palm and says to Erik ‘They even left a tip…very decent of them!’ The image of the enemy presented in this small yet significant scene in Soldaat van Oranje pushes against earlier stereotypes of the Germans as evil and aggressive, especially in De Overval. These invading paratroopers are depicted as ordinary soldiers who are wellmannered, friendly, and interested in hearing about parties and pretty girls. They even give the Dutch milkman a tip, much to his confusion. Just as the old milkman is forced to reconsider his view of all Germans as ‘bad’, so too does the image of the occupier in this scene jolt our expectations, suggesting something of the shifting Dutch perceptions about their wartime enemy from the time the film was made. That is not to say that Soldaat van Oranje offers only newer portrayals of the German invaders. The film also exhibits textual examples conforming to previously-held expectations of how the Germans, or treatment at their hands, should be shown, even transcending them in terms of graphic content. Principally these take the form of scenes of interrogation, explicit torture, and execution, for example, when Jewish student Jan Weinberg is arrested, beaten, and subjected to extreme torture that director Verhoeven does not shy away from letting us see. As Erik Lanshof looks anxiously across a wide canal to the exterior of the SD headquarters, actually the Binnenhof, with its vast swastika aloft, he knows that his friend Jan is being tortured inside.29 His concern is not just for Jan’s welfare, but about whether Jan can hold out without giving Erik’s name away after a failed escape attempt to help the Jewish Jan reach England. A sudden zoom in to the building from Erik’s point of view cuts to a low-angle tight close-up of Jan quivering and screaming in a dim cell with harsh overhead lighting. Two men are with him, though at first it is not clear what is happening, only that Jan is howling, shuddering, and lying on his front on a table. Cutting to a wide overhead shot, we now see his trousers are down, one soldier is holding a hosepipe leading from the sink tap to Jan’s anus whilst the second man repeatedly hits Jan in the kidney region of his back. The realisation that this is enema torture is complete, and its awfulness catches our breath. The profound unpleasantness of this torture scene is key to its significance, and it forces the question: were Dutch audiences at the time of the film aware that such extreme torture happened during occupation? It is a bold move to show this and other explicit scenes in Soldaat van Oranje, and it would not have been possible in earlier war films. De Overval did not depict

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the torture on Bakker’s fingertips, just its effects; Als Twee Druppels Water showed Eberness repeatedly kicking Ducker in the face - a nasty, jarring scene, but the heavy blows were shielded from us by the choice to film from behind the victim’s head, thus retaining a sense of the theatrical. Soldaat van Oranje chooses a different path, revealing what we hardly believe could happen to a person. It makes sense that more ambiguous portrayals of the occupier and increasingly visceral scenes began openly to be depicted in the late 1970s. Dutch society was shifting its perceptions about the war, and gaining new knowledge of the occupation, the enemy, and the extent of physical and psychological torture. David Barnouw suggests that significant social changes taking place in the Netherlands from the mid-1960s onwards influenced later Dutch films (1986: 24). He argues that although Vietnam protests, the hippy movement, sexual liberation, and large student demonstrations were not only a Dutch phenomenon, they had a particularly powerful effect in Holland because ‘the Netherlands had always been so peaceful. The protests as well as the cultural and socio-economic changes therefore seemed immense’ (1986: 24). The younger, post-war generation began to mistrust the ‘established order’ and doubt older generations’ versions of events, which would include inherited attitudes to their wartime enemy. This post-war generation doubting the old order’s mythologized accounts of resistance and tales eulogizing Dutch heroes and condemning German villains included cultural producers and filmmakers like Verhoeven. The cohort of Dutch film directors, actors, and producers was transforming from one with first-hand experience of the occupation, bringing elements of lived war experience to cultural works (as with many of the actors and production crew for in De Overval and Als Twee Druppels Water), to an emerging group of young Dutch filmmakers in the 1970s who had to look to external sources for information about the war. Barnouw writes that these emerging filmmakers now had to refer to history books, or to the staff of the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, for information on the occupation (1986: 26). Soldaat van Oranje hovers, then, on a perimeter fence between familiar images of a cruel and callous enemy typically inhabiting the earlier post-war films, and new, ‘greyer’ incarnations, such as the Scheveningen beach scene’s citizens socialising with German soldiers, and paratroopers politely paying for milk. Traditional boundaries begin to blur and the enemy is placed in more everyday situations and relationships in what increasingly is depicted as a shared society of occupation.

T he image of the enem y

| 95

Pastorale 1943 (1978) The National Gallery! I’d love to have gone there some day… were it not for this damn war. SD man to Johan Schults, Pastorale 1943

96 |

Directed and scripted by Wim Verstappen in 1978, Pastorale 1943 was adapted from the novel Pastorale by Dutch author Simon Vestdijk.30 It is a film about resistance but less heroic in tone than Soldaat van Oranje. The film concerns the inhabitants of a small Dutch town, Doornwijk, in the Betuwe area of the Netherlands during the occupation, several of whom make numerous blunders and misjudgements while attempting to carry out resistance activities.31 They are no well-armed or organized resistance force but instead are haphazard, clumsy, and unprepared for the actions they attempt. When they try to ‘deal with’ a presumed collaborator, they attack and kill the wrong man—a man who, though a member of the NSB,32 is innocent of the crime of which he is accused. The film suggests a growing awareness in the late 1970s in Dutch society that distinctions and behaviour—of the resistance, of ordinary Dutch citizens, and of the enemy—were not so polarized towards zwart en wit (‘blackand-white’) as long-held myths about the war indicated. An enemy presence is shown quite often in Pastorale 1943, and though the predominant characteristics ascribed to the occupiers are anger, aggression, lasciviousness, and petulance, ambiguous images are also seen, as with Soldaat van Oranje the year before. Offering this somewhat bipolar image of the enemy, Pastorale 1943 oscillates between the extremities of sadistic and dissolute behaviour on the one hand and the rather more sympathetic representation of three less-anticipated German characters on the other. These atypical representations are the Luftwaffe boyfriend of schoolteacher Miep Algera, a kindly SD man, and the older brother of schoolteacher/resistance member Johan Schults, August Schulz, who is in the SS. The partial redressing in Verstappen’s film of the weight of stereotype and caricature inherent in the majority of its representations of Germans by the inclusion of these atypical incarnations indicates a move towards a more three-dimensional image of the occupier. Textual examples of the more expected, negative behaviour of the occupier in the film include the treatment of Van Dale, an engineer and one of the film’s resistance members. He is drugged, threatened, and subjected to psychological torture not yet encountered in Dutch war films. A few minutes into the film, in a large country house appropriated as the local SD headquarters, a woman’s terrified screaming and the intermittent noise of slapping can be heard echoing throughout the building. As the camera tracks from a wide

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

shot inside the grand entrance foyer into an alcove, it becomes clear that the noise emanates from a young SD man and woman in uniform. He is pretending to slap her, she is screaming loudly in pain. In between feigning hitting the young woman by slapping his own hands together, the soldier fondles her and they kiss. They appear to relish the frisson of their contrary actions. The camera tracks slowly away from the pair down a long, dark corridor—with this screaming ruse persisting all the while—to a dimly lit room in which Van Dale is being questioned. He is suspected of assisting people going into hiding to evade capture by the Germans—people known in Dutch as onderduikers. The camera rests before the threshold of the interrogation room, and through the open doorway we see and hear two German SD officers alternately ordering Van Dale in German to tell them what he knows. ‘Don’t you love your wife?’ ‘Just talk!’ ‘She’s in pain!’ ‘Don’t you hear how she is being abused?’ The distancing effect created by the camera remaining outside the doorway is powerful. Dutch subtitles are provided for this and for some of the other spoken German in the film (though not all of it)—the first time that subtitles for German dialogue have been provided in the films. Aside from the fact that it is rather surprising that Van Dale cannot discern his own wife’s voice/scream from that of this young playacting woman, the scene is an explicit and unsettling one. He is unlikely, one would hope, to have heard his wife scream like this before, and in the circumstances of disorientation, a darkened room, and the interrogators’ threatening behaviour, he believes it to be her. This is the first evidence found of psychological torture and is in line with a growing realization around the time that Pastorale 1943 was made of the extent and variety of maltreatment administered by the occupiers during the war. It appears that Van Dale does not give the required information, as shortly afterwards, the main inquisitor tells him he must know that they, the Germans, are not human. The shot is much tighter now: a mid-shot of Van Dale illuminated by the harsh beam of a table lamp angled directly at his face, his questioner barely visible in the penumbral gloom. The SD officer—who remains nameless—removes Van Dale’s thick spectacles and crushes them underfoot. ‘We’ll go to the extreme!’ he shouts over a closer shot of the broken glasses. The damaging of spectacles is always a powerful trope of vulnerability and humanity, for we make the association that, if lost or broken, the wearer of such thick glasses is probably now unable to see properly.33 The perverse behaviour of the screaming/slapping ruse is developed further during a SD staff party held that evening in the grand house. With the party in full swing with food, drink, and live music in a ballroom festooned with garlands and swastika-embellished red drapes, the SD officer briefly returns to the interrogation cell. He tricks Van Dale by offering him a drugged drink from a hip flask. From a close-up of the drink being offered, the camera reverts

T he image of the enem y

| 97

98 |

to its position ahead of the threshold looking through the narrow doorway. As Van Dale drinks and the drug begins to take effect, the officer switches on the cell’s main light and, in a calmer tone, tells his prisoner that it was just a minor misdeed for which he was arrested, nothing serious. Van Dale moans and collapses backwards onto a bed. With the faint strains of party music in the background, the officer roughly drags Van Dale’s legs onto the bed, switches off the light and leaves the cell. This is the first textual evidence of drugging, which, coupled with the brief reprise of a veneer of civility as the drugged drink is given, reveals another facet in the image of the enemy from this era of Dutch war films. Re-entering the party room, the camera tracks alongside the SD officer as he greets several women in passing, touching and kissing them despite the fact that they are embracing or dancing with other partners. His own looks are not elegant; rather, he is a caricature‚short, somewhat dishevelled, with the top buttons of his uniform undone. This apparently has little effect on his desirability and popularity—or maybe it is his power and authority that attracts. He may not resemble an alpha male but he acts as one, ‘claiming’ women regardless of their sexual status with other men in the room. He reaches the grand piano upon which a young woman is sitting and flirting. It is the same woman who was feigning being slapped earlier in the film, though the man with whom she now flirts is a different one. The paternalistic SD officer taps the young man on the chest, who appears not to mind relinquishing his partner. The officer then grabs the woman, pushing her into the open workings of the piano. Everyone laughs… but it is a licentious laugh in a scene patently presented as lewd and bawdy. A point to consider in this party scene is that some, if not all, of the women would have been Dutch, whether recruited to the SD, girlfriends of German soldiers, or prostitutes. This aspect of the war represented in Pastorale 1943 and Soldaat van Oranje34 indicates a growing tendency in films of the late 1970s to show some of the less heroic and more day-to-day features of the Netherlands’ history of occupation, such as Dutch women forming relationships with German soldiers. In this scene, Pastorale 1943 depicts Dutch women relishing, or appearing to relish, the company of officers and soldiers, although some of these SD members would be Dutch men who had joined or been recruited. Depictions of these sexual connections become increasingly visible and complex in the films over time—yet another sign of shifts in Dutch society’s attitudes to aspects of the war, recalibrated and reworked through its cultural texts.35 The morning after the party, local piano tuner and resistance member Eskens is summoned to tune the grand piano, even though he had tuned it only the day before. He seems to disregard the fallen garlands and other par-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ty detritus but is appalled to find a used condom inside the workings of the piano—a consequence, we presume, of the SD officer’s liaison with the flirting girl. Eskens picks out the condom, which we can clearly see, with his tuning fork and drops it onto the floor. It is unlikely to be disgust that sex and ejaculation themselves took place that ‘bothers’ Eskens. Dutch films tended to be progressive at that time in terms of depicting sex, nudity, and violence.36 It is far more likely to be who it was who was having sex, and where it occurred that revolts him, especially the poor taste of its happening on a piano, Eskens’ locus of work and not an apparatus to be so denatured. Set against interrogation, simulated slapping torture, the smashing of spectacles, drugging, and lewd party antics, the three more genteel German characters in Pastorale 1943 present intriguing counter-representations of the enemy. Before we even meet him, the German air force officer boyfriend of schoolteacher Miep Algera triggers a heated debate amongst her teaching colleagues. They are shocked to hear she has been seen with him and wonder if she has secretly joined the NSB. In the school staffroom, an older teacher points out that she could have fallen in love with the man, to which another male teacher responds ‘And the Luftwaffe is not the same as the SS. She might not have had anything to do with the NSB’. But a female teacher vehemently against the NSB and Nazi sympathizers shouts ‘Shave their heads, then draw and quarter them, you wait and see!’ When a younger female teacher asks what this Luftwaffe officer looks like, the same angry teacher snaps ‘To me they’re all rotten Germans and I’d wring his neck if it were up to me!’ The teaching colleagues of Miep Algera and Johan Schults speak their diverse opinions as though in one voice—a clever device reminiscent of a ‘Greek chorus’ of opinion. This scene in Pastorale 1943 reminds us that many discrepancies were and are made in Dutch society regarding classifications of the enemy, including the blunt but doubtless popular opinion that ‘they’re all rotten Germans’. The first time we see Miep’s lover they are in a café, and he is depicted as kind and courteous. He’s so pleased to be in love with an English teacher who went to Cambridge for two years, he tells her. This admiration for the time she spent in England goes against prior images of the occupiers as insular and anti-English (the British are their wartime enemy, after all). When Miep points out her colleague, Johan Schults, one of the film’s main characters and a teacher of German at her school who is himself half German, her boyfriend says in a surprisingly matter-of-fact manner, ‘I pity him because England is going to win the war.’ In an unusual linguistic departure, he speaks in careful English and Miep replies in German. However, in their second and final scene together, Miep and her (unnamed) Luftwaffe lover both speak German as they lie in bed. They talk and caress, the camera zooming in slowly from wide to close-up. As with Van Dale’s earlier

T he image of the enem y

| 99

100 |

interrogation, there are Dutch subtitles for the spoken German in this scene. The language point about the Sch- sound first noted in Soldaat van Oranje recurs as Miep mentions her teacher colleague Johan Schults again and tells her boyfriend it is a name he cannot pronounce. He tries to say ‘Schults’ but is unable to, laughs about it, and only manages its German equivalent, ‘Schulz’, with a z-. To an English speaker, there is little separating the two names but the Dutch and German sounds are quite distinct, and this difference becomes important for Johan Schults in the film. Miep’s conversation segues into asking her lover about specifications for concrete bunkers and a landing strip for German planes, information he freely gives her. He is portrayed as gentle, loving, yet surely gullible, openly answering detailed technical questions in such an intimate context. Despite this naivety, he is the first German character in any of the films to fulfil a credible relationship/friendship function, in contrast especially to images of the enemy in the early 1960s films with their lack of any friendships or familial contexts. Pastorale 1943 moves against this more usual image of the occupier in its presentation of Miep’s Luftwaffe boyfriend. Whilst his character is not well developed, his name is unknown, and Miep coaxes him into giving military information which will end up with the resistance in London, he is nevertheless depicted as kind and considerate, genuinely pleased to be with his partner. The SD man awaiting Johan Schults at his home to take him to prison in Scheveningen on suspicion of taking part in resistance attacks near the end of the film is another, atypical German character. He is straightforward and polite, without that veneer of civility identified in earlier films as a leitmotif of the enemy. Whilst not overtly friendly, he is neither aggressive nor sarcastic. He simply informs Schults calmly in German that he must come along, not ask questions, and he should bring just his coat. As Schults takes this from his wardrobe, the SD-er looks at an art poster on the wardrobe door. Schults is an amateur artist and his sketching talent has been his main contribution to local resistance work. The SD man calls the poster remarkable and Shults tells him it is probably a copy of a Quentin Matsys painting, in the style of a Leonardo.37 The SD man is impressed at the mention of Da Vinci, and Schults tells him the original is in the National Gallery in London. With a wry laugh, the SD man says: ‘The National Gallery! I’d love to have gone there some day…were it not for this damned war.’ His characterization moves against the stereotyped depiction of the SD seen so far in Dutch films. That he is interested in art and wants to visit London’s National Gallery but ‘for this damned war’ gives him humanity and intelligence and demonstrates cultural knowledge and an interest in other nations and life outside the war. A changing image of the enemy was hinted at already with Miep Algera’s Luftwaffe boyfriend, and this cultured SD man provides yet another indica-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

tion of a move in films from the late 1970s towards more three-dimensional portraits of German characters. The third contra-image of the enemy presented in Pastorale 1943 is perhaps the most remarkable—that of Johan Schults’ older brother, August Schulz, who spells his name the German way. With a German father and a Dutch mother, the two brothers have opted for different allegiances, reflected in their choice of surname. August Schulz joined the Waffen SS and is now a high-ranking Nazi officer. In his only scene, at the close of the film, he is dressed in full SS uniform and looks very formal and imposing. The scene’s Binnenhof location is also formal. Despite August’s initially aloof appearance, he has arranged his brother’s release from jail—much to Johan’s surprise, as he did not know August was aware of his imprisonment. Johan had written an emotional farewell letter to their mother from his prison cell, thinking he might never get out, and their mother had passed it on to the older brother. When Johan is brought to the Binnenhof to meet August, a portrait of Hitler on the wall underlines August’s Nazi affiliation and reminds us of the ubiquity of Hitler’s portraiture across the films. The scene is framed chiefly by long-held close-up shots of August against a vast window with a view of the Ridderzaal beyond.38 The conversation is informal and quite friendly, as the SS officer lightly admonishes his younger brother by saying, ‘I really thought for a moment that you were part of this so-called resistance work!’ Johan brushes this aside, for he really is in the resistance. August asks if Johan still sketches so nicely, then proceeds to warn him to be more careful around women, as it was an SD woman who betrayed him. August evidently has considerable authority, as he then tears up his brother’s SD file. As they leave the building, Johan rather sarcastically congratulates his older brother on a recent promotion. August pompously declares that medals and promotions mean little to him: ‘I fight for pleasure.’ He then warns his brother ‘If you’re against us, that’s your own business but don’t go along with those resistance puppets.’ ‘Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson’, replies the younger man untruthfully. Despite his good deed and warm manner towards his brother, August Schulz is portrayed as patronizing and markedly ‘Nazified’, openly telling Johan that he enjoys fighting and criticizing the attempts of the resistance to achieve anything with their pointless attacks. He tells Johan that he only helped him because he is his brother, but he will not/cannot help Johan’s Jewish friend Cohen Katz, also a teacher of German, arrested after an SD raid on the farm where he was hiding out. August is limited by what he can do, or wants to do, to help against an enemy to which he chooses to belong. August Schulz is played in the film by Rutger Hauer, the actor who portrayed the ‘Soldier of Orange’—Erik Lansof—in Verhoeven’s film the previous

T he image of the enem y

| 101

year. The contrast in these two Hauer roles makes August Schulz stand out as a character more in this film than perhaps he otherwise would. Aside from this connection, the image of the enemy revealed by this SS officer, the brother of a leading Dutch character, points to an increasingly complex depiction of the German occupiers in Dutch films from the late 1970s onwards. These three unusual and multi-faceted German characters in Pastorale 1943 offer alternatives to rigid goed versus fout interpretations of the enemy; they are indicative of an evolving pattern of change in Dutch society’s beliefs about their wartime enemy from the time this film was made. As we come to see in war films from the 1980s, the movement towards an increasingly three-dimensional image of the occupier continues its forward trajectory.

GROWING AMBIGUITY: PORTRAYING THE OCCUPIERS IN 1986 102 | Though we glimpsed Wehrmacht soldiers in an ordinary queue for the swimming pool in 1963’s Als Twee Druppels Water, it was films from the late 1970s that really began the trend towards disclosing a shared society of occupation and evincing greater three-dimensionality and complexity in their portrayals of the enemy. In the decade that followed, this trend would push yet further ahead, which speaks of corresponding shifts in the 1980s in the attitudes of the Dutch towards their wartime enemy. The stages of Dutch post-war reconstruction outlined by Van der Heijden (2003) and Blom (2007) correlate to some extent with phases of public reconciling with the repercussions of war and occupation. According to these phases, the 1980s onwards were particularly associated with coming to terms with the extent to which Dutch Jews were persecuted, the deprivation suffered during the Hunger Winter, the complex relationship between the resistance and Communism’s role in it, and further realizations of trauma and loss. Though the Germans as Holland’s wartime enemy do not feature overtly in this list, their presence behind many aspects of the Dutch war experience and its post-war recovery is nevertheless intrinsic. They therefore continue to be a key constituent in Dutch filmic representations, albeit with a shifting countenance. The decade of the 1980s yielded eight films about the war in the Netherlands, part of the ‘boom’ in Dutch film production, as David Barnouw describes it (1986: 27), occurring from the late 1970s until 1986.39 A number of these 1980s films embrace noticeably differing characterizations of the enemy within the same film, a tendency first noticed in Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943.40 Below, I concentrate on the representation of the enemy in a key film made in 1986: De Aanslag. I am interested in particular in the interpretation of the enemy personified in a single character, for it incorporates a Ger-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

man role that stands out in its depiction of the occupier and is remarkable for its progressive complexion.

De Aanslag (1986) Shit, Schulz is wounded! Careful now, gently does it… He’s still alive. SD officer to German soldiers after an air raid, De Aanslag

The enemy is very prominent in the first 45 minutes of De Aanslag, set in Haarlem during the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945. After this opening section, the film’s scenes incorporate various post-war episodes up until the early 1980s, throughout which the German occupiers are only evident in occasional flashbacks. The thread holding these elements together is the character of Anton Steenwijk, a young boy at the start of the film and an adult of progressive ages through the rest of it. It is during the first part of De Aanslag, set in the harsh, final winter of occupation, that representations of the enemy are chiefly found. Fons Rademakers directed De Aanslag in 1986, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for it the following year.41 Whereas the narratives of the films analysed so far are concerned chiefly with the resistance (at least ostensibly), the emphases in De Aanslag are much more on war’s enduring effects. The film’s focus is the seemingly arbitrary wartime incidents that have both immediate and deadly effects and long-lasting repercussions on ordinary people. Although the resistance does figure significantly (the aanslag or ‘assault’ of the title is the film’s pivotal event—the murder of a Dutch NSB policeman by members of the resistance), De Aanslag is more concerned with the persisting effects of trauma and deprivation. It also deals with the powerful drug that amnesia becomes for the main character as a means of coping with traumatic memories he neither understands nor can come to terms with. This resonates with shifting undercurrents in mid-1980s Dutch society towards a fuller realization of the lasting repercussions of trauma. Harrowing wartime experiences are not easily buried and can emerge, whether anticipated or not, in later life or future generations. Though depictions of the occupiers mainly are evident only in the first part of the film’s narrative, German characters nevertheless form lasting impressions on Anton Steenwijk as a boy and penetrate his emotional world as an adult. Based on Harry Mulisch’s best-selling novel of the same name,42 De Aanslag is a powerful portrait of the war experience of Anton, who, as a twelve-year old, witnesses the murder of his parents and older brother and the burning of his home as SD reprisal for the shooting of an NSB policeman near their house. Distressed, disoriented, and unsure of what is happening, Anton is considered

T he image of the enem y

| 103

104 |

too young to be part of the reprisal and is passed from one official to another during that long, bitterly cold night in January. He is eventually released to the care of his uncle in Amsterdam the next day. The film traces Anton’s life over 40 years of public and personal as well as national and international events, compelling him, piece by piece, to recall his childhood memories and question the nature of enemies and the outcome of the war. Set against the presence in the film’s early scenes of the Germans as sadistic, angry, and fastidious (aggressive SD men raid the Steenwijk home and insult Mr Steenwijk; the Steenwijks are executed along with a group of prisoners; the house is torched; arrangements about Anton are shouted angrily), we discover the most unusual counter-stereotype portrayal of the enemy yet seen in Dutch war films. This is the character of the sympathetic German desk sergeant, Schulz, who is kind to young Anton after his traumatic night in January 1945. Anton wakes up on a campbed in the sergeant’s office at a German regional command centre. Schulz slowly opens the blind, the morning light revealing Anton’s sleepy face. He blinks awake, initially apprehensive when he sees the German sergeant across the room. Cutting to Anton’s point of view, the camera candidly follows the middle-aged Schulz at a leisurely pace as he, unaware the boy has awoken, quietly slices bread and deals with a soldier returning some boots at the office counter. The sense of the sequence is of a parent busy with domestic tasks, performed silently so as not to disturb a sleeping child. The sergeant’s office is homely, adorned with piles of uniforms, helmets, boots, tea and coffee pots, food items, a sewing machine, the sleeping area, a sink, postcards of female film stars, and a table for mending uniforms and dining. When Schulz looks across and sees Anton awake, sitting up staring at him hesitantly, the mid-size shot of Schulz is prolonged and very powerful because of his facial expression, which is a smile of great warmth and avuncular, even paternal, concern. Until now, we have not witnessed such a compassionate look from one character to another in these Dutch films, even between two Dutch people, let alone between an orphaned Dutch boy and a German sergeant—so little room has there been for expressions of genuine tenderness amid the bigger stories of wartime. From this potent look of impartial kindness, Schulz beckons Anton over to the table to eat schmalz, a type of goose fat or dripping spread on pieces of bread, which Anton eats voraciously, along with milk. With lingering closeup shots of them both, Schulz sits next to Anton, seeming to enjoy the boy’s savouring of this nutritious food. This is in the time of the Hunger Winter, with food extremely scarce in the Netherlands, particularly in the north-west and central parts of the country. Families not fortunate enough to produce their own food survived—if they were lucky—on one meagre daily handout per fam-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ily from soup kitchens. Schulz ruffles Anton’s hair affectionately as he devours the schmalz on bread. The language barrier between them is irrelevant as they communicate mainly by signs and gestures and seem comfortable in each other’s company. Anton, too young to speak German, nevertheless understands when the sergeant tells him he must be sent on to family in Amsterdam and will travel in a convoy with Schulz and other soldiers. Schulz has Anton’s papers, which he puts in his own breast pocket and taps protectively. The sergeant knows Anton will need proper clothing for the freezing journey so he finds among his clothing stock a thick army jumper and greatcoat, which he cuts to size with dressmaking scissors. The final touch is a German helmet, the smallest size but still far too big for the twelve-year old boy. Schulz adjusts the helmet’s chinstrap, then salutes his miniature soldier affectionately. Both he and Anton smile warmly. The benevolent figure of Schulz is far removed from the more familiar stereotypes of ranting, aggressive SD officers, shown at times even in this film. This reveals a shift in Dutch films from the 1980s, with the more simplistic, two-dimensional divisions between ‘evil’ occupiers and ‘heroic’ Dutch becoming further subsumed within new transformations, inhabiting increasingly human and indeed humanitarian representations of the enemy; sometimes still flawed but more human, which is the fundamental change. Shortly afterwards, Schulz is seriously wounded when shot during a British air raid on the German convoy to Amsterdam. Dramatic, jarring, hand-

5. Sergeant Schulz and young Anton Steenwijk, De Aanslag

T he image of the enem y

| 105

106 |

held shots evoke the suddenness and chaos of such an air raid. The scene is also presented, as are many in De Aanslag, more or less from Anton’s point of view; the view of a disoriented, shocked child. Anton is traumatized by the air raid—another life-threatening incident in a series of dire events for him—and cannot move even when urged by Schulz to get out of the truck and seek cover. Unscathed by the plane’s first wave of strafing, Anton’s face slowly emerges in close-up from behind the vehicle’s dashboard. He is still wearing the German army helmet Schulz gave him. He peers through the windscreen in real distress to where Schulz’s body now lies in the snow. Schulz’s fellow soldiers are shocked at the death of some of their colleagues and afraid of the British bombers’ imminent return. They are particularly concerned for Schulz’s welfare, and rush over to where he lies, face down by the road. One officer, no doubt Schulz’s commander, quietly curses that Schulz has been wounded. They gently turn him over, revealing the gunshot wound to his chest. When they realize he is still alive, his colleagues are extremely anxious to get him to a hospital as soon as possible. He is evidently an important person to them professionally and, it would appear, personally. In the following scene at a hospital ambulance bay, nurses and orderlies carry the injured German soldiers into the hospital. Anton, a strange sight in his cut-down German uniform and over-sized helmet, watches silently in the background as Schulz is stretchered with great care out of the truck. The predominant visual motifs are red-cross armbands and signs, stretchers, and nurses’ uniforms, evoking the palliative almost-neutrality of a hospital location. The camera holds back tentatively at first, lingering in wide shot before slowly zooming in to Schulz’s body on the stretcher. The shot tilts up to the concerned, wide-eyed figure of Anton, who walks tentatively towards where Schulz has been carried, out of shot. We do not hear of Schulz again. For Anton (and we, the viewers), Schulz represented a German figure of unexpected decency and human warmth after the anguished confusion of the previous night. But he also embodies a remarkably progressive image of the enemy in De Aanslag in terms of how he is considered by his fellow soldiers. Textual evidence featuring Schulz and his concerned colleagues in these three consecutive scenes presents a profound revision in filmic images of the occupier. Not only is Schulz kind and concerned about Anton, already rendering him as a character ‘other than’ the standard portrayals of Germans in earlier films, but also the reactions of his fellow soldiers when he is shot are compelling evidence of a change in perceptions of how an enemy should look and act—a change that filtered through to the medium of film. His fellow soldiers’ reactions such as ‘Shit, Schulz is wounded! Careful now, gently does it…’ whilst they carefully turn him over in the snow and hurry him to hospital are responses that we just do not usually see with regard to German characters in

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Dutch war films, or at least not up to this point. Yet why should they not be seen? Injured or dying soldiers would very likely be afforded this duty of care and humanity, even affection if they were well-liked, regardless of an army’s nationality. Prior portrayals of the enemy have tended heavily towards onesidedness, highlighting negative, grotesque, or exaggerated aspects of behaviour as they impact on the film’s (Dutch) protagonist/s. However, Soldaat van Oranje had started the movement towards revealing a shared society of occupation, and Pastorale 1943 offered two progressive German characters (Miep’s Luftwaffe lover and the kindly, art-appreciating SD man), and one pompous, yet family-oriented one (Johan Schults’ older SS brother, August, who ‘fights for pleasure’). By allowing a deeper and more human portrayal of sergeant Schulz to be drawn, these scenes in De Aanslag present us with glimpses of camaraderie, care, and concern for loss of life and for one’s colleagues that are simply absent from prior filmic images of the enemy. My reading of 1962’s De Overval identified a lack of humanity inherent in portrayals of the German occupiers due in part to their appearing to be disassociated from family connections and bonds of friendship. I suggested that if changes in these ‘dehumanizing’ depictions of the enemy were to come about, then they might take a long time, perhaps decades to materialize. It seems those changes were brought to fruition 24 years later in De Aanslag, even in a small way with sergeant Schulz, evidenced by these scenes of German compassion, camaraderie, and a palpable sense of the human losses suffered after an air raid attack.

T he image of the enem y

| 107

CHAPTER 3

Dutch identity and ‘Dutchness’

In this chapter I examine images of Dutch identity and national character across the films. This entails identifying presumed core Dutch values and tendencies discernible throughout the films and analysing evidence of ‘Dutchness’. Dutchness here means apparent aspects of the Dutch personality and infrastructure and of what it means to be Dutch.1 These aspects of Dutchness might embrace: a sense of humour, openness, camaraderie, patriotism, religious affiliation, working life, politics, language, family dynamics, home interiors, egotism, altruism, Queen Wilhelmina, and feelings of belonging.2 Alongside filmic depictions of these more anthropological aspects of Dutchness, I also consider images or sounds that are associated with the Netherlands in a more tangible everyday context. Such signifiers of Dutch identity might be: bicycles, windmills, canals, dunes, dykes, quiet country lanes, the Dutch flag, trams, cheese, cobbled streets, trees, birds, and the wider context of the natural world. I look specifically at the depiction within the films of the flat Dutch landscape and the potential of that landscape to influence, or even hinder, the progress both of the home nation defending it and the occupiers encroaching upon it. Examples of such rural images or sounds are: flatness, bare, open fields, big skies, farms, the quality of light, expansive views of the horizon, rivers and other waterways, and the weather as a backdrop to the films’ sequences. Textual evidence in these war films relating to rivers, canals, and the sea serves as a potent reminder of the Netherlands’ historical battle against the prevalence of water and encroaching water levels.3 It also hints at the enduring influence of water on the Dutch psyche, from the country’s naval and economic supremacy during the ‘Golden Age’ of the seventeenth century4 to the realization that the Netherlands is a country at the mercy of water due to its low-lying position and, as a consequence, easy to invade.5 This chapter briefly revisits issues of the Dutch language identified in

| 109

110 |

chapter two: its close proximity in some instances to German and the repercussions of language links with regard to the ‘self’ and to national and cultural identity. We consider what it was about the Netherlands and Dutch people that interested Germany, a ‘national appeal’ from the late 1930s onwards that provoked the invasion and subsequent occupation. Associations between the Dutch landscape and the expansive quality of light and Dutch fine art and painting are also reflected upon. I ask whether certain filmic representations of Dutchness in war films from the Netherlands correlate with Dutch society’s creative responses to, and depictions of, Dutchness in other cultural forms such as fine art and literature, with particular attention paid to the use of light and depictions of landscapes. This textual evidence of Dutchness takes the form of snapshots of ‘presumed’ or ‘apparent’ Dutch core values and traits. It is not my intention to pass judgement on clichéd representations of Dutch national characteristics. Instead, by observing and analysing commonly recurring themes, traits, and instances in the films, this textual evidence can be interpreted in terms of what it may reveal to us of Dutch citizens’ thoughts on their own sense of national identity and character from the times the films were made.6 Though filmic depictions of these Dutch characteristics and iconic images may still appear to be stereotypes, it is worth remembering that they are based on qualities and histories attributed to the Dutch by themselves, not by outsiders. After all, these are Dutch films made principally by Dutch people about events concerning the Netherlands. The appearance of qualities and vistas of Dutchness within the films is already in negotiation with a common Dutch past from which some familiar signifiers remain. These signifiers filter down through the dual prisms of history and cultural production and suffuse media such as fine art, literature, and film. In fact, the persistence in these Dutch war films of images of open landscapes, bicycles, the weather, country lanes, canals, and so on weaves a palpable impression of Dutchness that renders external stereotyping unnecessary—the iconographic images and soundscapes speak of the Netherlands on their own. Nonetheless, a critical eye is needed to avoid (further) mythologizing the instances of Dutchness found. Interpreting the textual evidence in relation not only to its subject matter but also to when the films were made is also key. My readings examine how a film’s production era strongly influences the exposure of its inherent secrets and attitudes about the past, simmering often unconsciously beneath the zeitgeist of contemporary society. Here we are dealing not only with how these snapshots of Dutchness are portrayed but why the Dutch are rendered in film in these ways and at these particular times. I argue that this process occurs via the transmutation into cultural means of society’s communal, unconscious concerns or, as Kracauer describes them,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

‘the “unseen dynamics of human relations”’ which are ‘characteristic of the inner life of the nation from which the films emerge’ (2004: 7). I am interested in how this unconscious tide of societal opinion permeated the layers of Dutch cultural production to appear eventually in its films. A last point before analysing the film texts concerns the particular and unusual circumstances of occupation. The Netherlands had already experienced a long-term period of occupation during the Napoleonic era, and though this would have been erased from living memory by the time Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, nevertheless an enduring, communal echo of subjugation by a larger, powerful neighbour remained.7 This suggests the lasting power of social memory as, in this case, inherited remembrances outlived any personal recollections of prior occupation. It also implies that these films about the war—together with other cultural representations, monuments, and herdenkingsdag (‘remembrance day’) services—may trigger social memories built into the very foundation of Dutchness and Dutch identity and which exist beyond the scope of the personal. The impact on the Dutch population of the five-year civil occupation by Germany cannot be underestimated. Many lingering effects of this occupation encompassed ethical dilemmas and psychological trauma—not just having to make choices about whether to resist or collaborate with the oppressor, but trauma as a result of punishment, deprivation, torture, witnessing the persecution of others, choosing not to help Dutch Jews, or opting for complacency. These effects were compounded by multiple damage caused to the country’s infrastructure during those five years. The occupation’s legacy would be felt in government policy, economic activity, the media, family life, and in general public consciousness, so that when the war finally ended for the whole of the Netherlands on 5 May 1945, the imprint of occupation endured. The loss of personal and national liberty brought about by the occupation had significant effects on Dutch feelings of identity, especially regarding the ‘self versus other’ dynamic present when a population is invaded and subjugated by an oppressive ‘other’. This chapter begins by addressing filmic representations of Dutchness and identity in the early 1960s, from the profusion of patriotism and landscape in De Overval to the admixture of bucolic imagery, psychological themes, and suburban depictions of Dutchness in Als Twee Druppels Water. After this, the portrayal of Dutchness in Soldaat van Oranje is revealed via instances of language, appearance, and the blurring of personal and national identities, together with further illustrations of patriotism and the Dutch queen. I then look at images of Dutchness in another seminal Dutch film— Het Meisje met het Rode Haar—paying particular attention to the weather, core personality traits, the Hunger Winter, and the political as well as literal landscape.

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 111

BIG SKIES, FAR HORIZONS: DUTCHNESS IN FILMS FROM THE EARLY 1960S De Overval (1962)

112 |

Before the film De Overval begins, an official-looking prologue is delivered straight to camera by a Colonel J.J.F. Borghouts, Chairman of the Nationale Federatieve Raad van het Voormalig Verzet in Nederland (National Federal Council for the Former Dutch Resistance). Borghouts was a resistance fighter during the occupation, as evidenced by his pseudonym, Peter Zuid, shown in parenthesis after his name in the opening caption. Seated behind a desk with hands folded and papers and office paraphernalia giving the setting a formal tone, he solemnly delivers a speech endorsing the film as a representation of true, patriotic events. The camera zooms in slowly, almost imperceptibly, from a wide shot of Borghouts and the table to a medium close-up, as he tells viewers that the film: is an example of how, during five years of occupation, and under very difficult circumstances, freedom was still fought for in our country…the freedom that we perceive now as the most normal thing in the world. Above all, Borghouts tells the viewers, he hopes that the courage depicted in De Overval will be remembered so that, in the unlikely event of a similar situation reoccurring, ‘the potential enemy will find Holland’s youth mentally capable of defending themselves and prepared to confront the most difficult of situations.’ From these sober sentiments expressed directly to camera, the film cuts to black and fades up to the dramatic, insistent music chords and opening slow landscape pans described in chapter two. This prologue is an oddly formal sequence, bolted onto the start of the film. It places De Overval firmly in the time of its production by its reference to the ‘relatively recent’ historical events of the occupation and resistance. Borghouts’ words to De Overval’s original cinema viewers relate as much to a discussion of images of the enemy or of the resistance as they do to Dutch identity—such is the inevitable degree of crossover in this book’s themes within the films. In the context of this chapter, what his introductory words reveal is a heightened sense of national pride in the positive character and actions of ordinary Dutch people during the occupation; specifically, during the real-life silent raid on which the film is based. Borghouts’ speech serves also to illustrate that freedom is intrinsically associated with a ‘natural’ state of normality, a yardstick of Dutchness that is innately good and closely allied to the expanses of the Netherlands’ seem-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ingly unadulterated panoramas. The pastoral surroundings and landscapes of the Dutch countryside are strong signifiers of naturalness and Dutchness, both in real life and as re-imagined in Dutch war films. The German occupation can thence be viewed as the antithesis of normalcy, an unnatural presence despoiling the Netherlands and preventing its fundamental, natural state of freedom. The language in Borghouts’ prologue reads as a mythologizing, hagiographic reminiscence of the occupation and the freedom for which the resistance fought throughout it. Key to my readings in this book, Borghouts’ words capture the zeitgeist in the Netherlands of the early 1960s, corresponding with a resurgence in the cultural as well as general interest in war-related topics, albeit a relatively short-lived revival. De Overval was the ‘last real resistance film’ according to Barnouw (1986: 23), and its appearance coincides with Dutch society hovering on the border between one cultural phase of disregarding the war (no Dutch war films having been made between 1951 and 1962) and the next (the substantial hiatus between Als Twee Druppels Water and Soldaat van Oranje). That the commercial DVD of De Overval presents this prologue as an option on the film menu is an indication of the ever-changing attitudes of the Dutch public towards representations of patriotism and calls to action in filmic texts.8 When De Overval was released in 1962, Borghouts’ introductory speech would have been viewed rather more as an accolade for the film to stir up Dutch pride in these still-recent wartime actions, serving to whet the viewers’ appetite for the film to follow. Borghouts’ formal prologue reflected the era in which De Overval was made and the value systems and attitudes towards patriotism and national pride of the Dutch public infusing its production. When three intermixing slow pans across a Dutch winter landscape invoke the onset of De Overval proper, alongside an orchestral score pulsing with drums and brass, we are immediately presented with iconic images of Dutchness: of expansive fields and big skies filled with vast, dramatic cloud formations. Friesian cows (this is Friesland, after all) graze in the distance and a far-away windmill can be seen, its sails turning in the wind, driving the shot further along past fields and a wide river. These camera pans, appearing almost as a single shot, seem to soak up and at once encapsulate the countryside and the people of that land whose story is to be told—such is the striking impression created by the images and music. These are images that outsiders would recognize and associate with the Netherlands, but they are also what the Dutch themselves identify as representing Dutchness. The ambush attempt on a German car carrying Inspector Bakker is the film’s first scene, and the members of the resistance group use what few sparse trees and bushes there are to hide behind. The resolutely flat topography of the Netherlands9 meant that much of the country was difficult to

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 113

114 |

defend when Germany invaded in May 1940, because of such easy lines of sight for the enemy and inadequate hiding places for the Dutch army, or later, resistance groups. Yet in De Overval, the quick-witted and organized resistance men make the best of a few sparse trees and a slightly raised road level to wait and surprise their quarry. Though their initial attempt to rescue Bakker fails, ultimately it provides the motivation to carry out the silent raid on the prison, which in itself is a resounding success. This points to the representation of Dutch identity and character in De Overval as one both in harmony with the natural environment of the Netherlands and displaying great strength of character, able to bounce back from setbacks and failures. Another familiar symbol of Dutchness seen frequently in De Overval is bicycles. They are used by the resistance group in Leeuwarden as the main mode of transport and an efficient means of relaying messages around group members, many of whom live on farms in rural areas. A particular camera shot used several times, to very powerful effect, is a close-up tracking shot of cyclists taken from in front of the bike, filmed most often from the back of a small truck or adapted car. Eppie Bultsma, the local baker and a key figure in the raid’s planning, is first to be seen cycling in this type of shot. He rides along a tree-lined country lane and canal—also archetypal Dutch images—to visit the resistance leader, Piet Kramer, who is in hiding on a barge hidden by thick reeds. Later in the film, resistance member Mies (no surname is given for her) makes several such journeys by bike. She also visits Kramer at the hidden barge to receive courier instructions, then carries out the orders and disseminates information to others—all on her bike. Mies conforms to a familiar, stereotyped image of an attractive, blonde Dutch woman on a bike, cycling along in a bucolic setting. However, such recognizable national characterizations usually have their basis in fact—many Dutch people are blonde and do routinely ride bicycles. In De Overval, Mies carries out a vital courier/messenger role and is a valued member of the group. Though it appears that she is sidelined from much of the important decision-making into more traditionally ‘female’ courier/communicator roles, Mies is clever and what she does and says in the film is often vital to the raid’s success. It would take decades before Dutch war films, and films in general, were able to present female characters in stronger, leading roles, or at least roles in which they played a more active and decisive part in resistance activities, participated in more scenes, and had more dialogue.10 When SD commander Grundmann orders six prisoners to be shot as reprisal for the attempted ambush, posters are made announcing the order to execute the men and listing their names. These posters are divided in two, with the notice of execution and list of men written in German on the left-hand

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

side, the information repeated in Dutch on the right of the page. Doing this ensures no one will miss this conspicuous threat that anyone daring to attack the occupiers will be responsible not only for their own probable death but for the execution of others too. A shot is shown of a small group of Leeuwarden citizens gathering round a poster affixed to the outside prison wall alongside two NSB recruitment posters. There are only five or six people in the crowd: a young girl, a middle-aged woman, and some older men. A point-of-view shot looking at the posters precedes a reverse group shot of them staring at the poster as we hear a very subdued murmur of conversation and their grim looks at the list of names on the wall. This shot of the restrained crowd echoes the feelings of Dutch people about these summary executions by the occupiers from the time De Overval was produced. For as Dutch society sought to come to terms with recalling its relatively recent wartime past—or, if people were too young to remember the war, with realizing that this type of retaliatory execution regularly happened— so did these underlying feelings transmute themselves into cultural forms like film. But how realistic is the Leeuwarden crowd’s muted, passive reaction in De Overval? Why is overt frustration, sorrow, fear, or fury at the occupier’s retaliation on their friends and neighbours not shown in this group? Perhaps because what is really being depicted in this film is the Dutch as heroic, stoic citizens, calm under pressure and seeming to accept the reprisals whilst all along the resistance plans its raid under the leadership of their stalwart champion, Piet Kramer. The world of De Overval is one in which virtually the whole town is presented as pro-resistance. This might partially explain why the group staring at the execution poster comprises mainly old men, plus a girl and a middle-aged woman, implying that all working-age men of Leeuwarden are either away in forced German labour camps or are busy hiding and resisting. One of this book’s key considerations is that films can help to unlock the undercurrents of memories, anxieties, and unacknowledged events dwelling within public consciousness at the time the films are made. This short ‘execution list’ scene from De Overval provides yet another example of how society’s unconscious concerns can be rendered in film. This Leeuwarden crowd’s behaviour suggests a mirroring of present-day (that is, the present-day of 1962) perceptions about stoic reactions to bad news, the extent of resistance activities (or, indeed, myths about the extent of resistance activities), and how people did or should have behaved. A somewhat unforeseen image of Dutchness is revealed near the end of the film when the resistance raid is about to take place. Piet Kramer has gathered the group members together in the back room of Eppie Bultsma’s bakery, their ‘command centre’. After he gives them a rousing pep talk and reiterates the intricate plans for the prison raid, Kramer launches into a religious speech

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 115

to which they all respond with reverence and acceptance. This is a peculiarly pious interlude in a film that has so far not been at all religious, though a meeting earlier in the film between Kramer and other resistance leaders had taken place in a church vestry under the pretext of a bible study class. As an organ played in the main church beyond, this supposed bible study had candles on the table and a bible in front of each man, open at the same place in the New Testament (Matthew, 12). But this pious location was simply a cover should they be interrupted, and there was no religious content to their discussion. Back at the pre-raid prayer in Bultsma’s bakery room, the camera slowly zooms out from Kramer and the group gathered around him, and as his prayer continues the men remove their caps, heads bowed. We cut to three smaller group shots of resistance men, solemn and deep in thought. Kramer bows his head, joins his hands and prays for help as they approach their hardest task. He continues: 116 | We believe that freeing our comrades will serve our people and our country. What we are going to do we cannot accomplish alone. We ask for your blessing, and for strength. Help us, God. But Kramer is soon ‘snapped out’ of this brief religious reverie when reminded of the time by his colleague, Wim Douma. He swiftly returns to the business of the imminent raid, instructs the men on their positions and roles, and it is as though this added-on prayer scene had never happened. Whilst at first it seems that these religious scenes in De Overval imply an undercurrent of quiet Dutch Protestantism and the hopeful assumption that God is on their side—the goed Dutch side—what this restrained prayer scene indicates is evidence of a fundamental demarcation amongst resistance groups. In wartime Holland, this tended to be defined by two camps: those affiliating themselves with Christianity—mainly the Protestant Dutch Reformed church—and those resistance groups with a Communist background. After the liberation, the Communist groups were certainly the first to suffer the suppression of financial aid, medal presentation, and national recognition as their contribution during the occupation was pushed further into the background from the 1950s onwards. This was part of a general drive towards diminishing the resistance’s role in the war, in no small way influenced by the vehemently anti-Communist tendencies engendered by the Cold War. In The Legacy of Nazi Occupation (2000), Lagrou describes the effort on the part of the Dutch post-war government to ‘de-politicise the collective memories of the war’ (2000: 13), indicative of Dutch post-war society’s striving for policies of remembrance and a national consensus about the war but to the detriment of more militant factions of the Dutch war experience.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

The alternative, Christian resistance ethos is not evident in a proselytizing way in these Dutch war films. But by the simple inclusion of two religion-themed scenes in De Overval, this film—and the society behind the film—clearly is aligning itself with the Christian arm of resistance work. The function, then, of the faux-bible study and Kramer prayer scenes is to show that the Leeuwarden resistance group are not Communists. Though somewhat awkward, these scenes serve to distance Piet Kramer and his colleagues from undesirable connections to the Communist alternative, whether this was done consciously or not.11 It is interesting to consider how filmic representations of the resistance dichotomy of Communism and Christianity might change over time, especially with regard to later Dutch war films from the 1980s.

Als Twee Druppels Water (1963)

| 117

In the lengthy opening titles shot of Als Twee Druppels Water, we see a static wide shot of a street in a Dutch town, with its cobbled road, a tram line, and houses and shops lining both sides. The street is deserted but for a young man who leaves his house on one side, crosses the road, and exits the frame. The opening shot lasts for one and a half minutes and is overlaid with film credits, erratically appearing on the screen in either white or black text, or both—a pointer to the Ducker/Dorbeck duality at the core of the film. The camera pans and tracks left, zooming in to the window display of the ‘Eureka’ cigar shop belonging to the film’s central character, Ducker. He arranges display material inside with the help of his assistant, the young man we saw crossing the street. Willem II Dutch cigar packets can be seen as well as advertisements for DE - Douwe Egberts coffee, one of the Netherlands’ most recognizable brands. From its outset, Als Twee Druppels Water offers clear visual references to these signifiers of Dutchness, familiar to public consumers of those products in wartime and recognizable to cinema audiences in 1963 when the film was made, and still well-known today. That night, Ducker has stayed up late to work on the shop accounts at the behest of his tetchy wife, Ria. He is woken up from dozing at his desk in the early hours by what sounds like gunfire or flares outside. At his back door Ducker looks up at the sky, searching for the source of the noise. In a fairly tight shot, we see his face alerted to something and the shot cuts to his point of view as he scans the pre-dawn sky. A barely visible lone parachutist falls slowly to earth in three separate long shots before coming to rest in a field beyond Ducker’s back garden. These parachute shots, interspersed with Ducker’s bewildered reactions, are silent. They are dramatic in their stillness and near-

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

118 |

darkness. The almost preternatural, expansive sky and horizon dwarf the tiny figure of the parachutist as he drifts down and lands. The fact that the light level is so low and that Ducker has just awoken from a nap contribute to the dream-like quality of the sequence and to our nagging doubt throughout the film: does Dorbeck, this man who has fallen from the sky into Ducker’s (literal or psychic) hinterland, really exist? Though the film presents many familiar, tangible signifiers of Dutchness—Douwe Egberts coffee, cobbled streets, and more—Dutch identity as a defining point against which an ‘other’ can be gauged is rendered more complex in this film due to its fascinating, central Ducker/Dorbeck duality. A recurring textual example evoking a sense of Dutchness, not just in Als Twee Druppels Water but in several of the war films analysed in this book, is the presence of birds and birdsong. In some instances, the birdsong (shots of birds themselves are rarely seen) is so prominent in the film’s soundtrack that it is as though the birds are a character in their own right or a potent symbol of impending—or recent—danger and anxiety. Of course, birdsong is not exclusive to the Netherlands, but my reading of why birdsong could be considered as inherently Dutch within these films, rather than functioning purely as a narrative device, is its intrinsic association with the nation’s predominantly pastoral landscape. This points again to the underlying ‘naturalness’ of the Netherlands alluded to in the films and to wider, unspoken connections between nature, goodness, and Dutch identity discussed earlier in this chapter. Whether by the agitated calling, crowing, singing, and twittering of suburban birds, or in the plaintive cries of seagulls, these birdcalls evident in many of the films seem as much a part of the fabric of the farms, coastal areas, tree-lined lanes, and hedgerows that define and shape this highly cultivated country as any other textual manifestation of Dutchness. Rather than acting simply as signifiers of ‘natural’ occurrences or hinting at the ‘rightness’ of the Dutch character, incidences of birdsong in Als Twee Druppels Water function instead as alarm calls, portents, reflections of Ducker’s fragile psychological state or of the potential outcomes of his actions.12 On many occasions, loud birdsong can be heard as a backdrop to the scene, serving also as a pointer to Ducker’s state of mind. An example is in the street outside Ducker’s cigar shop as he runs out to look for Dorbeck who has just delivered a note through the letterbox and then promptly disappeared; or when Ducker runs crying through the streets of The Hague having just seen the tiny coffin and then the corpse of his stillborn baby. Most prominent among these snapshots of Dutch identity/bird symbiosis occurs during Ducker’s trip to Lunteren with a female resistance colleague who is disguised as a Nazi Youth leader. They intend to murder a Dutch man, Glauert, a collaborator working for the Gestapo. ‘He’s dangerous and needs to disappear’,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the woman tells Ducker. But there has been advance warning of a potential resistance attack and a (real) Nazi Youth leader is due to collect Glauert’s son from the house that same day and remove him to safety. It should have been the ‘false’ youth leader together with Ducker arriving first at Glauert’s house (thereby gaining access to their target); the real one was scheduled to take a later train. But she, who threatens to ruin their mission, is walking ahead of Ducker and his companion with the advantage of a hundred metres or so. To reach Glauert’s house deep in the woods, they must all walk quite far along a tree-lined country lane, more a grassy path than a real road. It is along this path that we become aware of the phenomenon of these birds as their song volume and chattering grows in intensity from an already loud starting point—louder in the film’s sound mix than is usual. The lane opens up and a wide shot of expansive open countryside is seen with thick trees to one side and a large field to the other. During the build-up and carrying out of Ducker’s dramatic murder both of the Nazi Youth leader, by strangling, and of Glauert, whom he shoots at point-blank range, the natural woodland setting and sound effects provide a striking visual and aural backdrop, adding a powerful dimension to the scene. And yet these signifiers of the natural world, echoing pastoral expressions of Dutch virtue and identity inherent in many of our Dutch films (above all De Overval), become distorted in Als Twee Druppels Water by their association with Ducker’s mercurial temperament and questionable actions. Layer upon layer of birdsong and noises build— blackbirds and robins sing, woodpigeons coo, crows screech—until we hear a cacophony of birds at the scene’s climax. From a sound production viewpoint, this exaggerated and echoic birdnoise was undoubtedly a deliberate ingredient of the film. Whilst not employing the level of artifice and sound editing techniques used by Hitchcock in The Birds13 (interestingly, made the same year as Als Twee Druppels Water), these birdcalls are nevertheless a conscious element of the film. Yet one wonders to what extent the connection between that escalating birdsong and the chaotic events and shifts in Ducker’s mental stability throughout the film was an intentional one. The fusion of textual evidence of Dutchness and Dutch identity in Als Twee Druppels Water—from suburban images of cobbled streets, trams, shop displays with Douwe Egbert signs, neat house interiors, train stations, and ecstatic crowds singing the national anthem and waving flags at liberation to the more rural and psychological signifiers of Dutchness such as birdsong, this tree-lined lane, vistas of the horizon, and expansive night skies—correlates to some extent with images of Dutchness identified already in De Overval. However, there are fewer rural sequences in Rademakers’ 1963 film (the Lunteren scene examined above is one exception). This is not only because Als Twee Druppels Water is set in Voorschoten, a suburb of The Hague and therefore a

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 119

120 |

contrast to the predominantly rural setting of De Overval—the remote, northern province of Friesland with its network of country lanes and farms. It is also that Als Twee Druppels Water is a more internalized film, focusing on Ducker’s psychological struggle to ‘do something useful’ by taking part in resistance tasks under doppelganger Dorbeck’s instruction, even though he does not fully understand the harmful consequences of his actions, not least of all for himself. The dual character of Ducker/Dorbeck represents in a unique way some of the confusion and dilemmas facing Dutch people during the war: whether to opt for collaboration, resistance, or no action at all (the majority choice). Accordingly, Als Twee Druppels Water portrays Dutch identity in a more complex, provocative, and controversial way than its predecessor, De Overval, with its wholly positive embodiment of Dutch character. Though some occurrences of images commonly associated with the Netherlands—canals, the open landscape, quality of light, quiet country lanes—are similar in the two 1960s films, representations of more anthropological aspects relating to Dutch character—camaraderie, bravery, humour, openness, patriotism, and calmness under pressure—are missing almost entirely from the latter film or are skewed. Instead, Als Twee Druppels Water instils a sense of paranoia, remoteness, and coldness in which no character is particularly likeable and no one can be trusted. I am interested here in how Als Twee Druppels Water, coming just a year after ‘the last real resistance film’ (Barnouw 1986: 23), reflects some of the challenges for Dutch society in the early to mid-1960s, lingering as it was on the margins of mythologizing the wartime past and embarking on a gradual process of re-remembering events, acknowledging inherited myths, and starting to come to terms with choices made and paths taken during the occupation. Dutch society may not yet have been quite ready for Als Twee Druppels Water, with its art film status and, as such, ahead of its time in its intricate exploration of the damaging psychological effects of actions taken without forethought, and a rather muted, detached portrayal of the resistance. That is not to say that the rousing, patriotic image of Dutchness demonstrated in De Overval is exactly how Dutch society saw itself in 1962 (and such an uncritical image of the resistance would not be repeated in Dutch film14), but it may be how it wished to see itself. Remember that textual evidence of Dutchness in the films is already in negotiation with a common Dutch past harking back to a ‘Golden Age’ of greatness, success, and national pride, embodying such traits as goodness, orderliness, careful preparation, a sense of humour, and a quietly efficient work ethic. Images of Dutchness in De Overval may well be how Dutch society wished to see itself depicted in film in one of the most heroic narratives imaginable, and a true story at that. Hence the great effort that film

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

makes to endorse the character of ordinary Dutch people and to champion the victory of the noble, united, intelligent, and wily Dutch resistance.

SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE?: BLURRED BOUNDARIES IN 1977 Seeing the light, the moment of truth, the turning-point, surely we ­borrow these from Hollywood or the Bible to make retroactive sense of an overcrowded memory? Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1998: 50)

It was to be a further fourteen years before the subject of war reappeared in Dutch films. During this time, Dutch society had undergone a sea change, like so many other nations, with post-war economic recovery continuing robustly and the events of 1968, together with student revolutions, Vietnam, and the hippie movement, taking the focus away from filmic representations of World War Two. The 1960s through to the 1970s in the Netherlands was a period of improved economic growth and the consolidation of high-quality social care and educational systems. Parallel to this came an expansion of Dutch permissiveness, most notably with regard to sexual freedom, drugs, and the country’s legalized prostitution—epitomized by de Wallen (‘the Walls’), Amsterdam’s famous red light district. Past certainties were put under the microscope as the generation growing up after 1945 began to ask questions about the occupation and its place in their country’s history. So began a new phase of interest in the subject of war as a new crop of Dutch filmmakers, writers, and cinematographers graduated from film school and began to collaborate on film ­projects. When we evaluated images of the enemy in chapter two, we saw that films tended in the early 1960s towards a polarized rift between heroic, patriotic Dutch citizens and evil, unfeeling Germans. De Overval is a classic textual example of this dichotomy. Films from the late 1970s portrayed an increasingly complex concept of the German invaders, and in my analyses of Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943, a movement towards a ‘greyer’, more threedimensional depiction of the enemy could be found. The textual analysis of Dutch identity so far in this chapter has exposed images in the early 1960s films—especially De Overval—conforming to a classic picture of the Dutch as stoic, diligent, trustworthy, and loyally patriotic. These filmic reflections of positive characteristics of Dutchness provide evidence of how Dutch society saw itself or wished to see itself depicted on the screen at the time De Overval was made. But the impetus in that particular film to uphold long-held notions of Dutch strength of character and innate goodness would not be immune to

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 121

the onset, over time, of a more questioning, complex approach to the depiction of Dutch identity in cultural works. The ‘old order’ was under attack, this time by shifts in public consciousness, the movement of time, and ideological—not military—forces. The effects of society’s shifting perceptions of the war (perhaps even the causes of some of them) would be apparent in cultural works such as films. I focus in this next part of chapter three on the representation of Dutchness and identity in Soldaat van Oranje, the first wholly Dutch film about the war to be made since 1963 and the first in which evidence of the unquiet concerns of a questioning, younger Dutch generation might be detected.

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) 122 |

The group of university friends at the core of the Paul Verhoeven’s Soldaat van Oranje are not representative of Dutch society as a whole, as most are upper middle-class students at the elitist Leiden University, where dinner dress, hazing ceremonies, and convoluted initiation rites are the norm. Guus Lejeune is practically aristocratic, and the expensive tennis clubs, champagne, and cocktail parties he and the others frequent certainly are not typical of everyday Dutch life, either in wartime or when Soldaat van Oranje was made. It cannot be assumed, then, that these characters’ reactions and decisions automatically represent what ordinary Dutch citizens would do. Nonetheless, as I advocate throughout this book, film can unconsciously reflect societal attitudes from the time it was made, and regardless of whom it depicts, or what is its historical setting, the collective concerns of the society behind a film’s production filter through to the screen, whether intended or not. Sartorial and pseudo-fascist behavioural signifiers present in some of the initial student hazing and later elite party scenes of Soldaat van Oranje are also indicators of the potential for Nazification of the Netherlands.15 These images blur the boundaries of Dutch identity by means of the similarities in outward appearances and certain ritualistic, aggressive behaviours to those typically associated with the Nazi German enemy. Strong connections are certainly hinted at in the film in the behaviour of the two countries’ upper middle-classes and military elite. Later scenes show a further blurring of the traditional goed and fout dichotomy between the Dutch and Germans, evidence of a movement in Dutch war films from this period towards the depiction of a shared society of occupation and an acceptance that the Netherlands in some respects was not so different from its apparent enemy. Textual evidence in Soldaat van Oranje of parallels between Dutch and German behaviours and appearances, allied to the Netherlands’ potential for Nazification, are strongly linked to Germany’s

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

interest in the Netherlands and the reasons behind the plan to invade and occupy it. Lagrou (2000) and Blom (2007) both mention that the Nazi regime highly prized the territory and people of the Netherlands both for its economic wealth and industrial production capacity (which Germany wanted to preserve and exploit to aid their economy and the war effort) and for the anticipated dissemination of racist (particularly anti-Semitic) ideology once the occupation began. The invaders certainly considered the Netherlands capable of a degree of Nazification. The Dutch NSB party, founded in 1931, had a decidedly fascist programme right from the outset (Morgan 2003: 101). The NSB was evidence of a right-wing element already well-developed in the Netherlands, albeit in the minority, by the time of Germany’s 1940 invasion, although the pre-war NSB had never gained any real political weight (Blom 1998: 436). Germany’s intention was never to destroy the Netherlands or decimate its population; instead, the occupiers hoped to administer a peaceful regime, exploit the country’s resources, and eventually incorporate the Netherlands into the Third Reich.16 Blom writes that Germany’s aim was: to Nazify the Netherlands, that is, to convert its people to national socialism, to organize Dutch society along national socialist principles, and to rid the country of all Jews. In this last respect, the Nazis were almost completely successful. (1998: 437) The sobering point here is that without considerable degrees of compliance and co-operation from the Dutch public towards the carrying out of Nazi Germany’s racist ideologies in the occupied Netherlands, the near annihilation of Dutch Jews would not have been able to happen. A growing awareness of this and other behaviours and motivations of Dutch people during the occupation was developing for the first time in the younger, post-war Dutch generations around the time Soldaat van Oranje was made. It is not surprising that these darker facets of the Dutch experience of occupation—of how close Dutchness came to becoming ‘German-ness’—began at last to enter the melting pot of histories, memories, and myths about the war lurking within Dutch public consciousness. It was inevitable that glimpses of these unfolding, unpalatable truths would begin to be rendered onto the screen, albeit still with some restraint. There are some interesting points about language in Soldaat van Oranje and connections between spoken Dutch and German in this and other films. As mentioned in chapter two, when Guus Lejeune and Erik Lanshof try to enlist in the Dutch army and are suspected at the army base of being German invaders, they are quickly absolved of the possible crime of ‘German-ness’ when a Dutch soldier asks them to pronounce any word with the Dutch sch- sound.

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 123

124 |

This difficult consonant combination, especially tricky for a German native to master, is a serious test of language and, by extension, national identity for Guus and Erik. They pass of course, but the scene provokes the question: if this small distinction in a consonant sound is one of the only means of differentiating a Dutch person from a German one, what does that say about identity, nationality, and the similarities existing between close geographical and cultural nations? Germany and the Netherlands are not, and were not, vastly different, alien worlds; they shared, and still share, many similarities.17 This provides an interesting pointer not just about representations of Dutchness in the films but also about the potential threat of a nation’s identity becoming subsumed by a more powerful neighbour. Boundaries between nations are not so clear-cut, and there are not such enormous differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’ as the earlier films, especially De Overval from fifteen years earlier, would have us believe. Another blurring of the boundaries of national identity in Soldaat van Oranje concerns physical appearance and the apparent ease with which people can be tricked. When Erik re-enters Holland as a resistance fighter after having escaped to England to offer his services to the Dutch government in exile, he lands at night from a boat off the coast at Scheveningen. Erik is imitating a SS officer so that he can more easily reach a phone booth on the boulevard near a military control point and contact his resistance colleagues still in the Netherlands. This is a high-risk manoeuvre, especially as the uniform he is wearing is actually a British naval officer’s uniform. ‘It’s exactly the same as the Jerries. Well, you can’t tell the difference…at a distance!’ chipped the British sailor on the boat earlier when he handed Erik his false uniform. Now on the dark boulevard, with a forced air of arrogant confidence, Erik manages to fool several senior German officers on their way to an elite party as he wordlessly bluffs and salutes his way forward in the direction of the telephone. A high angle crane shot and tracking steadicam shot in front of Erik as he weaves and nods through the throng of military personnel and guests add momentum and suspense to the sequence, showing what a risk Erik is taking amid so many high-ranking Germans. But Erik discovers on reaching the telephone box that the silver coins he brought are no longer in general use, so he cannot make the call to his resistance contacts after all this effort. As the music strains to a dramatic trill of strings, two German guards on patrol shine a light in his eyes and, as Erik exits the telephone booth, they continue to scrutinize his face and uniform. It is a tense moment. A lingering medium close-up of Erik’s face illuminated by their torchlight heightens the sense of apprehension as the guards attempt to ascertain his identity. Erik maintains an authoritative and aloof manner, but he dares not open his mouth, for though he can speak good German, he knows he is not fluent enough to emulate a native officer.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

This textual evidence from Soldaat van Oranje tells us that though the two nations are similar, there are of course differences. In fact, this scene reveals a fascinating tripartite blurring of the boundaries of national identity as a Dutch resistance character attempts to imitate a German officer by wearing a British naval uniform—another indication of the often thinly veiled margins of national, or even military, differences. The checkpoint guards seem unsure of Erik’s division and status, though they are suddenly convinced of his high rank and stand to attention. What is at first a tense situation is made into a visual joke, with Erik reprimanding the guards with a forceful nod of his head and a condescending look before he stiffens and walks off briskly and confidently. Without having uttered a word, Erik has managed to ‘pass’ as a German officer on the slenderest of threads. As he leaves, the guards stare after him, one saying to the other: ‘An odd uniform,’ to which comes the retort: ‘U-boat I think.’ ‘No, a destroyer’ is the first guard’s reply. Reinforcing a seeming lack of difference between the two countries’ identities and yet retaining subtle distinctions, this intricate little scene also argues against the goed and fout dichotomy supposedly existing between Dutch people and the German occupiers. Here a character dresses up in the vestments of ‘the other’ and manages to pass muster, which serves only to narrow the boundaries between the nations and to underline the suggestion that there is not that much difference between the Netherlands and Germany when it comes down to it—superficially at least. That the issue of narrowing differences of nationality can be broached at all in this film—and once broached, diffused within a vein of dark humour—indicates that Soldaat van Oranje is revealing yet again the symbolic relationship between film and the collective consciousness from the time it was made. In addition to these lingual and sartorial instances of identity, Soldaat van Oranje contains a plethora of scenes, images, and character traits traditionally associated with the Netherlands. These include beaches, bunkers, dunes, bicycles, dykes, canals, cheese, jenever (Dutch gin), dark humour, stoicism, sexual imagery and relationships, camaraderie, Dutch flags, and crowds cheering when the queen returns triumphantly from London in 1945. This latter episode forms both the film’s opening newsreel-style sequence and a scene near the end when Erik Lanshof returns as the Soldier of Orange of the film’s title—a specially selected aide to Queen Wilhelmina on her arrival home to the Netherlands. She has been in exile in London since the start of the occupation, and although some Dutch people felt abandoned by their queen, the standpoint Wilhelmina maintained was that she could be of more use to them by remaining alive, maintaining a functioning government in exile, and keeping in contact with Dutch people from England via her weekly Radio Orange broadcasts.

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 125

126 |

Wilhelmina’s return to the Netherlands is a key event in Soldaat van Oranje, depicted twice, in different styles, providing a fascinating opening and near conclusion to the film. The newsreel-style pre-credits sequence at the start shows a cleverly edited mixture of authentic newsreel footage of the real Queen Wilhelmina arriving back in the Netherlands and travelling by car to her Noordeinde palace in The Hague, interspersed with closer shots of the actors portraying Wilhelmina and Erik Lanshof. A rousing, patriotic newsreel voice-over script underlines the images as the queen steps out of the Dakota plane that had brought her from England and is later warmly welcomed by crowds in The Hague. A freeze-frame technique is used intermittently to highlight the actor Rutger Hauer in the Erik Lanshof role, maintaining a quiet presence in the background. This freeze-framing is intended as a visual signifier of Erik’s importance in the film’s narrative. This opening sequence is followed immediately by the title credits and the stirring Soldaat van Oranje theme music. Towards the end of the film, the revisited scene of Wilhelmina’s arrival back on home soil is very different. It is filmed in colour and entirely contained within the film’s diegesis—that is, there is no additional authentic newsreel footage. No rousing music accompanies it, nor any voice-over. Instead it is a quiet, understated scene, all the more touching as a result, especially when the short, plump figure of (the actress playing) Wilhelmina exits the plane and refuses Erik’s offer of help down the stairs when she makes a slight stumble. ‘No thank you, captain, I would rather do this alone,’ she tells Erik warmly. Once she has stepped onto her home soil, Wilhelmina looks down at the ground and the shot cuts to a close-up of her small, modest brown shoes and stockings as she rubs one of her feet on the tarmac. This little movement of her dowdy brown shoe accentuates in a poignant, understated way the metaphorical significance of Dutch soil, especially after five years of occupation and the exile of queen and government. It reminds us of the importance of the land as a signifier of Dutchness, with the symbolic significance of Wilhelmina’s actions eclipsing the moment of her stepping down from a plane onto the tarmac. The Dutch national anthem begins, played as diegetic sound by a brass band at the airfield. A slow camera crane shot pulls out to reveal that there are only about 30 people greeting Wilhelmina, most of them military personnel, although a group of around eight or nine civilians can be seen standing near the queen. The scene cuts to a livelier crowd welcome as Wilhelmina rides, with Erik at her side, through the streets of The Hague before re-entering Noordeinde palace for the first time in five years. She rides in an ordinary car with a rolleddown top so she can acknowledge the Dutch people who have come to welcome her. This is no grand, golden carriage, and Wilhelmina wears ordinary

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

fine clothes, not state robes (though she has changed from the plainer clothing she wore when disembarking from the aeroplane and stepping onto Dutch soil). There is an abundance of cheering, Dutch flags and orange bunting, the waving of arms and hats, and the throwing of flowers onto the royal car. An example of typically Dutch dark humour stems, somewhat unexpectedly, from Wilhelmina herself. She steps out from her car, looks right up at her palace’s façade and says in a brief aside for Erik’s ears alone: ‘Could you not have accidentally dropped a bomb on that palace for me?’ These two scenes present altogether a subdued and underplayed picture of Wilhelmina’s return, but one that fits with the situation of the queen returning to a country very damaged by the war in terms of infrastructure as well as in personal terms. The poignant sight of Wilhelmina stepping once again onto Dutch soil would resonate strongly with many Dutch viewers at the time Soldaat van Oranje was made and reinforce positive notions of Dutchness and a sense of unity. For although social, political, and cultural changes were occurring in the Netherlands throughout the 1970s—particularly with regard to the younger generation’s cynical perceptions of the status quo and of hitherto unquestioned stories about the past—the Dutch royal family, epitomized in these scenes of Queen Wilhelmina, maintained the potential to invoke powerful patriotism and nostalgia.

BITTER COLD, FADING COMMUNISM: PORTRAYALS FROM THE 1980S The decade of the 1980s had heralded increasingly complex, ambiguous representations of the ‘enemy’ occupiers (such as the kindly German sergeant in De Aanslag and his concerned colleagues when he is gravely wounded) that would simply not have been shown in earlier films. These greyer portrayals are suggestive of a gradual shift over time in the perceptions of Dutch society towards many aspects of the occupation, a shift reaching its apogee, or perhaps a plateau of understanding, by the mid-1980s. Describing the arrival of public perceptions at a ‘plateau of understanding’ may seem contrary to my proposition in this book that communal beliefs and memories about the war evolve in a forward chronological progression towards greater three-dimensionality as complex and difficult topics begin to be dealt with and are rendered onto film. Yet since 1986 there have not been that many Dutch cinematic forays into the subject of war, with only eight further films made with the occupation as their main theme in the 30 years to date—relatively few for the time span.18 I consider the period of the mid-1980s to be a resting point, a point of resolution…or maybe even an impasse in the trajectory of Dutch society’s changing attitudes towards the war, reflected in its films.

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 127

Evidence of Dutch identity and Dutchness revealed so far in this chapter shows a similar shift from the one-sided, strongly patriotic images of the Dutch in De Overval towards a sense of greyness and ambiguity, together with the broaching of hitherto underdeveloped themes, in the late 1970s: for instance, the numerous indications in Soldaat van Oranje of the blurring of distinctions between Dutch and German identities. Dutch war films from the 1980s would continue that escalating movement towards answering complex questions, and depicting subject matters that until this time had been societally and culturally out of bounds, at least in the medium of film. These topics would include, though are not limited to, the real deprivations of the Hunger Winter, the extent of German punishments and executions, women’s roles during the war, and the Communist face of resistance work. We focus here on representations of these themes as they relate to Dutchness and Dutch identity in one key Dutch film from the 1980s: Het Meisje met het Rode Haar. 128 |

Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981) Directed in 1981 by Ben Verbong, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar was based on the 1956 biographical novel of the same name by Theun de Vries. It concerns the wartime activities of real-life figure Hannie Schaft who joined a Communist resistance group in Haarlem and took part in many dangerous missions before being arrested, imprisoned, and executed in the dunes just before the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945.19 The portrayal of Dutchness in the film falls into two main spheres. The first centres on depictions of the landscape, while the second is allied to character and personality traits. With the former, the film is replete with shots of the environment, especially the perennially wintry weather shown in most of the films’ outdoor scenes and associated vistas of bleak, harsh landscapes. This is a barren, lifeless land, far removed from the fertile fields and far-reaching horizons depicted in De Overval. In Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, the Dutch landscape is presented as devoid of life: trees are stark and leafless, it is snowing or raining in many scenes, and it is always bitterly cold. Driving, howling wind is heard often on the film’s soundtrack, and its effects on trees is even seen outside of windows during interior scenes. One particular, remarkable high-angle shot shows the main character, Hannie Schaft, cycling away from a farm where she has been hiding out near the end of the film—her bicycle another signifier of Dutchness. The shot reveals a very wide, long-held view of the landscape. All we see are lines of grey-brown, muddy fields and boggy tracks, rendered lifeless by the film’s near monochrome look, the static framing ‘freezing’ the scene into a tableau of lonely, desolate countryside. Admittedly, the film is set partially during the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

6. Hannie Schaft’s arrest, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar

bitter Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, but its emphasis on the severity of the weather conditions stands in sharp contrast to the depiction of the natural environment in De Overval, also set in December 1944 and therefore apparently subject to the same severe conditions. But De Overval, though filmed in black and white, portrays the physical landscapes of Friesland as comparatively lush, bright, and an ally to the resistance who use the trees, reeds, and bushes for cover and disguise. By so doing, they reveal another example of the glorification of the ‘natural Netherlands’ and its forbearance and usefulness to those on the ‘good’, Dutch side. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar portrays an entirely different feel to that period of occupation, evincing a dark, melancholy, and sombre tone that evokes the drabness and physical as well as psychological difficulties of the final war years, above all during that last winter of occupation. In this respect, the 1981 film adheres more truthfully to the reality of the conditions of the Hunger Winter—if the search for absolute faithfulness in representing the historical facts behind the films was the goal here. Images of a certain faction of Dutchness during occupation are also conveyed in the film via the political landscape—a parallel, internal landscape through which the main character—the ‘Girl with the Red Hair’ of the film’s title—journeys as she joins a Communist resistance group and progresses deeper into more dangerous missions. The Communist principles of the group Hannie Schaft joins would seem to set Het Meisje met het Rode Haar apart from earlier Dutch war films, especially those of the early 1960s in which no mention of Communism was even made. This film suggests a growing awareness

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

130 |

in Dutch society of the role played by Communist resistance groups during the occupation, a role that had been consistently repressed in Dutch official remembrances as early as the 1950s, with the focus instead placed either on a neutral, humanitarian representation of the resistance or one allying itself to Christianity and the Dutch Reformed church. And yet even these political Communist themes within Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, especially the leftwing principles asserted by Hannie Schaft at the outset, quickly become subsumed by matters of the heart and by Hannie’s increasing vulnerability and volatility. The reason for her arrest near the end of the film is that she is carrying copies of the illegal Dutch Communist Party newspaper De Waarheid (The Truth) in her bicycle basket, but this small scene is so underplayed that the viewer almost has to have known this fact about the real Hannie Schaft’s arrest in order to understand why she has been detained. The De Waarheid papers are not easy to spot, they are just a bunch of small white papers with unclear print, and were it not for the German soldier at the checkpoint telling Hannie that she ‘shouldn’t be carrying these newspapers, do you not know they’re illegal?’ their significance as evidence of a Communist resistance group might pass us by. A review by De Waarheid itself after the release of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar in 1981 stated that it was ‘een prachtige film maar er had wat meer communisme in gekund’ (‘a beautiful film, but it could have done with more communism in it’, De Waarheid, 15 September 1981). This snapshot suggests that, though early 1980s Dutch society and the films of this era might have been ready to tackle the subject of Communism in a token way, this readiness was to quickly lead to quite a severe curtailment of the very same issue. Depictions of Communism began to fade almost as soon as they had been brought out into the open. The second sphere of Dutchness in Verbong’s 1981 film is revealed via the presentation of character, attitudes, and personality traits of some of the main roles. There are strong bonds of camaraderie within the resistance group, and a close bond is forged between Hannie Schaft and another female resistance colleague, An, as well as with Hannie’s lover, Hugo. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar was the first Dutch war film to feature a leading female character, in fact several quite prominent female roles—in itself evidence of a corresponding movement towards better roles for women in films about the war (and, we might add, films in general). However, whilst in no way ‘glamourizing’ resistance work or belittling the contribution of women to it, during the narrative arc of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar the Hannie Schaft character becomes increasingly vulnerable, out of control, emotionally detached, and very much dependent on Hugo for her sense of self and purpose. This occurs to such an extent that when Hugo is shot and killed after a resistance attack he and Hannie have carried out, it is as though Hannie’s own life no longer matters. This may be poignant

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and moving but the instinctive response from a 2016 perspective is one of frustration. Whatever happened to Hannie’s solid, law-student background and her Communist principles? Her anger at Jews being arrested, striking workers being shot, and the lack of action against this that motivated her to join the resistance? Throughout the disintegration of Hannie’s emotional state, the landscape, bitter weather, and plaintive cries of seagulls (birds again employed strongly in this film as indicators of Dutchness, as in Als Twee Druppels Water) mirror her increasingly desolate frame of mind until finally she is executed in the Bloemendaal dunes at the very end of the film. This execution mirrors that of Jan in Soldaat van Oranje with the mournful cries of seagulls and the howling, pervasive wind; the wind and birds serving as mourning presences in their own right. With no dialogue at all, Hannie is driven to the dunes, walked up a steep dune embankment and shot without warning from behind at almost point blank range. She is buried in the sand in a shallow grave by the gravedigger who had followed from behind with a spade. Images of the Hunger Winter are evident to some extent in Het Meisje met het Rode Haar for the first time in these Dutch films, which is remarkable considering the impact this devastatingly harsh winter and food shortage crisis had on hundreds of thousands of Dutch people.20 Shots of bleak, wide-open winter landscapes seem to symbolize the sorrow and hardship of the Hunger Winter and its unforgiving hard ground upon which people are shown in the film foraging for food along roadsides and amongst piles of rubbish. Nonetheless, these glimpses of ordinary Dutch people scavenging for food are very much in the background, occurring just as Hannie is about to be arrested near the film’s close. They are there, though, which is important, for these are facets of the Dutch war experience that had not been mentioned or glimpsed in films until now. From a stylistic perspective, the harsh weather, biting wind, and driving snow are a fundamental part of the film’s mood and look, especially the unusual muted colour film stock and colour effects used by director Ben Verbong and cinematographer Theo van de Sande, deliberately draining out most of the film’s colour tones in post-production. This has the effect of making the film appear almost monochrome so that only shades of muted reds, russets, and burgundies, together with some green shades, stand out from the ochre drabness of the rest of the film. As Hannie Schaft’s hair is red, this makes her easy to find by the SD, forcing her to dye her hair black later in the film. She is eventually found out when arrested, and her natural hair colour is discovered in prison when the dye eventually begins to grow out. This intentional highlighting of red tones at the expense of other colours is reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s emphasis on the red coat of a little girl in Schindler’s List, though the Dutch film had been made twelve years earlier.21

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 131

132 |

Het Meisje met het Rode Haar became a controversial film, though its production values were high and it was well-regarded upon release. This controversy stemmed from two points. Whilst author Theun de Vries had left readers of his original book in no doubt of Schaft’s Communist sympathies, Verbong as director of the subsequent film chose not to follow this particular interpretation fully, which left a gap in the main character’s supposed motivations and explains some of the absence of political content already discussed. De Vries was himself a Communist, and he would have had his own agenda in stressing Schaft’s Communism in his biographical novel. Yet Verbong opted to depoliticize the main character’s affiliations to Communism and focus instead on her emotional and psychological journey. Was the society behind Verbong’s film ready for Communism to be mentioned or for it to be the ostensible milieu for the film…but not quite ready enough for a wholly pro-Communist diegesis and protagonist? A point I emphasize in this book is that how society wishes to see its histories reflected in films is often not a conscious decision and can happen irrespective of the film director’s professed intentions—whether these aspects lurking in the shadows of communal memory are the Hunger Winter, a shared society of occupation, the resistance, Jewish persecution, or Communism. The second criticism of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar related to its focus on Hannie Shaft’s femininity rather than her intelligence and determination. Even the title The Girl with the Red Hair infantilizes Schaft, reducing her importance and stressing her hair colour and gender rather than her abilities as a resistance member.22 The film did not, after all, have to retain the title of De Vries’ book.

THE LEGACY OF THE DUTCH LANDSCAPE IN PAINTING AND IN FILM One of the key features summoning up a sense of Dutchness in these war films is the depiction of the landscape and an overwhelming sense of space and light. This harks back to the Netherlands’ legacy of fine art stemming from the era of the Golden Age, especially in terms of Dutch landscape painting. Jakob Rosenberg and Seymour Slive, writing in Dutch Art and Architecture 1600-1800, suggest that the dominating features of this landscape painting tradition became the depiction of ‘both atmospheric life and an impressive spaciousness’ (1977: 241). It is this same ‘impressive spaciousness’ that can be detected, centuries later, in scenes from our Dutch war films. And just as the Netherlands’ celebrated landscape art tended to be as much about the sky— with an abundance of light and stunning cloud formations—as it was about the land, so too are illustrations of these natural frames of reference (that is,

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

the vastness of both sky and land), laden with cultural-historical meaning, presented in many instances within the films.23 In seeking out connections between classic Dutch painting and Dutch film in general, in particular these feature films about the war from the 1960s to the 1980s, fine art’s influence can indeed be seen, chiefly in terms of shots of the wide, open landscape and expansive skies. Many examples of horizons, huge skies, and countryside vistas are found in De Overval and to some extent in Als Twee Druppels Water, both from the early 1960s. In the late 1970s there is not such visual evidence of the legacy of landscape art in Soldaat van Oranje, though much of Pastorale 1943, as its pastoral name implies, takes place in rural settings in which shots of tree-lined avenues, large rivers, and open farmland are again shown. Films from the 1980s tend to focus more inwardly on motivations and individual choices and hence tend not to show more extensive views of the Dutch landscape and exteriors. Exceptions to this are Het Meisje met het Rode Haar in which bleak, bitter, and lifeless winterscapes symbolize the central character Hannie Schaft’s declining state of mind and visually encapsulate that harshest and most ill-timed of Dutch winters. De Aanslag, Rademakers’ 1986 film, depicts scenes of Hunger Winter in its opening section set in January 1945 as well as during flashback scenes. The importance of this film’s disclosing of some of the traumatic aspects of family life in wartime will be discussed in detail in chapter four. It is not in this book’s scope to examine in detail the fascinating connections between the Netherlands’ painting-rich heritage and the nation’s film history, although the influence of Dutch art can clearly be discerned in the films of Dutch documentarians Joris Ivens and Bert Haanstra. The use of light and space in early documentaries such as Nieuwe Gronden and Stem van het Water and in Haanstra’s bucolic feature comedy Fanfare owes much to the legacy of Dutch landscape painting. Peter Cowie suggests that the flat landscape and particular quality of light in the Netherlands, which had influenced many great Dutch painters, played a significant role in the proficiency of Dutch documentary-making. He states that (documentary) filmmakers, with their alternative film ‘canvas’, were also inspired by this light quality, with no high mountains or undulating hills and valleys to ‘distract the realist’s gaze’ (1979: 9). Cowie points out a causal link between the documentary and the demands of landscape and geography that have subsequently ‘animated the Dutch’ (1979: 9). Feature films too would take inspiration from the Netherlands’ rich artistic heritage, whether filmmakers intentionally chose to pay homage to those vistas or not. This suggestion of the interrelations among landscape, quality of light, and Dutch identity forms an interesting adjunct to my work on shifts in filmic representations of Dutchness and the legacy of, and interplay between,

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 133

134 |

layers of Dutch historical and cultural pasts. For it makes perfect cultural sense that the painting heritage of a country, especially one famous for its mastery of landscape and interior art, would become an important source of inspiration, both consciously and unknowingly, for certain visual qualities of that nation’s films. Earlier in this chapter, my readings examined images of the landscapes, big skies, canals, farmlands, and slow opening pans across a vast, seemingly undefended countryside in De Overval. Taking as an example the Dutch landscape painting The Avenue at Middelharnis created by Meindert Hobbema in 1689, it becomes apparent to what extent the influence of this Dutch landscape art permeates the medium of film, whether knowingly or not. In Hobbema’s painting, a tree-lined avenue goes straight down the middle of the painting, complemented on either side by bucolic images of farms, a church, the flat countryside, and a massive sky with a remote circle of birds in its midst.24 In De Overval, when baker Eppie Bultsma cycles to reach resistance leader Piet Kramer’s hiding place in a reed-obscured barge, the tree-lined road down which he cycles calls to mind precisely Hobbema’s painting. The angle of the camera tracking shot on Bultsma places the perspective of the trees, the foreshortened road, and the look of the setting very close to Hobbema’s image. It is not only the tradition of landscape art that is invoked within the frames of Dutch films. Echoes of the more intimate interior settings of portrait and tableaux paintings by artists Jan Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch can also be detected. A powerful example of this is in the film Pastorale 1943, when resistance member and engineer Van Dale is interrogated by the SD officer who breaks his spectacles, feigns the torture of his wife, and drugs his drink. Twice the camera comes to rest upon the open threshold of the interrogation

7a. The Avenue at Middelharnis, 1689, by Meyndert Hobbema. ©The National Gallery, London

7b. Eppie Bultsma, De Overval

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

room and holds back whilst we see Van Dale questioned by the officer ‘through the doorway’ into the darkened room beyond. This effect of observing events yet remaining detached from them recalls the framing (but not the lighting) of the candid scene depicted by Vermeer in his painting The Love Letter, circa 1670, in which a maid and her mistress are seen through a dark doorway in a light-filled room beyond.25 Vermeer deftly and somewhat ambiguously portrays the moment at which the maid delivers a letter to her seated mistress: the maid looking on smilingly, the mistress seeming apprehensive about what might be written in the letter in her hand. Intriguingly, within this light room, two large landscape paintings can be seen mounted on the wall above the two women: art presaging art. In de Schaduw van de Overwinning from 1986 offers another filmic association with Dutch fine art in the domestic scenes of one of its main characters, resistance member—and, interestingly, artist—Peter van Dijk. The framing of his brief scenes at home with his wife and children are remarkably reminiscent of the perspective and open doorways to other rooms portrayed in A Mother beside a Cradle painted by Pieter de Hooch around 1659-60.26 Though we describe these works of art as interiors, what they conjure up is an interior landscape of Dutchness, a more intimate version of that wider, outer world of the Netherlands visually crafted in the great landscape vista paintings. Original contexts for these interior paintings are not always emulated in films (the interrogations of Pastorale 1943 are the antithesis of Vermeer’s delicate domestic setting in The Love Letter), yet fine art’s presence as the inspiration behind subtle means of framing and perspective in these war films is a telling indication of the enduring power of Dutch landscape and interior art and its resonance in filmic panoramas. This legacy of Dutch fine art seems little affected by the passage of time, as examples of its influence are found in all three decades of these films about the occupation. It is as though certain filmic signifiers of the enemy or of Dutchness—like the prevalence of Hitler’s portrait noted in chapter two, or the bond between classic landscape painting and Dutch identity in this chapter—are subject to greater fixity, distinct from the growing movement towards three-dimensionality and shifting images of occupation over time that is the primary dynamic detected thus far in my analyses. Unsurprisingly, these seemingly unmoving elements are the ones that perhaps are the most powerful and symbolic. Portraits of Hitler sum up at once an absolute sense of the German occupiers and the Third Reich, and shots of Dutch landscapes and interiorscapes are enduring if subliminal reminders of the Netherlands’ most prosperous age and the country’s inherent and historical identification with the land—a land at one time unsullied by occupation and war. This connection, then, between the Golden Age of Dutch landscape and

D utch identit y and ‘ D utchness ’

| 135

interior art and film reminds us that it is not just the time in which these films are made that is important, nor only the time in which they are set. Filmmakers, viewers, and the generations who experienced the war themselves are all drawing on notions of Dutchness that are already set in the past—another past, separate from the past of de oorlog, reaching beyond that to layers of Dutch pasts from which these cultural and societal representations of Dutchness draw inspiration. These references to the Golden Age remain in the Dutch communal consciousness and social memory because they underline the continuity of Dutch culture, the enduring ‘naturalness’ of that culture and of the landscape encapsulating it, both in past eras and in the present. The pastoral and interior glimpses of that abiding Dutch culture and identity viewed in the films are the distant echoes of the Netherlands’ Golden Age; of its former status as a prevailing cultural and economic power—potent visual reminders that whilst occupation is temporary, Dutchness endures. 136 |

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

CHAPTER 4

Life under occupation Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats (1920)

If certain visual signifiers of the enemy (Hitler portraits) or of Dutchness (landscapes) appear relatively unchanging throughout the chronology of Dutch war films, then images of everyday life during the occupation embody the opposite: they illustrate the most complex metamorphoses yet encountered in the interpretive analyses of these films. Not only are these transformations complex, they embrace some of the darkest and most sensitive aspects of the Dutch war experience re-calibrated onto film. They propel the boundaries of cultural coping and the subsequent re-writing of history, and this forward momentum occurs more perceptibly here because depictions of ordinary life under occupation, including family, friends, and relationships, are so inherently personal, yet at the same time all-encompassing—for almost no one is without familial bonds. Evolving images of occupied life in its broadest sense include portrayals of extended family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and lovers in addition to the more typical household dynamic of parents and children. This chapter is not only concerned with filmic portrayals of families and friends, or interactions among them; I also examine the home and how that domestic environment—and the invasion of it—is represented. I look at who is shown to have held the family unit together during the five years of occupation, and I address the roles of ordinary women in wartime and the balance of power in the home at a time when the domestic arena became empowered, taking on a critical role. Reactions to the hardships of occupation on a personal and family level are analysed too. These hardships include physical and psychological deprivations of many kinds: famine, poverty, the Hunger Winter, Dutch men forced into German labour camps, torture, sacrifices, family members and friends lost, punishments, and loss of continuity and control in social, economic, educational, and leisure domains. Images of that broader

| 139

140 |

family life are traced within Dutch war films, and it is the shifting countenance of these facets of family life and friendship bonds in the films—a communal, if unconscious, cultural response to Dutch society’s altering perceptions about the war—that is my central concern here. Images of the impact of occupation on the lives of Dutch Jews are also considered, which we will come to realise embodies the darkest part of the Netherlands’ war history, both at the time and throughout the trajectory of post-war personal and cultural remembrances. This dark history is the role that non-Jewish Dutch people played in the persecution of their Jewish fellow citizens, a role that was not only a passive one of ‘turning a blind eye’ to the systematic isolation, deportation, and execution of Dutch Jews but which also involved actively informing on Jews’ hiding places. This is no straightforward account of Dutch films portraying discrimination and atrocities upon Jews by a remote, invading enemy. Had it not been for a degree of conscious co-operation from the Dutch populace, it would not have been possible for 107,000 Jewish people to be deported from the Netherlands during the war from a pre-war population of 140,000. Only 5,000 of these 107,000 Jewish deportees survived the war. Coming to terms with the role played by Dutch citizens in the fate of their Jewish fellow citizens was to play a pivotal part in an evolving post-war Dutch consciousness, especially from the mid-1960s onwards, corresponding with a steadily growing awareness of the Jewish genocide. I am particularly interested in the conspicuous absence of images of Jews and Jewish persecution in earlier post-war films, which then moved towards a gradual remembrance, a fuller representation, and the on-screen presence of Jewish experiences in the films from later decades. It is important to view this filmic reimagining of the experiences of Dutch Jews during the occupation within the wider context of understanding the role played by film in Dutch cultural memory. We must consider to what extent film can fully assimilate, transmit, or embrace the complexities and collective legacy of the wartime occupation of the Netherlands. My readings examine the films with these concerns in mind. Because of the very personal and experiential nature of this chapter’s themes of ordinary family life, friendships, Jewish persecution, lack of control, the Hunger Winter, reprisals, and other deprivations resulting from the occupation, its association with the psychological effects of war is clear. This is closely linked to memory and trauma, including (selective) amnesia and remembrance—or anamnesis. My readings probe the subsequent reworking of these traumatic, often (though not always) arbitrary experiences—a re-writing of the past, a mythologizing of histories, a therapeutic cultural coping— within filmic representations. Portrayals of Dutch family life in the films are not the only visual evidence

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

to draw from. As noted in chapter two, a lack of representations of German family life and friendship bonds can be discerned. There is an almost complete absence of depictions of German families and friendships, scenes of Germans in domestic settings, even family photographs on desks or references to wives, girlfriends, or children back home in Germany. An exception is the occasional mention or shot of German soldiers’ Dutch girlfriends, though they tend to be depicted as ‘whores’ and treated in a lascivious way. This provides yet another example of representation by comparison, by which differences—perceived or alleged—between the Dutch and the occupiers are highlighted in the films. It is sometimes what is not seen in the films that is as relevant as what is patently shown. There are isolated exceptions to this absence of attachment—for example, the kindly, avuncular desk sergeant Schulz from De Aanslag whose colleagues are devastated when he is gravely injured in an air raid—but this pervasive lack of meaningful relating to family members or friends means that the German occupiers are typically depicted as detached from emotional connection and are dehumanized. This chapter begins by reviewing the portrayal of families and the home in early 1960s Dutch films, from the self-evident familial harmony and unwavering support for the resistance shown in De Overval to the dysfunctional relationships and combative atmosphere pervading Als Twee Druppels Water. The bonds of friendship, family, and divided loyalties in films from the late 1970s are then addressed and the shared society of occupation of Soldaat van Oranje first identified in chapter two is revisited. In addition I examine close friendships, dilemmas of loyalty, and the consequences of persecution depicted in this film, including those concerning its two significant Jewish characters. Pastorale 1943 represents a sea change in its depiction of the family life of a collaborating NSB member and its portrayal of a Jewish teacher separated from his family, forced into hiding, and betrayed by the stupidity and selfishness of others at the farm where he is hiding out. Lastly we reveal an ever-evolving trajectory in the representation of family life and relationships in Dutch war films from the 1980s. The movement towards an increasing three-dimensionality in the portrayal of friendships, Jewish family life, oppression, severe deprivations associated with the occupation, relationships, and the roles of women and men in the domestic arena unfolds in my analysis of three films from the final decade of our timeframe. The films we look at here are Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, De Aanslag and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning.

L ife unde r occupation

| 141

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: IMAGES OF FAMILY LIFE IN 1960S FILMS De Overval (1962)

142 |

The appearance of De Overval in 1962 corresponds with a return to prominence of the subject of war, both in society as a whole and in cultural works including films.1 It coincides, too, with Dutch society hovering between one cultural phase of disregarding the war and the next.2 It is not surprising, then, that an overwhelmingly positive portrayal of familial harmony and accord is presented in this film, just as its depiction of Dutchness is emphatically affirmative and its evocation of resistance, as we shall see in chapter five, is heroic. An unerring depiction of steadfast family life is presented in De Overval, and although scenes involving family and the home are not numerous, a clear message of unwavering support for the husbands/fathers/brothers/friends in this Leeuwarden resistance group is communicated in the film. Homes and family milieux are only ever shown in connection to resistance activity, thus unifying man, woman, and child and creating a symbiotic environment in which kith and kin work towards their common goals. After the failed attack on the military car carrying resistance member Inspector Bakker, and Grundmann’s subsequent order of execution, the open-sided truck carrying the six condemned men passes the bakery owned by fellow resistance man Eppie Bultsma. A single mid-shot of Bultsma watching from the living room window above his shop cuts to a high angle shot—Bultsma’s point of view—of the truck driving past on the street below, the seated prisoners sandwiched between armed German guards. We cut back inside the room as Bultsma’s wife leads their daughter away from another window from which they, too, have watched the scene. The girl eats her bread at the table. Another child—a small boy—does his homework. In the background, an old woman knits. These children are the only children depicted in the film, apart from a young girl in the group of Leeuwarden townspeople reading an execution notice on the prison wall. Neat, traditional Dutch furnishings can be seen in the Bultsma living room: china plates on the walls, pictures, heavy wooden furniture, lamps, and a grandfather clock. As Bultsma turns from the window, his wife asks ‘Was it Dirk?’ to which he replies gravely without looking at her ‘Yes…and old Van Rijn.’ Bultsma picks up his jacket and leaves the room as the camera tracks in slowly to a close-up of his wife, anxiously holding her head in her hands, the grandmother knitting quietly away behind her. This small, virtually wordless but powerful scene demonstrates at once the unity and breadth of camaraderie contained within the cluster of resist-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ance families at the heart of De Overval. It also exposes, succinctly and effectively, a traditional view of Dutch family life with the mother as carer, obedient children, a sage grandparent in the background, and a dominant father figure leaving the domestic scene to participate, in this case, in further resistance planning. But as we come to realize time and again throughout these readings, this tableau of domesticity does not so much relate to Dutch perceptions of family life from the time of the occupation as reflect, or project, a view of the institution of ‘the family’ from the time De Overval was made, seventeen years after liberation. The film’s glimpses of familial harmony and concern for friends are a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm of Dutch society, and this scene reveals much about how Dutch people from 1962 wished to see themselves reflected in films about the war. Though it appears that Bultsma and his wife do not communicate much, they display an intuitive, mutual understanding of the sadness of losing friends that renders words unnecessary. A bond of sensitivity and unassuming awareness permeates the film’s goed characters (that is, those in the resistance), remembering that De Overval out of all the films presents the most extreme distinctions between goed en fout (between the Dutch and the Germans, and heroic resistance participants versus collaborators Foss and Koopman). Such

8. Grandmother knits while the raid is planned, De Overval

L ife unde r occupation

| 143

144 |

underplaying of the characters’ reactions to witnessing friends on their way to be executed has a powerful impact, forcing viewers to read the thoughts of Bultsma and his wife and sense the quiet determination with which they approach the film’s unfolding events. It is this very stoicism, this understatement, that is paramount to an understanding of the corresponding appetite for reserved and yet gratifying depictions of courage, integrity, and national pride simmering below the surface of Dutch communal consciousness in the early 1960s and permeating the film’s scenes. Even in her entirely mute and almost static role, the knitting grandmother—present in three scenes in De Overval—symbolizes positive qualities of Dutch family life: calmness, continuity, trustworthiness, and the knowledge of generations. The next scene in which she appears, albeit fleetingly, tells us something of the respect given to grandparents/grandmothers, though prior analyses suggest that this reflects more the 1962 perception of that matriarchal role. In Bultsma’s living room, he and other resistance members Wim Douma and Jellema discuss a map of the prison. The scene opens with a static mid-shot of the grandmother knitting in her high-backed chair from which the camera tilts across to the map spread out on a table. A measured, semicircular tracking shot around the table follows, over the shoulders of Wim and Jellema, with only the men’s hands and arms visible as they try to plan their entry into the prison in order to rescue their comrades. As the camera moves from the silent old woman, we hear Jellema ask: ‘But…would it not be better if it was just the three of us?’ by which he means the three men and that maybe Granny should leave the room. Bultsma’s calm retort that ‘she knows more than all of us put together’ strongly indicates that the grandmother, as we suspected all along, knows everything about the resistance and their plans, despite her guileless appearance. If this grandmother knows ‘more than all of us put together’, then by implication, so probably do all the wives, grandmothers, and sisters in the film, all of whom appear to possess the quiet, almost telepathic intuition suffusing the world of De Overval. This brief scene provides yet another example of Dutch family life inextricably linked to resistance life in this film, revealing a nostalgic, positive, and yet modest portrayal of the tightly knit—with knitting a strong thematic signifier of family unity here— and homogeneous resistance community of Leeuwarden. De Overval’s representation of women is taken a step beyond the roles of wives and grandmothers in the character of resistance member and chief courier Mies, yet her role is also an example of the limitations of women’s roles, both on and off screen, at the time this film was made. Mies is the only ‘active’ female character in the film who carries out a vital messenger role and is a valued resistance colleague. Intelligent and quick, she is most often depicted outdoors, cycling along lanes (the familiar ‘blonde Dutch woman on a bicy-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

cle’ image), bringing messages to houses and farms. She stands in contrast to the wives and other relatives occupying the interior loci of domesticity and quietly playing their part in ensuring that the cogs of family and resistance life turn as smoothly as possible. Yet Mies’ character fails to truly break from the moulds determined by the socio-cultural constraints of the film’s era. This can be detected via examples of textual evidence of emotion and sexuality. De Overval clearly differentiates the courageous, stalwart male characters—think of heroic leader Piet Kramer and prisoner Bakker, undergoing heavy torture— and the predominantly passive, mute, and housebound females in the film, although as we have seen, all the film’s characters work towards a shared goal. Mies is sidelined from most resistance meetings and consigned to her cycling courier role, though it is interesting that a particular contribution she makes when the men have a setback in the raid planning solves the problem outright (her suggestion leads to their disguising themselves as policemen with ‘false’ prisoners as a means of entering the prison). It is a sign of the general genderdefined timbre of the film, however, that Mies’ solution is an impromptu one, stumbled upon by chance rather than by a degree of measured thought. One glimpse of the emotional limitation of Mies’ character comes when she arrives by bicycle at Kramer’s canal-side barge. The six prisoners, known to all in the town, have just been driven off to be executed, and Mies meets with Kramer and Bultsma inside the boat. Her first action is to collapse into tears at the table next to the men, crying out that she cannot take it anymore. This is her first scene in the film, and her emotional display stands out alongside the straitlaced male characters—though it is perhaps their lack of normal reactions to trauma that is more surprising. Kramer and Bultsma look at each other, somewhat bemused and embarrassed, and Kramer places his hand on Mies’ bowed head, strokes, or rather pats, her hair in a paternal gesture and tells her in a mixture of sympathy and condescension: ‘Come on now Mies, that’s not really what we want just now, is it?’ In an amusingly quick return to normalcy, echoing Kramer’s stirring from his pre-raid prayer reverie into decisive action (reviewed in chapter three), Mies swiftly recovers, apologizes to the men for her outburst, and asks what they need her to do next. Whilst Mies does regain her composure and moves on to the next courier task, nevertheless the film has established her as emotionally volatile and prone to tears, therefore suggesting a negative view of women characters. It would take two further decades after De Overval for Dutch war films to present female characters in stronger, leading roles (yet even then they would be prone to the constraints of emotion), including actively participating in the resistance, speaking more dialogue, and being present in a greater number of scenes. Another way in which Mies appears constricted by contemporary attitudes to females in Dutch war roles concerns the film’s representation of sexuality.

L ife unde r occupation

| 145

146 |

What the film offers in fact is the antithesis of sexuality, for it is a very chaste image of family life and resistance friendships that is depicted within the frames of this 1962 film. There is no evidence of love affairs distracting the resistance group, and only a subdued tenderness is shown between spouses. Husbands, wives, grandmothers, and children all behave with impeccable restraint, and this understated behaviour concurs with the chaste, virtuous image of Dutch family life during occupation running through the film. Mies is the only single female character—and young, blonde, and attractive too. In later Dutch war films, those physical characteristics alone would place her undoubtedly in the role of girlfriend or temptress. But in this film her sexuality is subdued and somewhat infantilized (Kramer stroking/patting her hair as he might a child’s, Wim speaking to her in a sisterly way). There is only the slightest hint at a possible romantic connection between Mies and Kramer near the end of the film. Mies brings Piet a message just before the raid gets underway, and the exchange between them, filmed in a candid two-shot, is tender. Reassuring him that nothing will go wrong, she gently touches his arm. It is the only physical contact instigated by her and is an asexual comparator to Piet’s hair-stroking, which was never a lingering caress. But this nascent relationship between Mies and Piet is doomed before it even begins because nothing must get in the way of the silent raid, not least of all a complication involving an emotion as reckless as love. All this unquestioned familial harmony and understated emotion (what Barthes would suggest ‘goes without saying’ in the world of De Overval) is one of the film’s most remarkable ingredients. It is as if these unconscious societal perceptions and wishes of how family life during the war should be represented force themselves beyond straightforward narratives and into the sub-layers of filmic meanings. Simplicity and quiet determination is the overall tone of De Overval, and yet this masks a complex covering up of the reality. After all, how likely is it that spouses and family members would interact quite in the way they do in this film? How credible is the muted and pristine image of family existence during long-term occupation shown in De Overval? What of the arguments, distrust, deprivations, and broken family life that would be part of an inevitable breakdown, or at the very least, alteration, of the wartime domestic arena, especially in the midst of the devastating Hunger Winter? Although it is not my intention in this book to seek out filmic reflections of absolute historical truths or ‘how things really happened’ during the occupation, nevertheless it is useful to point out the discrepancies between the image of family life projected in this film and the likely wartime reality. By so doing, we realize that what De Overval might be revealing is not a view of the Dutch during the war at all but perhaps a snapshot of domestic life from the early 1960s, or at least an idealized view of an ordered and co-operating society

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

based on mutual trust and commitment: how Dutch society would like to see itself act, and react, at that time, on film. No one of 21st-century sensibilities would anticipate such an overwhelmingly positive filmic representation of occupied family life and bonds of resistance friendship, and yet the film was heralded by the Dutch news press at the time of its release as ‘a worthy document of the resistance. Precisely because it is so true’ (my emphasis).3 It seems the Dutch press of 1962 drank from the same well of unconscious desire for filmic representations of unadulterated, family-focused resistance as the wider society. The daily newspaper Trouw placed strong emphasis on the film’s accurate depiction of the silent raid, seen in its headline ‘Friesian resistance action brought to life on film’,4 and in its positive reporting of the detailed reconstruction of interior sets such as a Friesian living room (for example, in the Bultsma family scene reviewed earlier), prison cells, and a bakery. The publication Philips Koerier described De Overval as ‘re-experiencing their reality’,5 and though this article refers primarily to prisoners released during the silent raid, its focus on reality and faithful reconstruction speaks of the universal emphasis in the press on just such a commitment to verisimilitude in the film. Despite their focus on the film’s apparently faithful reconstruction of the reality of wartime, these contemporary reviews betray their own preoccupations with attention to detail, heroism, humility, cooperation, and bravery. The films of a society can help us to locate, or unlock, undercurrents of memories, myths, trauma, and unacknowledged events residing in the hinterland of public consciousness at the time the films were made.6 One of the chief means by which these mechanisms of social memory resolve themselves is via psychological and cultural processes such as the re-writing of history and cultural coping. These textual snapshots from the Dutch war films are examples of the rendering onto film of Dutch society’s unconscious perceptions about family life and the importance of trust and friendship from the early 1960s. As noted at the outset of this chapter, it is often what is not seen in the films that is as important as what is overtly portrayed. De Overval shows no images of German family ties or friendships with either fellow Germans or Dutch citizens. There is a total absence of references to Jewish characters or Jewish persecution—telling evidence in both instances of the re-writing of a communal Dutch past to suit present-day (that is, 1962) society’s capacity to process and come to terms with the more ambiguous, difficult aspects of its war history. De Overval is a single-minded film: its purpose to reiterate pride in Dutch identity, family unity, and the resistance at a time when Holland stood on the precipice of acknowledging the darker side of its occupation experience.

L ife unde r occupation

| 147

Als Twee Druppels Water (1963)

148 |

Als Twee Druppels Water offers an altogether more dysfunctional image of family life than its predecessor. An air of confrontation, emotional chaos, and skewed relationships pervades the film from the outset. The flawed images of family, friendships, and the home environment shown here stand in stark contrast to the cosy yet fiercely steadfast projection of domestic harmony resonating throughout De Overval. In Fons Rademakers’ 1963 work, the unbalanced Ducker has an acrimonious relationship with his bitter wife, Ria, who is having an affair with a young doctor, a fanatical member of the NSB. Ducker’s unstable, demented mother who lives with the couple causes considerable distress, and in one of her dramatic, psychotic episodes she inadvertently opens his photographic darkroom door and destroys the only evidence he has of his doppelganger, Dorbeck.7 There is also Ducker’s cantankerous and misogynistic uncle, Frans, seen occasionally in the film, who embodies another dysfunctional familial connection. Intriguingly, and rather perversely, this uncle Frans is also Ria’s father, thus Ducker and his wife Ria are first cousins.8 Ducker has no friends in this town of Voorschoten, except for a young acquaintance who helps out in the shop and with whom he attends a judo class. Apart from a dalliance with resistance girl Elly Sprenkel, who has travelled over from England and ends up dead like many of the characters coming into contact with him, Ducker’s only intimate relationship is with another resistance woman, Marianne. He fathers Marianne’s baby but even this infant dies at birth without Ducker being present. The one person with whom Ducker really craves a close relationship may not even exist at all: Dorbeck, his alter ego, his ‘spitting image’—the man who fell from the sky by parachute behind his house one night and whom no one, except Ducker’s deranged mother, has ever seen. Verbal exchanges between Ducker and Ria are vitriolic, at least on his wife’s part, for Ducker internalizes his anger at Ria’s acerbic outbursts, appearing passive and emasculated by her taunts about his lack of ambition and general ineffectiveness. In the film’s first scene, Ria flirts with Turlings, the NSB doctor, in the cigar shop’s back office/living room whilst Ducker works on the window display. Ducker calls for her to come and help and she shouts back for him to wait a minute, she is busy. ‘His nagging is driving me mad!’ she tells Turlings in a tight, claustrophobic, two-shot, ‘he can’t do anything by himself.’ ‘He’s lucky that he’s not in Germany,’ Turlings tells her, meaning in a German labour camp, to which Ria replies: ‘I wouldn’t miss him as a husband.’ ‘Would you miss me?’ he asks suggestively, moving close to her in the same oppressive two-shot. Ria coughs heavily, an early indication in the film of her chronic respiratory illness, but despite this coughing, Ria and Turlings proceed to kiss

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and Turlings fondles her roughly. Ducker sees the shadow of their embrace through the glass partition doors, and so can his shop assistant. Yet Ducker quells his reaction with a look of disdain mixed with latent fury and carries on with the display. Later that evening, Ducker returns from a judo class and is annoyed to find a light on in the shop, visible through the blackout curtains behind the door and window. This would be an offence if discovered by the occupiers. As Ducker moves the thick curtain aside to bring his bicycle inside, the camera is over his shoulder so that the illuminated shop interior is revealed from his point of view.9 Ducker finds Ria working on the accounts at the till, and from his first peevish enquiry about what she is doing, Ria unleashes a verbal tirade upon him. The ensuing argument sums up their characters completely: Ria’s aggressive hostility and her husband’s passive, repressed anger —already brewing from Ria’s earlier flirting with Turlings practically under Ducker’s nose. Whilst Ria harangues him about her heavy workload and his ineptitude, Ducker remains almost silent: I have to do everything around here! Take care of you and your sick mother. We’re always broke. […] Other cigar shop owners are in the black market, making a fortune in times like these, but you do absolutely nothing! Look at me when I’m talking to you! All you do is complain about the Germans, but you’re too lazy even to do the books. Get out of my sight! What is not said or shown is enlightening here. Ducker’s lack of response speaks of his sense of impotence, which may not only be psychological. Ria’s dismissive comment—‘I wouldn’t miss him as a husband’—suggests a physi-

9. Ria argues with Ducker, Als Twee Druppels Water

L ife unde r occupation

| 149

150 |

cal estrangement, too. Ducker makes a half-hearted attempt to respond to Ria’s vituperative outburst, after which he acquiesces, switching off the shop light, taking off his coat, and picking up a newspaper, all of which only further exasperates Ria. These scenes establish both Ria’s spiteful attitude to Ducker and her adultery, revealing the unpleasant power balance between husband and wife. She hates and humiliates him; he brews discontent and insidious anger—a distant cry from the peaceful harmony of the conjugal relationships in De Overval. Ducker formerly took out his frustrations at judo sessions, though he later transmutes those aggressive tendencies into violent resistance acts and the ultimate, violent murder of Ria near the film’s close. A series of catastrophes has steered Ducker towards further mental illness: he has seen the tiny coffin and body of his still-born baby, he has heard that his mother has committed suicide whilst in prison for questioning about her son’s suspicious activities, and Turlings the NSB member is now living with Ria at Ducker’s home—or what used to resemble a home when he still had a wife and mother, albeit an unhinged one. At this point in the film Ducker is disguised as a female nurse, yet another bizarre instruction from his enigmatic—and more ‘masculine’— doppelganger, Dorbeck. Ducker’s remarkably gamine features enable this guise to be carried off (and all credit is due to the actor playing the roles of both Ducker and Dorbeck, Lex Schoorel, that these gender nuances between the characters are played out so effectively). Ducker enters his former home, a knife already removed from his (nurse’s) handbag. The camera tracks ahead of him as he walks purposefully in midshot towards the back living room, a look of grim resolve on his face. Ducker looks around him at the untidy and virtually empty shop that was once his livelihood—another trigger for revenge perhaps—though he has been responsible, through a succession of unwise choices, for much of what has befallen him. The pace is fairly slow at first, the tension exacerbated by the choice of framing and camera movement. Ducker slides open the glass partition door very aggressively, the sound effect of its opening coinciding with Ria’s shriek of fright as she looks up from her ironing and smiles nervously. ‘Sister, what a fright you gave me!’ The camera reverts to tracking in front of Ducker, this time close-up on his sneering, almost self-righteous expression, as he slowly walks towards his wife. We then cut to a zoom-in to Ria’s face as it dawns on her who this pseudo-female intruder really is. ‘Sister, you look just like…Hennie!’ Ria screams as Ducker (first name Hendrik, or Hennie for short) stands before her, asserting his presence at last but too late for salvation for either of them. He stabs her five times. His act of murder is very sexual, a reversal of their prior non-tactile relationship, shot in close-up on their upper bodies. The two of them are locked in a kind of embrace, with Ria groaning at every

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

penetration of the knife. The closeness and angle of the shot makes it possible to believe this could be a sexual act, as Ducker’s body moves rhythmically against hers as he stabs her, and Ria’s dying head falls languidly on his shoulder. This murder scene is reminiscent of the grotesque stabbing murders committed by a cold protagonist in Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell three years before Als Twee Druppels Water.10 Peeping Tom was a film also ahead of its time, also featuring an androgynous, effete, and emotionally repressed leading male character. A thread of chasteness was identified running through De Overval, but in Als Twee Druppels Water, the treatment of sexuality and relationships is markedly different. There is a harshness and hostility to the interactions between Ducker and his wife, with no open affection or understanding shown—all the way up to their last, deathly embrace as he stabs her without remorse. The one intimate scene involving Ducker and his lover Marianne is charged—not with passion or a feeling of connection, but with Ducker’s narcissism and arrogance. He is consumed by feelings of inadequacy and mistrust, and consequently a cloud of paranoia and passive aggression descends over his every action. Ducker looks very androgynous at the start of the film with his small, youthful frame and blond hair—echoed in his nurse’s disguise near the end. Yet his seemingly delicate air cannot mask his underlying, violent resentment and pent-up anger towards his wife and others who do not take him seriously. The film places as much emphasis on unhealthy domestic relationships, psychological taunts, and violence as it does on the events of war, as though the historical setting is not as important as the dysfunctional interactions it depicts. This framework resonates on some levels with my assertion that films tell us more about the society that produced them than about the characters and events ostensibly depicted on the screen. Reviews of Als Twee Druppels Water from the time of its release tended to oscillate between more traditional images of the film as a resistance thriller11 or of it ‘resembling reality’,12 and articles acknowledging its modernity and emphasis on psychological matters. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant described the film as a ‘courageous “film noir” with an imposing, European style.’13 But the film’s image of life under occupation pushes firmly against prior representations in De Overval, revealing ever more skewed relationships and culminating in one of the most tabooed topics of all: the brutal murder of a wife within the very heart of the home, a locus in which both wife and home normally represent mainstays of domesticity, providing security, trust, and protection during the occupation. In imagining what shape contemporary society’s filmic images of the wartime destruction of that home might take, we would not have expected this film’s depiction of it as imploding the very foundations of Dutch family life. This puts Als Twee Druppels Water ahead of its time in its depiction of a fight between ‘them’ and

L ife unde r occupation

| 151

152 |

‘us’ but in which these adversaries are mostly Dutch. This time it is an internal and psychological battle being acted out, in which the German occupiers are only minor players. It seems then that the timbre, characters, and relationships expressed in Als Twee Druppels Water could hardly be more dissimilar to those of the straightforward ode to resistance and familial accord imagined in De Overval. Als Twee Druppels Water almost seems like a distorting mirror, grotesquing the characters’ flaws to an exaggerated, theatrical level, with the effect of isolating and disparaging them. How, though, could 1963 Dutch society’s attitudes to the war and the representation of occupation have changed in such a short time? I suggest that for the most part they did not. Als Twee Druppels Water was somewhat of an ‘art’ film and consistently appears out of alignment with the noticeable chronological journey across these filmic readings from clear-cut images of heroic Dutch citizens versus evil German invaders towards increasing three-dimensionality.14 It is as though the film guards against the ‘too cosy’ image of Dutch family life established in De Overval a year earlier. Yet this contextual discontinuity of Als Twee Druppels Water, its somewhat exaggerated characters, and its apparent disinclination to reflect the concerns of the society behind its making calls to mind Siegfried Kracauer’s reflections in The Mass Ornament on some of the more sensationalist subjects for feature films. Though exaggerated elements in films may appear unrealistic, they do not cease to connect to the society that produced them.15 Kracauer points out that: films do not therefore cease to reflect society. On the contrary: the more incorrectly they present the surface of things, the more correct they become and the more clearly they mirror the secret mechanism of ­society. (1995: 292) Kracauer’s assertion that ‘There is no kitsch one could invent that life itself could not outdo’ (1995: 292) resonates with the idea that despite Als Twee Druppels Water seeming not to reflect contemporary attitudes to life under occupation, some of the latent perceptions and beliefs of 1963 society—about the darker elements of the Dutch psyche—unconsciously filter through to the screen. According to Kracauer, these ‘reveal how society wants to see itself’ (1995: 294). Remember, too, that the film still fits traditional patterns established in De Overval in some of its representations of the enemy and of certain signifiers of Dutchness, such as the cigar shop, street scenes, and Douwe Egberts coffee. After Als Twee Druppels Water, Dutch war films sustained another lasting period of dormancy, from which a significantly shifting representation of family life and friendships under occupation would emerge in the films of the late 1970s.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

DIVISION, SUSPICION, AND THE WAR AGAINST DUTCH JEWS The Netherlands in the late 1970s continued to experience the growing distance between its past of occupation and its present, which prepared the ground for increasingly critical cultural responses to complex issues surrounding the occupation. These issues lingering at the threshold of openness included the wartime treatment of Dutch Jews both by the German occupiers and by fellow non-Jewish Dutch citizens, a significant and controversial issue that had yet to be acknowledged in Dutch film. This next section of chapter four revisits briefly the shared society of occupation, divided loyalties, women’s roles, and the consequences of Jewish persecution revealed in Soldaat van Oranje before evaluating the changing face of family life and the first in-depth portrayal of a Jewish character forced into hiding in Pastorale 1943. | 153

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) First the professors, then the students. Soon all the Jews will find ­themselves in the Polish salt mines! Jan to Erik, Soldaat van Oranje

Changes in the filmic representation of life under occupation can be detected in Soldaat van Oranje in three main ways. The first of these is the transposing of emphasis away from a traditional family unit towards bonds of friendship. This transposition is evidenced in the film’s numerous scenes depicting the close-knit group of university friends in Leiden; images of parents or relatives are seldom shown. Indeed, the friends form an alternative family structure in which the primary relationships are non-familial, though this does not preclude them from disagreements and tension. The eventual erosion of this friendship group—due to divided loyalties, suspicion, difficult choices, persecution, and death—reveals a world away from the domestic experience of occupation depicted in De Overval. The locus of the home in Soldaat van Oranje also moves away from primarily a parental environment to one of young people living independently, epitomized by Erik Lansof and Guus Lejeune’s student apartment. This flat is the group’s focal point and the setting for the final, moving scene between Erik and Jacques, the only two out of the seven friends who survive the war. The second shift in images of occupied life is the depiction of a shared society of occupation, one of increasing complexity as the occupied Dutch learned to live alongside their occupiers. Many instances of integration, coexistence, and acceptance—or at the least acquiescence—are revealed in the

L ife unde r occupation

154 |

film: German soldiers relaxing and swimming on Scheveningen beach alongside Dutch families; Dutch men and women working for the SD;16 women and children handing out flowers to marching troops; and Dutch women socializing and having relationships with German soldiers. These scenes reflect the growing readiness, in the increasingly liberal society of the time the film was made, to depict just such scenes of ‘getting along’ with the enemy and also a nascent awareness of the difficulties of choice people faced during the war: how to react to the upheavals in their personal, social, and economic lives, and how to endure, survive, or maybe even exploit the many facets of occupied life. The third way in which Soldaat van Oranje pushes ahead in its representations of family life and friendships relates to its treatment of sexuality and sexual relations, which are less inhibited, more frank, and tend to be darkly humorous. An example is the young rural couple discovered early in the film in flagrante delicto behind a farm shed by patrolling Dutch soldiers. The soldiers, one of whom is Jan from our group of student friends, have been led to the spot by a man with learning difficulties, a ‘country idiot’ type, who thinks his pretence that there are German paratroopers hidden behind the shed is hilarious. But the soldiers’ annoyance at discovering the pair having sex where they expected there may be wounded enemy soldiers is obvious, and Jan shouts: ‘Jesus! What are you up to? There’s a war on!’ to which the man of the couple retorts: ‘Well, so what?’ The country idiot jumps about in the background, laughing manically, pointing at the couple and shouting ‘April fool! April fool!’ though it is May. Straight after this, the platoon of Dutch soldiers are told the army has surrendered—this is the very day of the Netherlands’ capitulation to Germany, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam. Director Verhoeven’s inclusion of the indifferent couple having sex behind the shed at this precise moment in the film exposes bleak humour indeed, but it also (albeit exaggeratedly) reveals a certain element of society that, at this early stage at least, may not have recognized the significance or potential impact of occupation. Life did simply carry on for many people who took news of the German invasion less seriously at first, especially if they were from more rural areas of the Netherlands, away from the larger cities. Whether a couple really would carry on having sex amidst the bombing of Dutch defences and the occupation of their country by a foreign power, this scene and others in the film correspond to an increasingly open and uninhibited portrayal of sex and sexuality in Dutch cinema during the 1970s, in films such as Blue Movie, Wat Zien Ik?, and Turks Fruit.17 These sex scenes are in contrast to the absence, or constrained depictions, of sexuality in 1960s films. Unsurprisingly, portrayals of women in Soldaat van Oranje are strongly connected to these sexual images, for it is the disempowerment and stereotyping of female characters that tends to occur in such scenes. Even Esther, the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Jewish fiancée of Robby, is passive and mournful, oscillating in her affections between Robby and Erik, for whom she harbours strong feelings. Despite being one of only two featured Jewish characters in the film—the other is Jan the student/soldier—Esther fails to live up to our expectations that she might be afforded some energy and opinions. Her function appears to be the delicate love object of Robby, and her Jewishness, though significant as one of the first instances of Jewish representation in Dutch war films, acts only as a catalyst for Robby’s forced collaboration with the SD and betrayal of his friends, rather than impressing her identity upon us in its own right. An exception to these anaemic representations of women is the English Royal Air Force secretary, Susan, who befriends both Erik and Guus after they escape to England and join the RAF and British Army. She becomes Guus’ girlfriend but later transfers her affections to Erik when Guus has been left behind in Holland but before he is executed. Susan is feisty, flirtatious, and witty, but though her military colleagues respect her, she lacks any of the gravitas of her male counterparts and is still a stereotype of an attractive, pert woman in uniform. Susan does, however, match Erik and Guus in terms of sexual playfulness and practical joking ability—behaviour from the two Dutchmen that is met with paternalistic tolerance by the English officers. For this ‘un-English’ conduct of openness alongside candid humour, Susan seems the most likeable of the film’s female characters, no doubt because she seems to embody quite ‘Dutch’ characteristics. Despite the female characters in Soldaat van Oranje being drawn in more detail than in De Overval (and also Als Twee Druppels Water), they still suffer from typecasting and a lack of parity and power. Such gender representations in Dutch war films were unlikely to be challenged or further counterbalanced until the following decade, and even then only in certain respects. Soldaat van Oranje provides a rich tapestry of reactions to the state of occupation among the main group of friends, though the film’s emphasis shifts from glimpses of daily life towards heroic, ‘action’ episodes imbued with the seam of dark humour so often the territory of director Verhoeven. But by the end of the film it has become much less of an ensemble piece.18 Erik Lanshof is the thread holding the friends together, and each character is depicted somehow in relation to Erik or observed by him. Johan Swinnen suggests that, at face value, the characters in Soldaat van Oranje seem like ‘templates for wartime roles. On another level, however, their mutual interaction expresses the complexity of the fabric of Dutch society at the time’ (2004: 144). None of the characters is wholly good or bad; instead, they embody ‘a duality which turns them into more representative characters than mere stereotypes’ (2004: 144). Though the friends come mainly from middle-class backgrounds, they nevertheless do represent a range of everyday reactions to occupation. Perhaps theirs are more like distillations of wartime responses through the eyes of 1977

L ife unde r occupation

| 155

156 |

Dutch society. Nico is the militant resistance man; Jan the Jewish student, boxer, and soon-to-be soldier whose options close in on him until eventually he is arrested, tortured, and executed; Erik and Guus yearn for adventure before becoming more focused on resistance work, yet they never really take it as seriously as they might; Alex is troubled by his divided loyalties, having a German mother and a Dutch father; Robby is coerced into spying for the SD and betraying his friends for fear that Esther will be sent to a concentration camp; and Jacques is the passive academic who chooses to sit out the war, keep himself out of trouble, and prepare for the future. Jacques represents the most likely Dutch response during the occupation—carrying on as best he can whilst looking ahead to a post-war future…but of what political hue? Initially, Nico is the most radical and political of the group, even though in the early stages of the war no one really thinks the Netherlands will be invaded, given that it had remained neutral during the First World War. This opinion is neatly embodied in the scene near the opening of Soldaat van Oranje, set in the autumn of 1939, in which the friends play tennis at a club. They hear on the radio that Britain has declared war on Germany and, after a brief murmured reaction, carry on with their game. Though Nico looks concerned, he says nothing, and it is only the Jewish character Jan who is openly angry on hearing the news. His being Jewish grants him—and viewers—the only real insight in the film (along with Esther) into what was to befall the Dutch Jews once Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands. He indeed becomes the channel through which we learn about the subsequent maltreatment of Dutch Jews. Jan is depicted as loyal and patriotic at the outset of the German invasion in May 1940, having joined the Dutch army. He becomes very frustrated once the Netherlands capitulates five days after the occupation and later is furious at the mounting discrimination against Jews at Leiden university as he tells Erik, ‘First the professors, then the students. Soon all the Jews will find themselves in the Polish salt mines!’ The tennis scene points also to a level of anti-Semitic derision that is deemed acceptable within a group of friends, even when one of them is Jewish. Noticing Jan’s furious reaction and exit, Jacques asks what could be wrong with him, to which Erik replies ‘He’s Jewish’. Jacques smiles at Erik and makes a ‘big nose’ gesture on his own face, commenting, ‘I’d never noticed!’ This barely gets a response—and certainly not a rebuke. Ironically, in an act of true friendship, Erik offers Jan his place in an air escape to safety in England, only for this to go horribly wrong when they are betrayed to the SD and Jan is arrested. The brutal consequences of Jewish persecution are seen for the first time in Dutch war films in the scenes of Jan being beaten, tortured, and then executed in the dunes at the Waalsdorpervlakte, not far from Scheveningen beach. After repeatedly refusing to give up any information to the SD commander, Jan is driven in an open-sided truck to the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

10. Student friends, Soldaat van Oranje. Left to right (standing): Alex and Erik; left to right (seated): Jan, Guus, Jacques, and Nico

dunes, where a grave in the sand has already been dug for his body. In a hauntingly poignant scene underscored by emotive music, howling wind, and the plaintive cries of a lone seagull, he is executed by firing squad.19 Most of this powerful, dialogue-free scene is filmed using long shots, but the camera does linger close-up on Jan’s face after he refuses a blindfold and instead looks up at the sky, in the direction of the screeching gull. That these scenes were first shown as late as 1977 is remarkable, considering that this film was made 32 years after the end of the war. It is a telling reminder that it is often what is not shown that is a strong indicator of the social and cultural amnesia intrinsic to certain difficult topics about the occupation. Erik and Guus are close friends and both are keen to join the resistance, initially because of the sense of adventure but later for deeper motives of patriotism. ‘A spot of war would be exciting!’ Erik tells the group at Guus’ graduation party, the day before Germany invades the Netherlands, an indication of his somewhat naïve, Boy’s Own attitude to war at this early stage.20 The friendship between Erik and Guus endures several tense incidents, including a bombing raid and the journey to England together by boat. But Guus eventually is captured after shooting Robby in the street for betraying his friends to the SD. Guus is beaten, tortured, then beheaded by guillotine in a chillingly disturbing execution scene set at night. Robby did betray them but had been forced into collaborating in order to save his Jewish fiancée, Esther. Ultimately, Robby was also pressured into betraying his friends in the dramatic night scene at Scheveningen beach—a key location for dramatic events in this film.

L ife unde r occupation

158 |

Alex is half Dutch and half German and his dilemma is indicative of one facing Dutch people with parents of different nationalities. Alex causes the most friction in the group of friends when, having witnessed the internment and rough treatment of his parents in his hometown in the early stages of occupation, he chooses to leave the Dutch army and join instead the German military, eventually the Waffen SS, a choice that does not bode well for him. It is understandable that the stigma and prejudice vented against his parents by a suspicious Dutch wartime public infuriates Alex and convinces him that joining the occupier’s side is the only way to defend his mother’s honour. With these scenes, Soldaat van Oranje is revealing the fracturing effects of the choices people made, or were coerced into making, during war: friends turning against friends, suspicion, divided loyalties, persecution, friends shooting one another, and the loss of continuity in friendships and family life. This film also discloses an increasing willingness in late 1970s Dutch society to broach for the first time in film the grim subjects of betrayal and the murder of friends. Once again, the fact that it took more than 30 years since the liberation to do so is astonishing. Law student Jacques chooses to take no part in the war, focusing instead on gaining his degree and looking ahead to the post-war future. With his passivity and censure of resistance work, he probably represents the majority opinion of Dutch society during the occupation—that of keeping one’s head down, embracing the shared society of occupation, and making as little trouble as possible. Near the start of Soldaat van Oranje, Jacques has been given a camera as a gift for passing an examination. The student friends are gathered in Erik and Guus’ apartment, the hub of their group. Jacques sets the camera’s timer and takes a picture of the six university men (Erik, Guus, Jan, Jacques, Alex, and Nico; Robby is their friend but not a student) who are in high spirits and raise their drinks to the camera. As the photo is taken, the film camera freezes, the frozen image of the friends turning to a sepia tone as though a real photograph. This image of the friends reminds us that many of the most important relationships in Soldaat van Oranje are non-familial, and it echoes the fraternal bonds established in the film’s opening scenes. This group photograph scene is a key moment and also the film’s most poignant in its depiction of warm friendship during the occupation, and the hints of future losses. For the scene is echoed in the closing moments of Soldaat van Oranje when Erik and Jacques meet again in the midst of the May 1945 liberation festivities and Jacques invites Erik in for a celebratory drink. He is delighted to meet his friend again and possesses a wholly positive outlook on their both surviving the war. Jacques is living in Erik and Guus’ former apartment, and while Jacques fixes his friend a drink, Erik looks at the photograph of the six friends that he finds on a table, probably where it has remained all

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

this time. Though the photo was taken in that same room, it might as well have been another country, for Erik’s mood is markedly different now. He is sombre, reflective, and aware of the heavy loss of his five friends and the Pyrrhic victory he must feel the liberation celebrations ignore. As Erik looks fondly at the faces of his friends and the camera traces over the photograph so we see the men in close-up, there is a reprise of the same emotive music used at Jan’s execution in the dunes. Both Erik and Jacques have made mistakes: Erik for his blundering, wellmeaning actions, without always taking things seriously enough or thinking of the consequences; Jacques for his passivity and the weight of ethical responsibility that accompanies it. Their appearance as the two men left alive out of the group of seven friends at the end of the film reveals a fascinating glimpse of entirely different experiences of life under occupation. The ambivalence of Soldaat van Oranje is intriguing: there is an all-pervasive uncertainty about ‘which side’ the film is on. Jacques pours them a glass of wine to celebrate, telling Erik, ‘We scraped through… Don’t ask me how! […] They closed the university. I had to take my preliminaries in secret. It was risky, you had to be really careful.’ Erik, in his full military uniform and medals, and having taken part in many dangerous resistance actions, stares again at the photo of his friends, at which point Jacques tells him gently, ‘We’ll simply start again where we left off five years ago.’

Pastorale 1943 (1978) For the first time in Dutch films about the war, Pastorale 1943 depicts the family life of a collaborator: that of middle-aged pharmacist Poerstamper and his wife and two sons. This is a sea change in filmic representations of life under occupation, for it would have been unthinkable in De Overval to portray a collaborator in anything other than the scantest of detail, let alone to focus on the domestic life and dilemmas of conscience of a Dutch NSB member. The rather two-dimensional figures of prison director Foss and prison administrator Koopman—the only overt collaborators in De Overval—were seen only in their work environment and had little dialogue in the film. Pastorale 1943, however, marks a clear progression in filmic portrayal of collaborators, giving Poerstamper more screen time and dialogue. He is sited in both work and domestic settings, revealing him not only as a pharmacist and NSB member but also a husband and father. Pastorale 1943 also presents a more indepth portrayal of a Jewish character than had hitherto been seen on screen—teacher Cohen Katz, a friend of Johan Schults from the local resistance group. Within a few minutes of the

L ife unde r occupation

| 159

160 |

film’s opening, two important references to Dutch Jews are made, indicating the shifting emphases concerning the wartime treatment of Jews from the time this film was made. Mies Evertse, another collaborator in the film, asks Van Dale from the resistance group where she might find a place for onderduikers (people needing to go into hiding). ‘Jews?’ he asks, as this would make her request more difficult. ‘No, no, just some lads who don’t want to work in Germany.’ Little does Van Dale know that this is a trap. Mies will betray him, as she is working for the SD. He will soon be arrested and tortured for his knowledge of hiding places. The second reference to Dutch Jewish experiences comes in the following scene. Schults, a teacher of German and an amateur artist who uses his sketching skills to help the resistance, returns home from drawing a German bunker to find his good friend Cohen Katz waiting to ask for help. As a Jew, it has become dangerous for Cohen to stay in Amsterdam. The Nazis have already picked up his wife, Ann, and their children and Cohen needs a safe place to hide. Schults offers him the cramped, hidden space behind the wardrobe in his rented room, but Cohen hesitates, then declines it. Schults says he will take him to a better hiding place the next day, a farm he knows. He asks his friend to keep the hidden wardrobe space a secret, to which Cohen replies, rather irritated: Don’t you think you are exaggerating? You’ve got nothing to fear. You don’t do any resistance work, you’re a German teacher and you’re from a German family. I’m the one who should be really scared. And to tell you the truth… I am scared. Indeed, Schults does have a German father, a fact he struggles with, but Cohen is wrong about Schults taking no part in the resistance: offering Cohen a place to hide is proof alone that he is involved in the resistance. These references to Jewish persecution early in Pastorale 1943 suggest an increasing understanding within Dutch filmic representations of the complexities of life under occupation, especially in the depiction of Cohen’s journey into hiding and subsequent arrest. For the first time in Dutch war films, Pastorale 1943 situates the plight of Dutch Jews much more prominently in the film’s narrative—in this case in the opening minutes. And by giving a human face to the issue of Jewish persecution in the form of Cohen and the mention of his wife Ann and children, the status of Dutch Jews during the war is rendered more visible than in the early 1960s films, when the absence of Jewish references was the noticeable feature. Even Soldaat van Oranje, with its Jewish characters Esther and Jan, did not focus in detail on the family life of either character. Important for this forward-moving trajectory in the depiction of Jewish life

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

and wartime friendships is that whilst Schults and Cohen are friends, they still have disagreements and discussions, during which we find out about Cohen’s feelings of persecution and of fearing for his life. Cohen himself is a complex, rather irritating, overly talkative character depicting several moods in his various scenes; he certainly is not only presented as a Jewish victim. This personal viewpoint had not previously been tendered, certainly not to this extent. In Soldaat van Oranje, Jan’s portrayal of a Dutch Jew who is arrested, tortured, and executed was an important one, but he stood alone in his heroic courage and martyrdom. In contrast, Pastorale 1943 describes Cohen’s feelings and experiences in a way that seems relevant to a wider group; his is a representative role of Jewishness as well as personal one. Poerstamper, the collaborating pharmacist, is also given a human face in the film. In terms of leaps forward in the depictions of different aspects of occupied life, this is as significant a shift as the overt presentation of Jewish persecution. For Poerstamper is a card-carrying NSB member who wholeheartedly supports the Dutch fascist party and distributes the regular NSB newspaper, Volk en Vaderland, around the town of Doornwijk. Yet he is not depicted as ‘evil’ or unfeeling in the way an enemy, usually in the shape of German officers, was portrayed in earlier films, chiefly in De Overval (interrogator Grundmann). Neither is he shown as a mindless thug without reason or intellect (torturer Johannson) or as weak bureaucrats blindly following orders (prison heads Foss and Koopman). On the contrary, Poerstamper is a jolly character, a family man who cares very much for his wife and two sons but who also has a deep political commitment to the NSB cause, though many locals in the community brand him a traitor. It is interesting that Pastorale 1943 presents the NSB in this way, as it suggests an underlying awareness in 1978 (when the film was made) that there were (many) ordinary people who were NSB members and Nazi sympathizers; they had ordinary jobs, spouses, and children who went to school. An establishing exterior wide shot of Poerstamper’s pharmacy shop zooms in to a close-up of the window display, revealing an abundant collection of NSB memorabilia, including a photograph of the Dutch founder and leader of the NSB, Anton Mussert. A cheerful Poerstamper can be seen serving a customer through the window. This shot comes just after the scene in Schults’ room with Cohen asking for help to go into hiding, thus locating Poerstamper as well as Cohen in a prominent place in the narrative. As the town’s pharmacist, Poerstamper plays a key role in the community, even if many in that community disapprove of his NSB affiliation (though there will be plenty who do approve). The Poerstampers are the featured collaborators in the film; their adult son, Kees, is also in the NSB, and the younger son, Piet, helps his father in the pharmacy and is also in Schults’ school class. As with Cohen and Jewishness, the

L ife unde r occupation

| 161

162 |

Poerstampers’ roles are representative of collaboration and NSB membership, with that additional, human ingredient of family attachment. Later shots of Poerstamper in his home behind the chemist’s shop—in his living room, around the dinner table, and in bed with his wife—show him to be an ordinary family man, despite his politics. This depiction of a collaborator in domestic settings is a real departure for Dutch film. However, Poerstamper is burdened with an extreme irritable bowel problem that produces several awkward, near-farce episodes as he rushes to the toilet in his home and at the coupon distribution centre after witnessing a resistance raid. Poerstamper’s stomach upsets signify his acute nervousness whenever he must make a decision about informing to the SD, but they also point to a tendency in Dutch film from the 1970s onwards towards scatological and visceral content, already identified in Soldaat van Oranje (Jan’s enema torture, Guus’ beheading, Jan’s execution by firing squad, and Alex’s latrine explosion death). This content relating to bodily functions is much more extant than in British films from the same period, or even from the present day, and perhaps reflects Dutch society’s greater openness, frank and at times dark humour, and typical lack of reserve with regard to the portrayal within cultural works of physicality, sex, and death. Several scenes in Pastorale 1943 take place at the farm belonging to the Bovencamps, where Cohen and several other men are in hiding, although Cohen is the only Jew. Domestic life on this farm (very pastoral in its setting) fluctuates between the extremes of apparent rustic harmony and seething interpersonal tension. Potentially cosy images are shown of the Bovencamps, their young adult daughter Marie, farm workers, and the onderduikers gathered round the large kitchen table eating breakfast together. But there are palpable tensions within this disparate group—mother and daughter angst, sexual jealousy among the younger workers, concealed racism, misunderstandings, and frustrations. By openly portraying such imperfect relationships without restraint, Pastorale 1943 reveals a growing awareness of the human stresses inherent in trying to carry on with ‘ordinary life’ during war. The film offers glimpses of working life on the farm, often depicted in skilful, steady tracking and crane shots sweeping across verdant farmlands. But the Bovencamps are not only farmers, they are also hiding onderduikers— a weighty responsibility and a great risk. This wartime hiding of people was hinted at in De Overval when one character (Jellema) hid in a secret annexe room, but he was not Jewish and it was portrayed as a comfortable arrangement between friends, barely referred to in the film. This contrasts sharply with the portrayal of onderduikers in Pastorale 1943 in which much more of the physical and psychological stresses of a mixed group of adults thrown together under the same roof for an extended duration are hinted at. The final

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

consequences of being discovered are not shown in the film, though when the farm is betrayed, the family and onderduikers are loaded into a German truck and taken away. Other scenes in the film hint at the fate of Jews discovered in hiding (likely death) and of those helping to hide people (prison, interrogation, then possible but not guaranteed release). Characters in this film tend to be more complex than ever before. In fact, with the exception of Johan Schults, his teaching colleague Miep Algera, and young NSB-er Kees Poerstamper, the characters in Pastorale 1943 display an intricate mixture of qualities: they tend to be neither wholly ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, instead revealing a greyer, more ambiguous display of human behaviours. Cohen the Jewish teacher in hiding reveals a patronizing and irritable streak, alongside that part of him we know to be deeply anxious for his family and afraid of being arrested. When Schults visits him at the Bovencamp farm Cohen says he has heard no news of his wife, children, brothers, or sisters. He thinks his father has been gassed at a camp: ‘None of us Jews believes in that gassing…but I do.’ This is the first mention in any Dutch war film of the gas chambers, which is astonishing considering that Pastorale 1943 was made 33 years after the liberation. This large time gap reminds us of the silences within social and cultural memory about some of the darkest aspects of the Dutch experience of occupation.21 Cohen’s candid words to Schults indicate a landmark shift in the filmic representation of Jewish persecution, the breakdown of Jewish family life, and the Holocaust. The Bovencamps’ daughter Marie is depicted as naïve, bored, and thoughtless, and she expresses anti-Semitic sentiments during her dates with Kees Poerstamper, eventually informing on the onderduikers to the older Poerstamper, the pharmacist. She does this out of revenge for a spiteful trick Cohen plays at the farm in front of everyone at the communal breakfast table involving a dead crow wrapped up in a parcel. The bird was discovered dead earlier by two young boys on the farm and they had given it to Cohen for a couple of cents. Cohen pretended the package was from Marie’s boyfriend (‘from Kees Poerstamper SS’, Cohen had written on the back of the package). Once opened and the unpleasant carcass revealed, the dead bird was meant to symbolize Kees’ black NSB uniform and his likely death now he has supposedly been sent to the Eastern front. Cohen’s act certainly indicates a rather unkind, careless streak (did he not consider that it might trigger revenge from narrow-minded Marie?), though we know from his character’s history (and the potential loss of his whole family to the gas chambers) that he has a strong and valid reason for hating the NSB and occupiers enough to risk the crow trick. It might seem that Marie’s treachery is what leads directly to the night raid on her parents’ farm and to the arrest of Cohen. But it is in fact Griekspoor, a minor character and a farmhand also in hiding at the farm, who betrays the

L ife unde r occupation

| 163

164 |

Bovencamp farm’s onderduikers to the SD. Poerstamper the pharmacist in fact chose not to give Marie’s information on the whereabouts of those in hiding to the SD, a subject that will return to him with fatal consequences soon afterwards. Griekspoor’s motivation is his fury at Marie’s unfaithfulness, as Griekspoor was her lover first. Interestingly, it is Marie’s infidelity that rankles and pushes him to betray the whole farm, not the fact that Kees Poerstamper is an NSB member or that the Bovencamps are hiding a Jew, though Griekspoor is sullen and impulsive, appearing to like no one. These petulant qualities of Marie and Griekspoor provide yet more textual evidence of the tendency in Pastorale 1943 to depict a range of ‘normal’ and yet potentially destructive, emotional responses to the arbitrary and unusual incidents of war. These powerful emotional responses of anger, sexual jealousy, and bitterness would never have been depicted in the congenial, close-knit domestic world of De Overval. Other characters in Pastorale 1943—such as Schults’ ‘Greek chorus’ of school colleagues speaking their diverse opinions as though with one voice; key resistance members Eskens, Van Dale, Hammer, and Ballegooyen; the farm workers; and Schults’ fellow Dutch prisoners in Scheveningen jail—display varied and at times ambiguous responses to life under occupation. Even Piet Poerstamper, the younger son of the pharmacist, who is presented as just a schoolboy, becomes an informer at home. Piet tells the family at dinner that his teacher Schults admitted to his German language students that he regrets having to give lessons in ‘this bloody language’. That the film includes such scenes in Schults’ classroom and the Poerstampers’ dining room is indicative of its embracing of the realization in the 1970s that during the war some strong anti-German sentiments were voiced in public, leaving people with the choice of informing or not. After Pastorale 1943, Dutch war films entered a wave of production activity that yielded eight films in the 1980s. Below, I look at what changes, if any, films from this decade disclosed in their representations of wartime life, family and relationships, gender roles, Jewish persecution, and the hardships of occupation.

FRACTURED LIVES, CRUSHED HOPES: TRAUMA AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS IN THE 1980S This closing section of chapter four addresses the ever-evolving trajectory of images of occupied life, family, the home, and friendship bonds in three Dutch war films from the 1980s. This is a decade that reached a plateau of understanding in its filmic representations of the enemy and of Dutch identity. My readings of films from this time examine how their depictions of life under

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

occupation, beginning with Het Meisje met het Rode Haar and ending with De Aanslag and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning, address in starker detail some of the most harrowing aspects of the Dutch war experience. This increasing complexity and ‘shades of greyness’ in portraying relationships, Jewish experiences and persecution, severe deprivations of the occupation, and the roles of women and men in the domestic arena, corresponds to a growing comprehension and acknowledgement in the Netherlands of the 1980s of some of the bleakest aspects of occupied life.

Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981) An: Why didn’t anyone do anything to get her set free? Older official: We did what we could…

| 165

An: And what exactly was that! Official: Dear girl, the war is over, that’s the most important thing. ­Holland is free. Resistance woman An to Dutch officials, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar

As with Soldaat van Oranje and, to a certain extent, Pastorale 1943, the emphasis on home life in Het Meisje met het Rode Haar shifts from parental domesticity towards the rented rooms or hideout locations inhabited by the film’s young adult characters, independent of their families. This suggests a growing up of the image of occupation, a movement away from familial control, as films of the 1980s continued to reflect society’s increasing scepticism of wartime generations and a more open attitude to some of the formerly unbroachable aspects of the Dutch war experience. And yet the sense of independent home life portrayed at the start of Ben Verbong’s 1981 film dissipates by the end as events spiral out of control towards disillusionment, splintered friendships, bitterness, and death. Hannie Schaft, the film’s central character, is first shown in her attic room in a rooftop crane camera shot filmed from the outside. This shot slowly zooms in to the attic window, a seagull crying and circling nearby (birds used once again to reflect characters’ moods and act as harbingers of future events). Cutting to the room’s humble interior as Hannie tidies away several textbooks and washes her plate, it is obvious that she is a student and this is her university bedsit. In fact she is a law student, soon to tell her professor that she must interrupt her studies because she feels other things take priority now. She tells him that: ‘Someone who studies law has to make the choice - talking about it, or actually taking action. And I’ve chosen the latter.’ This

L ife unde r occupation

166 |

sets out her character, initially at least, as a thoughtful, politically oriented woman yearning to become involved in resistance action against the fascist occupiers. The slow, smooth camera tracking movements following Hannie around her attic room, accomplished in a single take—together with other measured tracking shots in the film—give Het Meisje met het Rode Haar a European cinema feel. They bring to mind the pacing and quiet simplicity of Ettore Scola’s film Una Giornata Particolare.22 Hannie’s studious independence quickly evaporates though after she joins the Communist resistance group and moves out of her student room into a series of resistance hideaways. Once on the run with her resistance lover, Hugo, any sense of home or belonging to any particular place fades away. It is as though Het Meisje met het Rode Haar reveals an awareness that war fractures families (with many Dutch working-age men sent to German labour camps or involved in resistance work), so we should not expect too many representations of a traditional family unit. Instead the sense of family—in this film and others to follow—transmutes to camaraderie. Though the film is set between Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Velsen, several scenes occur in unspecified rural areas and secret resistance locations where Hannie and her colleagues train and prepare for resistance attacks. These offices, abandoned country houses, or farm outbuildings are the closest to a home environment many of these people have, for whom joining the Communist group has inevitably meant ostracism or enforced separation from family and loved ones. There is an echo of the familial unity and parental concern shown in De Overval in two scenes in which Hannie visits her parents in Haarlem, who are very protective and loving towards her. They are not at all ‘for’ the resistance, and they have no idea of their daughter’s underground life or political motivations. Hannie’s father reads aloud from the newspaper about the latest illegal action (that Hannie carried out, though of course he does not know) and the ensuing reprisals. He tells her: ‘It makes you wonder what motivates these resistance people. After every attack, just like that, a number of innocent people are rounded up and killed. Aren’t they aware that this will happen?’ Hannie says nothing but looks grave, for the people of whom her father speaks have been killed in retaliation for the murder of a Dutch collaborator, an SD informant shot from behind by Hannie herself at point-blank range. It was her first ‘liquidation’ for the resistance. This understandable anti-resistance feeling from Hannie’s parents on the grounds of likely German reprisal executions illustrates an underlying conflict between Hannie and her parents and reflects a growing understanding of the potentially destructive impact of resistance work on family life and relationships, and the secrecy demanded by such clandestine work. This societal awareness transmuted onto film contrasts conspicuously with the all-embrac-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ing unity between domesticity and resistance work seen in De Overval. Yet both Het Meisje met het Rode Haar and De Overval can be considered ‘truthful’ to the time in which they were made. The ‘rude secrets’ babbling away under the surface of films (Kracauer 1995: 294) reveal the shifting course of Dutch society’s re-adjusting of its attitudes about the war over time. This lies at the heart of our exploration into what Dutch war films can tell us not just about the Netherlands’ history of occupation but about the dark and difficult legacy of that past, confronted and reconciled with over several subsequent ‘pasts’. Though Het Meisje met het Rode Haar does refer to the Jewish experience of occupation, it does so only minimally. Two early scenes in the film, lasting fewer than three minutes in total, depict Hannie’s friend, Judith, a Jew hiding out at Hannie’s parents’ house. In Hannie’s conversation with Judith, we get a sense of the restrictiveness of life in hiding: Judith is simply unable to walk around freely or to move abroad, her ultimate wish. She is extremely frustrated at the prospect of having to remain in hiding for a long time but cannot attempt to go anywhere without forged or stolen identity papers. This echoes the pent-up frustrations of the onderduikers at the Bovencamp farm in Pastorale 1943, for whom the farm boundaries were their furthest parameters. Even so, those in hiding on the farm at least had more freedom to move about outdoors within the farm’s limits. Hannie has a close bond with her melancholy friend Judith and feels strongly about the abuse of Jews in Holland. Yet after this initial scene with Judith, Hannie receives news of her disappearance, after which Jewish issues are not mentioned again in the film (apart from Hannie telling Hugo that a female collaborator next on their liquidation list had given away the whereabouts of two Jewish families to the SD). Judith has simply left the Schaft household without warning, leaving behind a letter. As Hannie reads the letter in a close-up, we see and hear the image and sound effect of a train, half mixed through the shot. This train exists only in Hannie’s imagination, a recognizable signifier used in letter-reading in films. But it is a powerful one as we interpret from Hannie’s vision that Judith will not get far without false papers and a proper hiding place. The train imagery symbolizes both a potential route to freedom and, the more likely outcome, a death train to a concentration camp. Hannie is particularly frustrated because she had managed to procure a false identity card for her friend, which came all too late for Judith. The consistently solvable problems and sanguine tone of De Overval seem long gone in Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, replaced by the immovable, unsolvable issues of Jewish persecution, Hunger Winter, and extermination. Hannie Schaft soon develops strong bonds of friendship with members of the Communist resistance group she joins, especially with her close friend, An, and Hannie’s lover, Hugo. Her friendship with An represents the first time in Dutch film that women in the resistance—in fact women at all—exhibit

L ife unde r occupation

| 167

168 |

a sense of professional camaraderie with someone of their own gender, not just working as assistants with or for men. Though women held more prominent roles in Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943 than in films from the early 1960s, they were nonetheless isolated female characters, typically shown alongside a central male figure. In Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, women play a key role in their own right, working either behind the scenes or as markswomen in resistance attacks. The inclusion in this film of discernible female characters with stronger narrative drive and more dialogue mirrors the wider, gradual progress of feminism taking place at the time Verbong’s film was made and a societal shift towards greater equality in gender roles. And yet, despite this advancement in women’s roles in Dutch war films, the impact of women on the screen is still limited. In Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, Hannie displays a significantly greater tendency to break down, cry, or show volatile emotions than her partner Hugo or other male counterparts such as the stern resistance group leader, Frans. She seems unable to undertake certain tasks without a great deal of trauma. Even the film’s title—‘The Girl with the Red Hair’—infantilizes the central role and detracts from Hannie’s more tenacious traits. She alters during the film, becoming increasingly detached and sullen before assuming, by the end, a rather robotic and emotionless air after the loss of Hugo and other harrowing events. But instead of this detachment and hardness signifying a galvanizing of spirit or the rousing of her courage, Hannie’s emotional impenetrability renders her ‘just another weak female’. Nonetheless, the film’s depiction of Hugo’s death (after a resistance attack in which Hugo was shot by the NSB member he then killed) and Hannie’s subsequent psychological decline, imprisonment, and execution in the dunes hints at a growing awareness of not only the breakdown of the family and relationships in wartime but also of the disintegration of the self caused by the traumas of occupation. In this way, films from the 1980s begin to embrace the personal as well as national losses of war. It is An, seen much less than Hannie in the film, who offers the most encouraging glimpse of a gradual movement towards parity in the representation of female and male characters. She manifests strength of character, courage, and empathy in her warm friendship with new resistance recruit Hannie and, despite Hannie’s love affair with Hugo, An forms perhaps the closest connection to Hannie in the film. While Hannie learns the skills of resistance work, she asks An if the group members ever talk privately among themselves. As the two women sit folding and sorting leaflets (very likely De Waarheid, though this is not made clear—another instance of the film’s tendency to depoliticize the Communism of its central characters), An tells her it is better for them to know as little about each other as possible. In the background, loud printing machines can be heard. Hannie pushes to know more about

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

what it feels like to shoot a target, or ‘liquidate’ someone, as An quickly corrects her. An counters Hannie’s zeal with her blunt description of the first time she shot someone and explains that the liquidation side of resistance does not suit everyone. ‘This sort of work is just as important,’ she tells Hannie, meaning the distribution of illegal leaflets and newspapers. The opening of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar is also its end point. In the film’s prologue, An is the first character we see, angrily demanding of two Dutch officials at the resistance headquarters why more was not done to rescue Hannie from prison and prevent her execution, just two and a half weeks before liberation. They attempt to pacify her by insisting that at least the war is over, but An is furious at the injustice of Hannie’s imprisonment and feels they could have negotiated her release. This echoes the deliberate depoliticizing of the Communist roots of the book on which the film was based: in the real Hannie Schaft story there was the suggestion that Communist groups were vilified and even targeted for destruction near the end of the occupation, as those in charge after the end of the war would not want Communist factions to have any significant power. Despite an agreement near the end of the occupation between the Dutch government-in-exile, resistance groups, and the occupiers that there should be no more unnecessary attacks or punishments on either side, Schaft is imprisoned and executed. This explains An’s anger and frustration at the lack of any serious effort to release her colleague. Ecstatic liberation celebrations taking place outside the building can be heard but not seen, as though taking place outside the world of the film and out of An’s awareness. This eloquent distancing effect is enhanced by An gazing out of a window on the stair landing, seething with frustrated sadness at the loss of her friend and at the Dutch officials who did nothing to prevent her death. As the unseen crowd’s cheering intensifies and the strains of Het Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem, rise in volume, the camera cuts to an exterior shot of An’s face and her fierce gaze outside the window, as though she is looking through a window of time and of memory. An is the means by which Hannie’s story is framed, through this window of recollection and regret. As An looks ahead, the camera slowly zooms out from her face and mixes to a still photograph of a street scene in which Hannie is one of the ‘frozen’ figures. This is An’s rendering of Hannie’s story, just as Het Meisje met het Rode Haar itself is a 1981 re-animation of Dutch society’s version of the events and characters of the occupation. In a remarkable transition, this still image from An’s mind ‘comes’ to life as Hannie breaks free from her fixed photographic pose and begins to walk. The scene fully animates, propelling the film into life and setting its internal narrative in motion. At the film’s close, after Hannie’s execution in the dunes, the camera shot fades back to the close-up of An staring out of the same hallway window. Now, though, the light

L ife unde r occupation

| 169

170 |

is fading, signalling the end of that day, of this story…and of Hannie’s life. The final image in Het Meisje met het Rode Haar dissolves from An’s angry, sad eyes to a close-up of just a hint of Hannie’s red hair not quite covered beneath the rough sand of her shallow grave in the dunes.23 This rekindling of Hannie’s story and An’s remembrance of her, encapsulating at the same time the wider trauma and losses of Dutch people during the occupation, resonates with the issues of memory, trauma, representation, and forgiveness that are dealt with by Susan Rubin Suleiman in Crises of Memory and the Second World War (2008). Suleiman raises questions about the nature of memory and remembrance of the past—whether by groups or individuals—at the heart of which is the theme of representation. ‘How we view ourselves, and how we represent ourselves to others, is indissociable from the stories we tell about our past’ (2008: 1). Suleiman describes the overlap and occasional conflict between individual recollections of trauma and collective self-representation that can differ from other potential public conflicts in that it concerns ‘the interpretation and public understanding of an event firmly situated in the past, but whose aftereffects are still deeply felt’ (2008: 1). Her words resound with my readings of these Dutch war films as compelling, cultural means of gauging contemporary Dutch society’s interpretations of its traumatic past of occupation. I reiterate that it is a succession of ‘present days’ across the post-war decades that creates in turn a series of (usually) progressive cultural reinterpretations of that seemingly fixed historical wartime past in which the legacy of occupation is confronted, struggled with, and possibly reconciled. Mieke Bal’s assertion in Acts of Memory that cultural memory is called upon in order to ‘mediate and modify difficult or tabooed moments of the past—moments that nonetheless impinge, sometimes fatally, on the present’ (1999: vii) is relevant here. It echoes Libby Saxton’s study of Holocaust representation, Haunted Images, in which she suggests that key films about the Holocaust ‘highlight the multiple functions of the image as witness, as trace, as evidence, as screen, as shield and as ethical lens, as interface between self and other’ (2008: 123). Suleiman, Bal, and Saxton emphasize in different ways the lasting cultural and communal effects of traumatic experiences such as war and occupation—what I have described in this book as an enduring imprint of occupation.24 This struggle between personal and collective memories and responses to war and their rendering into cultural representations is closely connected to the psychological and socio-cultural processes of recovery from communal traumatic experiences. These processes of dealing with trauma include cultural coping, social amnesia, collective memory, and the creation of myths about the war when facing up to what really happened is too difficult to toler-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ate. An, who stands at the starting and ending thresholds of Het Meisje met het Rode Haar and through whose eyes the film’s narrative is framed, is a single voice representing the nascent communal responses to wartime deprivation and personal loss from Dutch society in the early 1980s.

De Aanslag (1986) Anton: What should we have done with the body? Cor: How should I know? Buried it in the garden? Better still, eaten it right away. Yes, eaten it! Cooked it up and shared it with the neighbours. It was Hunger Winter after all. Don’t think it didn’t happen… and much worse besides! Anton Steenwijk and Cor Takes in De Aanslag

| 171 As though coming full circle to an image of occupied life with the parental home as its nexus, De Aanslag places family firmly at the centre of its narrative. In the film’s first 45 minutes, set during one January day and night in that bitter Hunger Winter of the final year of the war, we are presented with a vignette of family life and neighbourliness during the occupation in which hardships endured on account of the freezing weather conditions and resulting food scarcity are not shied away from: a dead man’s body is taken away on a cart; a soup kitchen provides families with their one meagre meal ration per day; doors, banisters, and books are burned, in fact, anything in the home that can be used on a tiny stove for fuel; medicines and staple foods are lacking; and a boy expresses his delight when offered a tiny biscuit made by a kindly neighbour out of bonemeal. In this respect, De Aanslag reveals some of the grimmest images of the occupation, not least the cannibalism referred to by resistance veteran Cor Takes to the adult Anton Steenwijk in the above excerpt. This shocking allusion to Dutch people forced by starvation to eat human flesh—the most clandestine and extreme of taboos—ranks alongside the darkest filmic evidence of the Dutch war experience. That cannibalism is even acknowledged in this film is evidence of the movement in De Aanslag towards shades of grey in its depictions of human responses to war, and towards portraying the severe deprivations and consequences of long-term occupation. It may seem at first that De Aanslag takes a backwards step in its depiction of close-knit family life (as was presented in De Overval) rather than the friendship bonds of young adulthood, camaraderie, and independence depicted above all in Soldaat van Oranje but also in Het Meisje met het Rode Haar. But it becomes apparent that the rendering in De Aanslag of family life is a fragile one that will be blasted

L ife unde r occupation

172 |

apart by devastating circumstances that would never have happened had the country not been under occupation. The presence of dynamics and subject matters that had previously been out of bounds, at least in film, are evidence that De Aanslag maintains the forward arc towards more nuanced ambiguity in its images of occupation. De Aanslag is the first Dutch war film to focus with significant attention on the Hunger Winter and the consequences of famine and freezing conditions. This is remarkable considering the film was made 41 years after the liberation of the Netherlands. Although Het Meisje met het Rode Haar had depicted numerous wintry scenes as a backdrop to Hannie Schaft’s sombre journey into resistance work—the desolate landscapes, bare trees, and biting wind symbolizing her eventual psychological decline—only one scene explicitly showed the effects of the Hunger Winter, and the viewer would have to be quick to notice it. When Hannie cycles to the German checkpoint where she is subsequently arrested for carrying copies of De Waarheid, people can be seen scattered along the roadside in the distance, foraging for food scraps with fires lit nearby for warmth. De Overval, though set ostensibly during the same Hunger Winter, did not portray signs of deprivation or suffering as a result of the bitter conditions and shortages. However, it must be acknowledged that the earlier film was set in the northern province of Friesland which was much less affected by the consequences of the Hunger Winter than the larger suburban areas towards the west of the Netherlands. Family life envisaged in De Aanslag centres at first on the wartime Steenwijk family of mother, father, and two sons, Peter and Anton. Despite the hardships of the Hunger Winter, the family are portrayed as loving and supportive, making the most of their paltry food rations. They play board games together and the sons are educated at home, as schools are closed due to a lack of fuel. However, the Steenwijks are no cosy, silently empathetic couple from De Overval. With a hormonally argumentative teenager, Peter, and a frustrated mother with toothache, they present a more three-dimensional image of a family attempting to manage a semblance of domestic routine amidst the extreme conditions and irritations of bitter cold and hunger. They expose a form of stoicism, but it isn’t the pious stoicism of De Overval; instead, whilst the Steenwijk family are loving, they also display the inevitable tensions of existing hand to mouth, suffering long-term shortages, and living under chronic duress. The shooting of Dutch NSB policeman Fake Ploeg—the resistance ‘assault’ of the film’s title—that happens to take place near the Steenwijks’ house later that freezing January night leads to fatal repercussions for the family. In an inexplicable action, Ploeg’s dead body is quickly moved by their neighbours, the Kortewegs, to outside the Steenwijks’ front gate, and Anton’s parents and brother are soon afterwards shot as a reprisal by the SD. Their house is burned

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

to the ground as Anton looks on in wide-eyed shock through the window of a German truck. Only at the very end of the film will the adult Anton learn the astonishing reason why their usually friendly neighbours the Kortewegs moved the body from outside their own home to in front of the Steenwijks’ house, thereby sentencing them to certain death by the SD. After his family’s murder, Anton spends a long and confusing night in custody in various police stations and German army headquarters before being sent to live with his uncle in Amsterdam. The film then shifts its focus away from the occupation era and proceeds to depict episodes from Anton’s adult life, each ‘framed’ by archive newsreel sequences introducing key moments in socio-political history such as the Korean War, the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, the student riots in Amsterdam, and the anti-nuclear peace marches in the Netherlands of the early 1980s. Family life retains its central place and almost mythical significance for Anton, now a qualified anaesthetist.25 His adult self struggles to cope with marriage and fatherhood; he strives to reclaim that original sense of familial togetherness while at the same time experiencing chronic traumatic reactions to those vaguely remembered events from his past—events that he can neither understand nor come to terms with. Though starting off as a film set during the occupation, De Aanslag develops into a portrait of the period between the war and the present day of the film (around 1986), whose main character represents both individuals and nations affected by the overwhelming events of war and occupation. This resonates with earlier discussions of memory and trauma, for the film’s theme really is the psychological damage that Anton suffers without really knowing that he is experiencing the long-term effects of trauma and the losses from the night of the assault. The impact of the events of that fateful night on Anton’s later ability to form lasting relationships, and his attempts to develop family bonds of his own, are key to the film. Anton tries to maintain that fragile sense of family, although the cracks begin to show and he cannot hold his first marriage together because, essentially, he is too damaged. He first needs to come to terms with what happened in the past before he can heal and move on. In this way, De Aanslag is a metaphor for the trauma and suffering of the Dutch during the occupation and the need for Dutch society to go through the processes of remembrance, acceptance, and the slow movement towards recovery after the harrowing events and repercussions of the war. The appearance in De Aanslag of themes of trauma and the hope of recovery is further evidence of an increasing readiness in the mid-1980s to broach these difficult psychological facets of the occupation. The clove remedy that Anton’s second wife, Liesbeth, concocts for his raging toothache near the end of the film is of major symbolic importance, for it evokes for Anton the moment of his mother’s toothache prior to the assault

L ife unde r occupation

| 173

174 |

and his family’s subsequent annihilation that January night in 1945. His mother had broken her crown on a button in the soup kitchen stew and used her last clove as a remedy to dull the pain, just as Liesbeth now hands Anton a clove from their kitchen drawer in 1983. Anton hugs his wife desperately, a vibrant memory of his mother—and another jolt towards recall and recuperation—having been triggered by a simple clove. Unaware of the clove’s symbolic value for Anton, Liesbeth laughs warmly at her husband’s sudden rush of emotion. Again, the clove’s mythical importance has, for Anton, overtaken its actual use or value. For him, it represents one of the last images of his mother and of some degree of normal family existence (despite the deprivations of Hunger Winter) before the trauma of liquidation and reprisals began and his life changed forever. But the clove incident with Liesbeth also triggers the hope of recovery for Anton. Soon after it a dentist friend, Gerrit-Jan, carefully relieves the built-up pressure and pain in Anton’s gums with a drill, thus curing his toothache. ‘It’s just a result of age,’ Gerrit-Jan tells him, ‘easily put right.’ Anton had wanted a pain-killing injection before the drilling, but his friend said nonsense, it was nothing. This dental catharsis is a powerful yet very subtle moment in the film that reminds us that there might yet be hope for Anton’s fragile sense of self, trying to recover from the enduring effects of the occupation. Though Anton had wanted to be numbed from his pain (just as in his profession as an anaesthetist he numbs the pain of others), he was forced—in a friendly but assertive way by Gerrit-Jan—to face up to it, and the pain was indeed soon over. This suggests a latent urge within contemporary Dutch society to go through the pain of facing up to those issues about the war they would have rather avoided: starvation, torture, collaboration, reprisals, fascism, and cannibalism. Anton’s toothache is cured, in contrast to his mother’s broken tooth crown in wartime, the pain of which she was never afforded the opportunity to cure— her mundane domestic nuisance presaging the dire events to come. Anton finds liberating release at last in the film’s closing moments, as his memory begins to heal and, together with his young son Peter (named after Anton’s brother who was shot by the SD) and surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fellow Dutch citizens on a peace march in Amsterdam, he feels the healing power of belonging once more.26 By chance, he meets Karin Korteweg on the march, the daughter of their wartime neighbour. Together with her father, she had dragged Ploeg’s body to the front of the Steenwijk house, leading to the catastrophic SD reprisals for Anton’s family. Following an initially awkward exchange after the divide of decades and traumatic circumstances since they last met, Anton urges Karin to tell him what she knows of that night. In fairly close-up, hand-held shots, and cutting frequently to flashbacks from that night in 1945, Karin tentatively reveals that her father’s primary motiva-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

tion for shifting the body from outside their own house was that he was so frightened that the SD would destroy his beloved collection of lizards. ‘So it was actually those lizards that murdered my parents, and Peter!’ Anton shouts, incredulous at the banality of the reason. But Karin then explains that, because her mother had died two years earlier, ‘Those creatures meant something like eternity or immortality to him. In the war they became his only reason for living. He was so unhappy.’ Unable to come to terms with the guilt about his actions that night, Mr Korteweg trampled all his precious lizards to death, and after the liberation he and Karin emigrated to New Zealand. He was afraid that one day Anton would want revenge and seek him out. ‘But that thought never even occurred to me!’ Anton tells Karin as they keep pace with the peace march. ‘It did to him,’ she replies. ‘In 1948, he committed suicide. Ultimately he didn’t need you to kill him, you were there inside his head all along.’ With this knowledge, Anton has a sense of revelation, a realization of the extent of the damage on others involved in history, or his story; a grasp of the physical, psychological, and emotional consequences rippling out from the epicentre of the resistance shooting. The arbitrary assault on a collaborating policeman he finally realizes had triggered a sequence of events affecting others far more deeply than Anton had known, enshrouded as he has been until now by his own trauma and loss. This potent scene in De Aanslag speaks too of a growing awareness in Dutch society of the long-term ramifications of seemingly indiscriminate moments and split-second decisions made under duress, and that people were neither wholly goed nor fout. They were ordinary people displaying a mixture of motivations and behaviour, trying to survive the extraordinary circumstances of war and occupation. ‘But why did you put the body in front of our house, and not on the other side, in front of the Aartses?’ Anton asks Karin as they continue on the march. ‘That’s what I wanted! That’s what I wanted!’ she cries out, for the Steenwijks were her dear friends back then and the Aartses were just an elderly couple whom no one knew very well. Any practical thinker might opt to place Ploeg’s body at their door rather than in front of the Steenwijks—a family with two boys. It is only then that Anton finds out that the Aartses, a couple hardly featured in the film, were hiding onderduikers in their house throughout the war—a Jewish couple with a small child. Karin tells him she only saw the Jewish family herself for the first time after the liberation. ‘Christ!’ Anton gasps, slapping his forehead in an epiphany even greater than before, as past events are finally pieced together and made sense of. Mr Korteweg had known about the people in hiding and made an instant decision that night to move the body the other way, in the direction of Anton’s house, to save the lives of that Jewish family.

L ife unde r occupation

| 175

176 |

This stunning realization of Mr Korteweg’s dilemma, which calls to mind Sophie’s choice in the film of the same name from 1982, reveals that his selfish act was immediately balanced by a second, unselfish one—that of protecting the Jewish family.27 De Aanslag is exposing a complex moral puzzle here, for if Ploeg had not been such a despised collaborator, the resistance would not have liquidated him, his body would not have had to be moved, and the German occupiers would not have retaliated. One of the film’s great skills is its presentation of so many layers of apparent blame and motivations, and this theme of actions and consequences is perhaps the film’s most significant comment on Dutch society’s perceptions about wartime ethical dilemmas. Alongside this is the growing realization, reflected increasingly in films from the late 1970s and 1980s, that people behaved in all manner of ways, usually not at the extremes of goed and fout but rather within that zone of greyness— the sphere of ordinary, sometimes ambivalent and ambiguous behaviour… what it is, in fact, to be human. Anton then makes his excuses and walks away from Karin, overwhelmed by the information she has given him, as the peace march moves ever forward and the film’s poignant music score builds to a crescendo. He reconnects with his son, Peter, whom he had temporarily lost sight of, and hugs him, holding his son’s head tenderly. The camera pulls out steadily and lifts directly above them in a crane shot, rising so high that Anton merges imperceptibly into the throng of fellow marchers. This final continuous shot slowly reveals a huge mass of humanity swaying together in the forward-moving sea and healing embrace of a like-minded crowd.

In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986) Would someone also understand, after the war, that you could murder your best friend…? Peter van Dijk to Sanne, In de Schaduw van de Overwinning

Directed in 1986 by Ate De Jong, In de Schaduw van de Overwinning focuses on differing degrees of resistance and the choices people made during the occupation. It is a film of contrasts—specifically, the contrast between action and principles, and intellect and deception. Artist Peter Van Dijk chooses the resistance path of action and violence, whilst Jewish doctor and emigration officer David Blumberg chooses the cerebral route of deception, inventing a German general and a list of Jews who will apparently gain safe passage to Switzerland. Echoing Oscar Schindler’s list, this task entails a great deal of deception on Blumberg’s part to maintain the credibility of his invented ‘Von Spiegel list’.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

It is a highly dangerous game Blumberg plays with the occupier that appears to his fellow Dutch citizens to blur the boundaries of collaboration. But the film is intriguing not just for the questions its characters raise about ambiguous choices made during the occupation, or strengths and weaknesses of traditional notions of fighting the enemy. Its depictions of ordinary life, relationships, and in particular the portrayal of the Jewish experience of war and persecution in the Netherlands is what sets it apart in this decade in which a plateau of understanding is reached in the rendering of the occupation within Dutch film. De Jong’s film reveals a two-fold representation of Dutch life under the German occupation. In keeping with the emerging focus in films from the late 1970s onwards on independent life and relationships outside a conventional family unit, the spotlight is on camaraderie and interactions within the film’s core resistance unit. Strong friendships exist in the group, and when one of them, Peter van Dijk, is forced by circumstances to shoot his mentor and friend who has been heavily tortured and is on the point of giving away vital contact information to the occupiers, his distress at having killed his close colleague is palpable. That Van Dijk must then replace the man he killed as resistance leader is bitter consolation. The exceptional circumstances and dramatic events of war tend to heighten emotions and lead to enforced intimacy, and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning offers snapshots of just such friendships, which, though quickly formed, remain nonetheless strong attachments. Alongside these images of collegial independence, the film also shows depictions of domestic family life that appear more conventional, as with the Steenwijk family in De Aanslag. But they are of a different timbre than has been seen before. Artist and resistance man Van Dijk has a wife and two children, and several scenes take place at his home.28 Seemingly conventional at first, we soon realize that Van Dijk’s domestic scenes are abrupt and do not foster any sense of unified family life—indeed, the opposite is the case. When Van Dijk does return home, he always leaves again soon afterwards, purportedly because of resistance work, often to the cool dismay of his wife. In fact, Van Dijk spends a greater proportion of his time in pursuit of two female resistance colleagues, Hansje and Sanne. He enjoys serial sexual encounters with one or the other of them in his artist’s studio, Hansje’s own apartment, or outof-hours with Sanne at the resistance headquarters. At different moments in the film, he tells each woman: ‘I’ll marry you after the war,’ even though it is obvious to everyone that he is a philanderer, already married with children. Despite his adulterous behaviour, Van Dijk is not portrayed as a villain; instead, he is painted as a pleasant, warm-hearted, and humorous man, perhaps typically unrestrained in his affairs with women. These glimpses of Van Dijk’s family life and relationships stand in stark contrast to those of De

L ife unde r occupation

| 177

178 |

Overval, with their seamless familial unity, fidelity, and chaste understanding between spouses. Across the divide of the 24 years spanning their productions, these two films unconsciously convey attitudes to family life and friendship bonds, together with perceptions of the roles of both women and men in domestic environments. Perhaps the most unanticipated aspect within In de Schaduw van de Overwinning is that its most conventional family scenes stem from the film’s central Jewish character, David Blumberg, and his wife Rebecca, children, and extended family. The Blumbergs are shown in at least two separate scenes to be quietly celebrating Jewish religious occasions—the Sabbath and Jewish New Year—in their dining room, the first time in Dutch war films that Jewish characters have been afforded any depth in the representation of ritual, Jewish identity, and family life. Whereas the film’s non-Jewish characters find their sense of belonging from camaraderie, and Van Dijk from his love affairs, the Blumbergs promote a sense of understated familial unity and everyday behaviour that almost touches the level of harmony shown in De Overval. The difference is that whilst De Overval depicts family life only as a backdrop to resistance work, In de Schaduw van de Overwinning portrays a whole

11. The Blumbergs celebrate Jewish New Year, In de Schaduw van de Overwinning

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

range of domestic scenes (both Jewish and non-Jewish) as part of the fabric of the narrative in their own right, hinting at a growing awareness of the importance of the domestic, as well as heroic, domains of the Dutch war experience. A deftly handled scene illustrating this point takes place in the Blumbergs’ dining room. The family are quietly celebrating a New Year’s meal in the dimly lit room when two Dutch SD policemen interrupt them to notify Blumberg that Kohler, his contact from the SD, wishes to speak with him. ‘That’s fine— I’ll come tomorrow morning,’ Blumberg replies from the dinner table. He is told he needs to come with them now. ‘But we’re celebrating New Year this evening,’ his wife Rebecca explains to the men. ‘New Year…in September?’ the second officer remarks sarcastically. Rebecca corrects him that it is Jewish New Year, yet still they insist, albeit calmly, that Blumberg must go for one of his regular meetings with Kohler. But why is it so surprising to find scenes of everyday wartime Jewish family life behind the doors of the Blumberg house and in other areas of the film? Scenes throughout In de Schaduw van de Overwinning include the Jewish Council, a raid on Jewish residents, citizens wearing yellow Stars of David, families in a holding camp, and trains transporting Dutch Jews from the Netherlands to Poland. The dialogues and critiques opened up by these wartime representations of Jewishness are fascinating, as before this film there were so few portrayals of Jewish experiences, or references to persecution, that Jewish characters were always at risk of being side stories or of being stereotyped.29 The character of Jan Weinberg in Soldaat van Oranje was an important step forward in the representation of Jewishness in Dutch war films. He displayed fury and angst at the increasingly bleak situation facing Jews during the occupation, and yet he never really moved beyond his position as a token sacrificed Jew. Cohen Katz in Pastorale 1943 had more depth and incorporated a fuller range of personality traits, yet he too dwindled away into arrest and oblivion.30 Towards the close of In de Schaduw van de Overwinning, Blumberg’s imagined ‘Von Spiegel list’ has been revealed as false, and the list of Jews to be saved from the Polish concentration camps becomes obsolete. His family has already been taken away, and Blumberg now faces his own demise in a Dutch holding camp.31 But he finds Rebecca at the camp outside some barracks and they embrace tenderly. ‘How are the children? ...How’s grandpa?’ Blumberg asks his wife anxiously. She tells him that Grandpa’s gone to Poland, and Neel’s gone too to look after him (Neel is their housekeeper). ‘And the children?’ Blumberg probes her. Hesitating and distressed, his wife goes on ‘Eva is…many children die here…’ On hearing his daughter has died, Blumberg collapses, and the scene ends with Rebecca and others rushing to help him in his grief. This short but devastating scene strikes home the painful reality of the death of Dutch Jews, but it is all the more remarkable for being only the

L ife unde r occupation

| 179

180 |

third time this had been depicted in film in the more than 40 years since liberation (after Jan’s execution in Soldaat van Oranje, and Cohen’s betrayal and unclarified but likely extermination in Pastorale 1943). It is hard to believe this is one of the first Dutch films to openly depict normal Jewish family life and relationships and to reveal light and shade within its main Jewish character, David Blumberg. Whether the eventual outcome for a film’s Jewish characters is death or survival, my readings reveal that it is how they are represented filmically that is significant. The extent of dialogue and screen time afforded Jewish characters—or narrative threads involving ordinary Jewish life, rituals, and oppression during the occupation—counteract a total absence of images of or references to Jewish war experiences from the earlier films. In de Schaduw van de Overwinning enables a discussion of the situation facing Dutch Jews in wartime in more depth precisely because Jews are present significantly in the film and are given more of a voice. The film’s progressiveness in its images of Jewishness resonates with the post-war reconstruction stage identified by Van der Heijden (2003) and Blom (2007) associated with facing up to the wartime persecution of Dutch Jews, the deprivations of the Hunger Winter, and further realizations of trauma and loss. Images of Dutch Jewish life under occupation first found expression in 1970s films Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943 and continued to grow in presence and nuance throughout the films of the 1980s. So, too, did depictions of a shared society of occupation, divided loyalties, friendships and families torn apart, and the severe deprivations of the Hunger Winter, which developed in complexity and ambiguity over the trajectory of these films. From De Overval’s symbiotic familial unity and chastity to the fracturing of that traditional dynamic from 1977 onwards, and a parallel shift towards images of camaraderie and independent life beyond conventional family units, the films reveal a movement over time towards openness and shades of grey in the representation of the most disturbing, most personal, aspects of the Dutch legacy of occupation: starvation, torture, the subjugation of Dutch Jews, neighbourly betrayal, cannibalism, and execution.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

CHAPTER 5

Resistance and collaboration It was a story whose historical accuracy was of less significance than the function it served. It was a myth, all the more powerful for being upheld as documentary. Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1998: 50)

Of the themes explored in this book, resistance and collaboration are the most powerfully communal and mythologized. They are the most prone to re-writing according to social memory and amnesia and to being transmitted into the realms of collective myth. This is connected to the enduring strength of the pervasive myth of the resistance in Dutch post-war society—and an associated ‘reverse myth’ about collaboration. This myth of resistance relates to the perceived very large numbers of men and women taking part in wartime resistance activities according to Dutch popular memory (in turn reflected in cultural texts such as films). The number officially engaged in resistance activities was in fact small: around 25,000 people up until September 1944 (Louis de Jong 1976: part 7 2nd half: 1012). Out of a Dutch wartime population of nine million, this is less than 0.3 per cent. The ‘reverse myth’ of collaboration concerns the apparently low number of wartime collaborators that might be gleaned from popular thinking, which was also markedly different from reality. About 20,000 Dutch people took the most extreme collaborative step of joining the Waffen SS, the armed unit of the SS which had a heavy presence in the occupied Netherlands (Barnouw 1986: 18-19). It is remarkable that these figures of official Dutch resistance fighters and extreme collaborators do not differ significantly. As the figure for collaborators does not include involvement in lesser though still significant forms of collaboration such as informing to the Sicherheitsdienst or membership of the NSB, it is not difficult to conclude that wartime collaboration in fact outweighed resistance.1 This ratio is rarely the one depicted in Dutch films about the war, especially in the early 1960s, in which a decidedly resistance-biased image is presented, although collaboration asserts its presence eventually in later decades. For resistance and its dark mask, collaboration, have loomed

| 183

184 |

so large in the Dutch psyche over the post-war decades that they have been present—or absent—all along in the films. Defining Dutch wartime resistance seems straightforward, relating to active and deliberate acts of defiance against the occupier’s military and ideological controls and enforced administration. Resistance also embraces illegal forms of communication, such as radio broadcasts and newspaper production and distribution. But resistance does not relate only to overt protests against an occupying power. It can also stand for a more passive, psychological resistance—an internalized refusal to co-operate, even if superficially people appear to behave compliantly. Yet images of resistance in films tend to overlook subtle psychological indicators in favour of the more typical manifestations of raids, liquidations, or meetings. An exception lies in De Overval, in which a kind of resistance osmosis permeates every member of the resistance group and their families too. Every look and gesture proclaims a symbiotic stoicism, a controlled knowledge of actions, risks, and consequences. This duality of active resistance and shared internalizing encapsulates both practical and psychological forms of resistance. But the general absence in films (apart from De Overval) of depictions of an ‘inner resistance’ cannot be explained by the sociology of representation alone. It also suggests some of the practical, audio-visual, and narratological difficulties inherent in attempting to portray characters’ psychological motivations and thought processes on the screen. Collaboration, like resistance, is an ambiguous term. Being a collaborator does not necessarily involve intentional acts of allegiance to an enemy, such as informing to the SD, though this tends to be its primary depiction in films. Collaboration can also describe actions of adaptation and conformity such as continuing to work even though this means working for the occupier, failing to assist neighbours or strangers who are arrested or harassed, and keeping a low profile in order to avoid punishments. But these seemingly passive forms of collaboration can be interpreted as simply trying to survive the war—a means of coping day-to-day with a civil occupation that was to last five years. Nevertheless, collaborating, especially in its sense of active co-operation with an enemy, is closely allied to treachery and being a traitor—an intensely provocative label in the Netherlands and beyond. It is this aspect of being seen to betray one’s nation and fellow citizens that leads to moralizing, retribution, and disgust at individuals considered to be ‘in league with the enemy.’ They are pushed into a zone of ‘otherness,’ though ambiguous or mitigating circumstances might lie behind their behaviour. Collaboration by coercion—being forced to inform or infiltrate resistance groups under threat of torture or retribution against loved ones—is evidence yet again of the intricacy of this apparently straightforward term. This chapter traces the shifting image of resistance and collaboration within Dutch war films, moving from heroic resisters and rarely glimpsed

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

collaborators in the early 1960s towards less clear-cut, coercion-based or seemingly motiveless collaborative acts and increasingly complex portrayals of resistance from 1977 onwards. By identifying changes in filmic representations of resistance and collaboration, Dutch society’s changing views on these contentious, seemingly opposite camps can be interpreted over the timeframe of the films and a better understanding gained of the role that resistance and collaboration play in the Netherlands’ historical and cultural legacy. Barthes’ notion of ‘what-goes-without-saying’ (2000: 11)2 helps us look beyond what is overtly stated in filmic texts and question what is hidden but nevertheless understood to exist. Using this in the context of images of resistance and collaboration in Dutch war films we can examine the assumption that most Dutch men and women resisted in wartime, and very few collaborated. These myths of resistance and collaboration—evident in kernel form during the occupation but growing in intensity retrospectively throughout the post-war decades—start to unravel and be exposed for what they truly are.3 They can be seen as a consequence of Dutch society’s unspoken trauma of long-term occupation, of selective remembrance and forgetting, and of unexpressed guilt about collaboration, about not resisting enough. These myths forge the cultural re-writing of history along heroic, ‘resistance’ lines, certainly in the two decades after liberation. Society’s tendency to mythologize those aspects of war and trauma deemed to be the most heroic, self-serving, and psychologically palatable, later reflected in cultural works, is what really lies behind the appearance, extent, or absence of resistance and collaboration in these Dutch war films. This chapter marks a point of synthesis, as strong traces of its meta-theme of resistance and collaboration inevitably have filtered through the preceding chapters and themes. Like Kracauer’s ‘rude secrets’ simmering under the surface of films, the histories and mythologies behind resistance and collaboration have shaped so much of Dutch post-war consciousness, it is hardly surprising that they permeate Dutch war films, whether openly or implied. Textual evidence of the resistance was already discovered in the preceding chapters, whilst attention was drawn to the pattern of absence of collaborators in the early 1960s films and a parallel lack of images in this era of Dutch Jews, German friendship bonds, visceral torture, and deprivations of the Hunger Winter. This pattern of absence and presence persists, revealing a sense of society’s feared or trusted topics of the day infiltrating the films’ sub-layers. A number of the textual ‘snapshots’ analysed in chapters two to four centred on resistance raids, resistance friendships, or the dilemmas behind choosing to resist or collaborate. Considering the very low number of people actively resisting during the German occupation of the Netherlands, this superfluity of resistance representations in film stands out of proportion to the wartime reality. But what we are dealing with are constructed myths, re-written histories rendered onto the screen.

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 185

186 |

Depictions across the spectrum of resistance and collaboration within six Dutch war films are examined here. As we come to realize the all-embracing nature of the theme of resistance and collaboration, alongside its cultural and historical legacy for Dutch society, chapter five becomes a gathering together of key aspects of the book’s analysis. It also addresses the evanescence of the resistance in Dutch post-war society and how this is dealt with and reflected (or not) in films. Lagrou describes the Dutch enigma of ‘the incredible shrinking resistance’ (2000: 64), meaning the deliberate, systematic marginalization and reduction of the status of wartime resistance members, especially those affiliated to Communist groups—and the dwindling public remembrance of resistance veterans.4 This is incredible when considering how brightly the resistance myth burned in the Netherlands, certainly in the first post-war decades, and how differently other formerly occupied Western European countries such as France and Belgium celebrate and venerate their resistance veterans.5 It must be acknowledged, though, that each nation’s particular historical, political, and cultural legacies, alongside wartime experiences, play a part in re-writing and mythologizing the stories of its past. This chapter reveals an image of unified and heroic resistance and a corresponding near denial of collaboration in the 1962 film De Overval. Increasingly ambiguous depictions of resistance and collaboration in Dutch war films of the late 1970s follow, from the choices and coercion pervading Soldaat van Oranje to portrayals of resistance flaws in Pastorale 1943. The journey towards much greater three-dimensionality in images of resistance and collaboration is addressed in two films from 1986. Evidence of the fading remembrance of Dutch resistance veterans is revealed in De Aanslag, whilst the protagonists’ unclear motives for resistance work and the presence of bleak truths about collaboration are explored in In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. I also examine the ongoing movement towards greyness in representations of the darkest facets of the occupation in Zwartboek from 2006.

IRRESISTIBLE RESISTANCE: HEROIC RESISTANCE IN THE 1960S De Overval (1962) Heroic resistance suffuses every frame of De Overval. The film evinces a single-mindedly positive portrayal of the Dutch resistance in the Friesian town of Leeuwarden and depicts the meticulous planning and implementation of a prison raid in December 1944 to free 50 political prisoners. But beyond its documentary subject matter—the non-violent prison raid portrayed in the

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

| 187

12. Piet Kramer and the Leeuwarden resistance, De Overval

film really did occur in occupied Friesland—De Overval presents such a watertight image of camaraderie, Dutch strength of character, and unified commitment to the resistance cause that although several potential disasters threaten it, the ‘silent raid’ of the film’s title eventually goes according to plan, and it is as though its success was never in doubt. There is no dissention within the film’s resistance ranks, whose members agree and act as one mind. In real life, this would be unlikely, but De Overval, though concerned at the time of its production with accurately depicting the Leeuwarden raid and its build-up ‘as it really happened,’ is in fact displaying something much more mythical and socially constructed in its narrative. So while the raid of the film was based on actuality, its framing and representation within this 1962 film is re-written as myth. The unanimity of understanding amongst the resistance men echoes the symbiotic, almost telepathic familial bond between baker Bultsma, his wife, the knitting grandmother, and their silent, biddable children, discussed in chapter four. The resistance group members and their closely knit families are shown as brave, competent, quick-witted, resourceful, and, above all, heroic. And in keeping with the

Resistance and colla b o r ation

188 |

tendency in the film towards depicting understated Dutchness and unassumingly chaste behaviour, they are modest heroes. David Barnouw described De Overval as ‘the last real resistance film’ (1986: 23), coming as it did after a gap of over a decade in the production of films with war-related themes. This gap is remarkable considering the Netherlands’ relatively recent period of occupation and the enduring power of the resistance myth in Dutch popular memory. However, Barnouw’s suggestion of ‘war weariness’ in the Netherlands (1986: 21) after an initial five films with war-related themes made between 1945 and 1950 goes some way towards understanding this silence about the war. Dutch society chose to forget its past of occupation during the 1950s and early 1960s and to focus instead on rebuilding the country and looking to the future, which echoes the social amnesia and the selective remembrance and forgetting discussed in earlier chapters.6 François Stienen (2004) cites one contemporary reaction to this war-weariness: ‘“People don’t want to see any more war,” sighed the producer Rudolph Meyer at the start of the 1960s when he initially turned down the role of producing the resistance film De Overval’ (in Albers et al. 2004: 281). Meyer eventually went on to produce the film to great critical acclaim, but it is interesting to note the peaks and troughs of public interest in the subject of war despite—or perhaps because of—war’s all-encompassing impact on Dutch society. De Overval seems to represent a brief last gasp of unrestrained patriotism and unquestioned positivity in its portrayal of the resistance, for the film’s uncritical, glorified image of wartime resistance would, according to Hans Schoots, never again be repeated (2004: 46). The appearance of De Overval in 1962 corresponds with the beginning of a phase, albeit short-lived, of re-kindled interest in the war and resistance, its return to prominence both in societal thinking and in film. De Overval includes several examples of representation by comparison, the most powerful of which is its depiction of the Dutch resistance versus the German occupiers, described in detail in chapter two. Contrasts between the ‘noble’ qualities of restraint, decency, and astute decision-making displayed by resistance leader Piet Kramer and the ‘inhuman’ values of an unfeeling veneer of civility and veiled aggression shown by SD commander Grundmann are powerful examples of this representation by comparison. The incongruities between the characters’ demeanours serve once more to accentuate the resistance’s position of the moral high ground. Nowhere is this moral superiority and comparison exemplified more clearly than in the scene towards the end of the film in which German torturer Johannson is captured by the resistance just inside the prison door, as detailed in chapter two. After Kramer quells an attempted lynching of Johannson by several of the resistance group, Johannson is led along the prison corridor, his hands behind his head. The camera lingers in a high-angle wide shot, allow-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ing the action to play out in shots of fairly long duration. Resistance prisoner Bakker stumbles upon his rescuers just when he thought he was about to be tortured again. His face registers bewilderment, shock, relief. As he meets Kramer, the two resistance heroes greet each other warmly and Bakker silently removes and drops the cyanide pill hidden in his hand bandages, crushing it underfoot with a knowing smile to Kramer. It is a surprisingly affectionate moment in a film more or less devoid of passionate emotions or expressions of tenderness, although there is plenty of rousing patriotism. The crushing of the pill signifies another resistance micro-victory—saving one of their group from the torturer’s grasp—alongside the macro-victory of the ongoing prison raid to free the political prisoners. As newly liberated Bakker passes Johannson in the corridor, it is clear these two men embody opposite factions: torturer and victim, villain and hero. The nobility/brutality dichotomy depicted earlier in the film between Kramer and Grundmann, now repeated between Bakker and Johannson, encapsulates the typical portrayal throughout De Overval of a ‘self’ and ‘other’ division in which the heroes are unfailingly the victors. As encountered time and again throughout the analysis of these Dutch film texts, it is often what is not seen in the films—what might be called representation by omission—that is as important as what is overtly portrayed. Certainly in De Overval, the resistance is depicted in a heroic light, and there are practically no references to collaborators. Representation by omission also relates to the complete lack of images in this film of German families or friendship bonds, an absence of references to Jewish characters and persecution, or allusions to the severe deprivations of Hunger Winter, all of which are telling evidence of the cultural re-writing of Dutch pasts to suit contemporary Dutch society’s capacity to come to terms with the darker and more ambiguous aspects of the war. Just as De Overval is replete with scenes and images of the resistance, there is a corresponding near-denial of collaboration in the film. The prison director (Foss) and administrator (Koopman) are the film’s only overt collaborators, as virtually everyone else is subsumed within the resistance. Theirs are important though slight roles, and Foss is very much considered a traitor within the narrative. When Foss is caught inside the prison, he tries timidly and falteringly to justify and explain himself. He knows there may well now be serious repercussions for him, although this aspect of the post-war treatment of collaborators is not developed in the film. Foss’ capture is a dramatic scene, filmed in low-angle close-ups of a prison interior door cutting to two armed, masked resistance men waiting specifically for Foss, who has no idea what awaits him on this side of the door. As the heavy door opens, the camera tracks back and zooms out as the shocked prison director stutters his protest ‘But you’re making a mistake. I’m a loyal patriot. I just do what I’m told!’ Meanwhile the masked resistance men strip him of his keys—symbols of the

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 189

power he wielded as head of the prison—and force his hands above his head. Foss and Koopman are then marched behind Johannson the torturer along the prison corridor, Foss’ hands still behind his head. Several of the nowreleased prisoners lunge to attack Foss. They have to be restrained by their colleagues as the director is jostled awkwardly along the prison hallway, such is the strength of their animosity towards this collaborator. This near denial or only minimal presence of collaboration in De Overval (and its occurrence to a limited degree in Als Twee Druppels Water the following year7) would, after another substantial gap in Dutch war films, shift towards increasing visibility and complexity in the late 1970s onwards.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES: COLLABORATION BREAKS THROUGH, 1977-1978 190 |

Meyer may have lamented that ‘People don’t want to see any more war’, but Stienen suggests that by the end of the 1970s a new generation of filmmakers who had not experienced the war first-hand began to be interested in the question of how they might have acted during the war. This precipitated what Barnouw calls the ‘boom’ in the production of Dutch war films after Soldaat van Oranje (1986: 23). The questioning post-war generation pushed against some of the imprinted memories and beliefs of their forefathers and were no longer so constrained by mythologized, deep-rooted cultural representations of an evil enemy; heroic resistance fighters supported by chaste, harmonious domesticity; and ostracized—even unseen—collaborators. Young Dutch people began expressing doubts about their inherited past through the conduits of demonstrations and political rallies throughout the late 1960s and 1970s and via cultural channels such as literature and films: war films were again on the agenda. The increasing distance between the Netherlands’ past of occupation and its present prepared the way for progressively critical responses in cultural works to complex issues surrounding the war years. Some aspects of the Netherlands’ legacy of occupation had, until this time, scarcely been glimpsed in film; collaboration was one that would find expression, with certain limitations, in Dutch films of the 1970s.

Soldaat van Oranje (1977) Although ostensibly a film about resistance containing several heroic, highadventure episodes, Soldaat van Oranje concentrates on the friendship bonds and choices made by a group of student friends in Leiden during the occupation. Erik Lanshof is the ‘Soldier of Orange’ of the film’s title who returns

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

to the Netherlands after liberation as aide-de-camp to the Dutch queen, Wilhelmina. Soldaat van Oranje reveals a rich range of responses to the state of occupation, responses that are representative of everyday reactions to the enemy, friendship, and life under occupation.8 The film also reveals a shared society of occupation during the war—an increasing integration between occupiers and occupied—along with the exposure of some of the fascist leanings and anti-Jewish sentiments prevalent in the pre-war Netherlands. But it is the images of collaboration in the film, alongside its portrayal of significant Jewish characters (the first Dutch film to do so) and its visceral violence and torture that are the most telling indicators of a move towards openness and three-dimensionality in filmic representations. The film’s depictions of collaborators and the reasons why certain choices are made by the student friends form key turning points in the narrative and stand in stark contrast to the unquestioning, unified resistance mentality infusing De Overval made fifteen years before. From the near absence of collaboration in Rotha’s ‘last real resistance film’ (Barnouw 1986: 23) to the coercion and collaboration forced upon Robby by the SD or Alex’s decision to join the German tank regiment and, eventually, the higher ranks of the SS in Soldaat van Oranje, the journey from concealed to exposed collaboration marks a considerable leap forward in the trajectory of these films and serves further to reinforce the remarkable lack of textual evidence of collaboration in De Overval. Soldaat van Oranje provides four powerful embodiments of shifts in the image of collaboration towards ‘greyer’, less clear-cut representations. The characters adopting these collaborator roles offer a range of interpretations of collaboration over and above the general understanding of it as being ‘in league’ with the enemy. They possess very different reasons or motivations which are explained to some extent within the film’s diegesis, and we get a sense of degrees of collaboration, perhaps even a collaboration hierarchy, being posited in the film.9 These roles comprise collaboration by coercion, collaboration based on dual nationality and family loyalty, collaboration out of seeming free will, and passive collaboration. The example of coercion is Robby, a friend of the student group who is forced into spying for the occupier. He must continue to operate an illegal radio for his friends and the local resistance whilst reporting back to SD headquarters. If he does not co-operate with their ‘proposal,’ the SD commander threatens that Robby’s Jewish fiancée, Esther, will be sent to a Polish concentration camp, to which he adds wryly: ‘Not so good for the health...many people die there.’10 The scene inside the SD commander’s car, into which Robby has been forced and which is parked in front of Robby’s house, is claustrophobic and sinister. Robby is asked if he ‘would work for us in future.’ The space the men occupy is cramped, and the black, threatening car interior mirrors

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 191

192 |

the dark threat the SD poses to Esther. Esther happens to cycle past towards Robby’s front door just at that moment, unaware of the parked car’s occupants or of the grave danger Robby and she face. The long-held shot of Esther cycling is filmed from deep within the vehicle’s cramped interior through the windscreen, as if from Robby’s anxious point of view from the rear seat. But it is also the point of view of the SD commander seated alongside Robby, thus exacerbating a sense of unsettling voyeurism, of Esther’s movements—and by association his own—being watched from this moment on. This mood of coercion is further accentuated by the use of close-ups, for instance, the tightly-framed two-shot of Robby and the SD commander, cutting to a close-up of SD henchman Breitner in the front passenger seat. As the scene develops to show the SD’s intimidation and Robby’s distress, the film now utilizes even closer, single shots of Robby, Breitner, and the commander. The shots feel too close and deliberately invasive, and they suggest Robby’s increasing anxiety and feeling of entrapment. Once the SD men notice Esther and comment that ‘she looks Jewish,’ the pressure on Robby to betray his country and, ultimately, his friends at Scheveningen beach near the end of the film, becomes too great. The SD commander’s closing words asking him to reconsider working for them are more a statement than a question, heard out of shot as the car drives off and Robby’s anguished face looks back towards a still unknowing Esther waiting outside his house. The pain of his dilemma and of guilt and treachery, is etched onto Robby’s face in every scene in which he features from this point on, and he is destined eventually to be executed by his former friend, Guus, towards the end of the film. For the first time in Dutch film, one of a close group of friends is shown to be forced by threats to his loved ones to take the dark step of becoming a traitor, albeit an involuntary one. In Robby’s case, he feels he has absolutely no option but to collaborate in order to save Esther’s life. But what makes Robby’s moral quandary all the more remarkable, and provides yet more evidence of the ‘greyness’ breaking through in Soldaat van Oranje, is that though he must collaborate by coercion, prior to his entrapment by the SD Robby was resisting. He operated an illegal radio set from his garden shed and communicated with the exiled Dutch government and British army in England. This contrasts starkly with the extreme schism between sycophantic collaboration (prison director Foss) and heroic resistance presented in De Overval. Verhoeven’s 1977 film depicts for the first time a character making the enforced transition from one end of the resistance-collaboration spectrum to the other. It seems that such extremes of resisting and collaborating during the occupation existed chiefly in an imaginary realm within Dutch post-war consciousness in the first few decades after liberation. This collective mentalité may have been wrought by a war-weary Dutch society creating its versions of collaboration and resist-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ance as mythical constructs and re-writings of a history that was still too raw, too controversial to address with more transparency. Soldaat van Oranje marks a point of departure, a broadening of the filmic deconstruction and assimilation of a range of human reactions, choices, and wartime behaviour. Alex represents those who collaborated because of dual nationality and family loyalty. With a German mother and Dutch father, he witnesses the poor treatment of his parents immediately following the invasion in May 1940 when a group of German or part-German families, including his mother and father, are rounded up, searched, and detained in a school building by local Dutch police officers. Alex sees this contemptuious treatment whilst serving in the Dutch army during the five days before the Netherlands capitulated. Even Alex’s close group of student friends distance themselves from him simply because of his German family connections—except Erik, with whom he always had an especially strong bond. Alex’s anger and bitterness at the aggressive treatment of his parents and his peers’ reactions compel him to join an SS Panzer tank division comprising Dutch volunteers, many of whom had German connections like him or sympathized ideologically with the invaders. In due course, he is promoted within the SS ranks to become a Waffen-SS officer. Interestingly, Alex’s choice and subsequent progress in the film’s narrative is not depicted as a wise or happy one. He is estranged from his friends apart from Erik, who meets Alex late in the film at the elite SS party he has gate-crashed in disguise. Erik initially tries to avoid Alex but they are thrown together in the middle of a tango dance. The ensuing, powerfully charged, homoerotic tango dance scene between the two men is filmed mainly in dramatic, candid close-up profile two-shots cutting to wider shots of the tango steps, applauded by the party-going onlookers. But Alex looks washed-out and drained and comes across as sardonic and fatalistic during the coded conversation he and Erik have whilst they dance skilfully in front of the crowd. ‘It saddens me to see you among all these fascist bunker-builders,’ Alex tells his friend. Erik, guarded and unsure whether his companion will reveal he is an interloper, replies: ‘Ach well, it’s war…and it’s a nice party after all.’ Erik gently rebuts two attempts from his old friend to find out if he has been away in London, the subtext being: is he working for the resistance. As they tango with passionate intensity, their original strong friendship bond is reaffirmed: Alex will not give Erik away. ‘Shame we’re not fighting on the same side,’ Alex adds, and we realize that his ideological allegiance now rests fully, though doubtless unhappily, with the SS. He continues: ‘In a few years the Germans and the English will be fighting together against the Communists.’ ‘I doubt it,’ says Erik as their tango nears its sensual climax. Alex tells him with an air of solemn resignation: ‘We won’t see it…we won’t survive the war.’ For Alex at least, his prediction is correct, for he suffers an ignominious and pointless death on

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 193

194 |

the Eastern front soon afterwards. After provoking a starving boy by casually throwing a piece of bread to the muddy ground instead of offering it to him, Alex is blown up whilst sitting in a latrine by a stick grenade thrown through the window by the boy in retaliation for Alex’s thoughtless act. SD henchman Breitner is a significant presence in several key scenes, including Jan’s brutal torture and the incident in the parked car where Robby is coerced into spying for the SD. But Breitner is Dutch and this means he is the most unanticipated, most unusual of the images of collaboration in Soldaat van Oranje. He represents a form of collaboration out of seeming free will, and his being Dutch represents a step forward into the darker territories of collaboration: the Dutch nationals who voluntarily joined the SD. He also appears to enjoy the less salubrious and more violent aspects of the work—including, in Breitner’s case, threatening behaviour, severe beatings, and Jan’s enema torture, which is one of the most visceral, unpleasant scenes of any war film. That Breitner is Dutch rather than German is a revelation that simply would not have been broached in earlier films, especially De Overval, where one of the few collaborating presences, prison director Foss, is portrayed as a timid coward. The realization, via these filmic images, that a Dutch person could join the SD and play such an active and apparently enthusiastic role in the persecution and torture of fellow Dutch citizens marks a point of significant departure in the representation of complex and ambiguous aspects of collaboration in wartime Holland. The character of law student Jacques, one of the student friends, represents the fourth and final instance of shifts in the portrayal of collaborators’ roles within Soldaat van Oranje. Jacques’ role is that of passive collaboration. He is perhaps the most fascinating character in the film, precisely because he is so ordinary. For Jacques chooses the path of least resistance. He is a passive academic who sits out the war, keeps out of trouble, studies hard, and prepares for a post-war future that just might include the Netherlands’ annexation to Nazi Germany. When Jacques meets Erik just after the latter’s graduation, in a scene about halfway through the film, they discuss the imminent closure of the university. ‘Bloody Jerries!’ Jacques exclaims, but his frustration relates to the effect the university’s closure will have on his completing his law degree, not to the widespread damage to the Netherlands’ infrastructure and its population’s self-esteem caused by the occupiers. Erik’s mind is on other things, however: Jan’s torture and execution by the SD and Erik’s own burgeoning forays into resistance work, though he reveals none of this to his friend. Erik and Jacques have not seen each other for over a year at this point and Jacques, amiable and genuinely pleased to see his friend, nevertheless cautions Erik: ‘I’ve heard some odd stories about you… the resistance?’ Erik retorts with a reassuring smile: ‘All over and done with,’

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

though we know he is withholding the truth of his resistance adventures. ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Jacques tells him, ‘we must think of our future!’ Erik joins in at the words ‘our future!’ as though he has heard this refrain from Jacques many times before. They head off smiling for a drink together. Nevertheless it is a low-key exchange, filmed in muted, fairly close-up shots in a dark, desolate university corridor. The scene hints not only at the negative effects of the occupation on the Dutch higher education system but, more significantly, at the growing contrast between the paths chosen by Erik and Jacques in dealing with the occupation. By opting to keep a low profile, Jacques represents one way of facing up to the war, which was in fact the most likely Dutch response during the occupation. This can either be construed as passive collaboration or as a means of coping with the trauma and day-to-day tedium of occupied life. But Jacques’ apparent disinterest provokes the fascinating question: if he simply carries on with his legal education in the hope of becoming a solicitor after the war is over, what does that say about who might be in charge of the Netherlands after the end of the war? And would Jacques, or ordinary Dutch people like him during the war, really mind that much who was in charge, so long as life could return to some sense of normalcy?

Pastorale 1943 (1978) Pastorale 1943 continues the forward momentum towards greater openness in Dutch films from the late 1970s in its depiction of a more human, flawed side to both collaboration and resistance. The main contrast between the film’s representations of resistance and those of its predecessors is that there are no heroes or very little sense of the heroic in this film. This is markedly different to the valiant, highly capable resistance men populating De Overval, the echo of whose heroism and patriotism reverberated even in some of the narratives within Soldaat van Oranje. However, Soldaat van Oranje had progressed significantly towards rendering an ambivalence in its scenes of thwarted assignments and the differing trajectories of free will and coercion within people’s paths to resistance or collaboration. Pastorale 1943 is a much ‘smaller’ film, evincing a lower-key, more everyday view of resistance and collaboration in a fictional town in the rural Betuwe area of the Netherlands. The film’s opening scene gets right to the heart of the film’s ‘unheroic’ feel, as voice-over narration accompanies a wide shot of open countryside which zooms quickly in to a German bunker being constructed in a field. Unusually, the opening voice-over speaks from the time of the film’s production, from the ‘knowing’ perspective of the Netherlands of 1978, describing the situation under occupation and the reflection that hind-

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 195

sight brings—that this all happened long ago.11 The male narrator announces, in the style of a storyteller: 1943. The Netherlands sighs under the weight of German occupation. It is now a long time ago and in the intervening time, a romantic image of the war has evolved: of good Dutch people taking a heroic stance against the Germans and their accomplices. Cutting to a two-shot of resistance members Schults and Van Dale drinking coffee together at a terrace café, the voiceover continues: Such heroic patriots did exist…but not everyone could be like that. Simon Vestdijk wrote this story about it in 1945. A story of a people who are a good people because there are few heroes among them. 196 | This voice-over establishes at once the timbre of Pastorale 1943. Its statement—that although a post-war image of Dutch heroes versus the German occupiers had evolved, ‘not everyone could be like that’ (cleverly cutting at this moment to two of the film’s resistance ‘anti-heroes’—Schults and Van Dale)— resonates with this chapter’s focus on society’s shifting awareness, through the cultural form of film, of myths about the war. Remember here that one of the strongest of these myths is the myth of heroic resistance. Pastorale 1943 provides the first instance of a Dutch war film framed by a knowingness, a perspective on events that not only suggests the scrutiny of retrospection from the time the film was made but which also seems to hint at the possibility of anticipating future shifts in society’s attitudes to the occupation. An intriguing music score mixing incessant drumbeats with a lyrical, plaintive melody provides a backdrop to this establishing voice-over. This fusion of dramatic intensity and lyricism is a recurrent motif in the film’s soundtrack, as well as acoustic effects of birds and birdsong. The birdsong is almost as prominent as it was in Als Twee Druppels Water; again evoking the pastoral environment, the landscape’s innate Dutchness, the characters’ moods, or imminent tension. One of the key ways in which Pastorale 1943 portrays a more commonplace view of resistance is in the age demographic of the town’s resistance group, who, apart from newest member Schults, are mostly middle-aged or older men. This is a clear difference from the entirely youthful student friends and resistance members from Soldaat van Oranje and suggests the likely resistance make-up of an ordinary Dutch town whose young, working-age men would either have been in German labour camps or in hiding, unless they worked in priority occupations. The dynamic between the elder men and their younger

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

recruit provides an opportunity for Pastorale 1943 to depict differences of opinion on how issues should be dealt with, though the older group also discuss and disagree in equal measure amongst themselves. De Overval had also shown a range of young and older resistance men, with leader Piet Kramer approaching middle age, but these men never dissented, instead revealing an unquestioning, cohesive resistance ethos. The various resistance viewpoints in Pastorale 1943 reflect the growing number of questions being asked outside the world of the film. The most powerful example of this inter-generational debating occurs just over half way through Pastorale 1943. In what I describe as the ‘courtroom scene’, the three resistance leaders Eskens, Hammer, and Ballegooyen, along with Schults, hold what effectively is local pharmacist Poerstamper’s trial for allegedly betraying the men in hiding at the Bovencamp farm, one of whom was Schults’ Jewish friend, Cohen Katz. But this trial is held in Poerstamper’s absence, in the large upstairs room of a restaurant owned by Hammer, with the men sitting at a long table like jury members in an anteroom. Indeed, in this protracted scene—it lasts a full eleven minutes—the four men act at times like prosecutor, defence, and witness, debating whether they should kill Poerstamper, how it should be done, and when they should carry it out, as evidence is presented, dissected, and discussed at length amongst them.

| 197

13. Poerstamper’s resistance trial, in absentia, Pastorale 1943. Left to right: Schults, Eskens, Ballegooyen, and Hammer

Resistance and colla b o r ation

198 |

This prolonged and pivotal scene not only appears to viewers of the film as a trial, it really is considered as such by the characters within the narrative. A judicial-type gavel can be seen on the table—perhaps the room was used for local council meetings prior to the war—but in this context, the hammer and solemn conduct of these resistance representatives bring yet more sobriety to the setting. The passage of many hours of debate and discussion is suggested with lingering mid-shots of the men cutting cleverly to imply ever-dwindling degrees of daylight until, in crepuscular gloom, Hammer must close the blackout curtains. This encroaching near-darkness echoes the sombre journey of realization for these four men that a man’s life is at stake as they grapple with the moral and ethical dilemmas of what they are proposing. Eskens, Hammer, Ballegooyen, and Schults represent differing points of view regarding the handling of Poerstamper’s alleged collaboration, and those viewpoints are: action and revenge, religious and spiritual consideration, and caution and uncertainty. Eskens’ caustic cry—‘There’s no place in our society for such an individual…stick a knife in him and beat him to a pulp!’—is balanced by Hammer who, along with Schults, urges caution and that they should stick to facts. Hammer calmly states that ‘Poerstamper is an NSB-er and for the sake of Dutch people he simply must be shot.’ Ballegooyen is the most morally pious of the group—the only one in fact who shows religious leanings—and he is concerned to emphasize that this procedure is about justice, not revenge. ‘You talk again and again about revenge,’ Ballegooyen tells the other men, ‘but we’re talking about punitive measures. We pass a sentence and then carry it out…that has nothing to do with revenge.’ This would be a fair-minded justification for the resistance’s ‘punitive measures’ on Poerstamper were it not for Ballegooyen’s vituperative outburst towards the doomed, collaborating pharmacist in the later scene of their botched attempt to assassinate him in the woods. Surprisingly, considering he is the pious one, Ballegooyen unleashes his temper on the sentenced man because he had lost a son earlier in the war (no details are given but we can assume it was because of an SD informant like Poerstamper). This happens even as the terrified pharmacist begs for his life with the plea: ‘Think of my children! Please, think of my children!’ These resistance characters’ differing attitudes in Pastorale 1943 mirror contemporary Dutch society’s grappling with grey areas of collaboration, moral justification, retribution, and a growing understanding of the at times incongruous opinions of wartime resistance members, a mounting awareness that it was not all cohesion and harmony. After they have debated Poerstamper’s ‘case’ in the pseudo-courtroom and agreed on their course of action, Ballegooyen bangs the gavel and solemnly pronounces: ‘I hereby declare Poerstamper, Henri, guilty, and…’ (looking from side to side at the other men) ‘…we sentence him to death.’ Ballegooy-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

en bangs the judicial hammer once more, places it on the table, and bows down his head. This sombre scene shows the Doornwijk resistance group to be thoughtful, if unsure, really, quite what they are about to undertake—the shooting of Poerstamper—for it really is difficult to contemplate executing someone, even an NSB member whom they dislike intensely. There are the practical problems of shooting Poerstamper, such as finding a weapon and knowing just how, where, and when to kill him. Schults finds this surprising. ‘But you’ve surely got some experience of this?’ he enquires of the others. Hammer then explains that they are an LO resistance arm, or Landelijke Organisatie voor hulp aan onderduikers (‘National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding’), which comprised various small groups who raided coupon distribution offices and found addresses for onderduikers. This is in some contrast to the other resistance faction, the LKP, or Landelijke Knokploegen (‘National Assault Group Force’), the armed attack and liquidation specialists. Hammer’s admission in the film that the Doornwijk resistance are inexperienced for the job of executing a collaborator goes a long way towards explaining the blundering ineffectiveness accompanying the more violent (LKP-style) resistance tasks attempted by this group. That Pastorale 1943 is even acknowledging that the resistance group has fundamental shortcomings in terms both of communication and in their abortive first attempt to shoot and kill Poerstamper in the woods (they later succeed by murdering him at point-blank range in his hospital bed) is indicative of a significant movement towards openness. This in turn hints at Dutch society’s increasing willingness to accept that the resistance was not wholly ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and that those in the resistance had human failings and demonstrated a range of positive and negative qualities. That the film also evokes compassion for Poerstamper—innocent of the crime of betraying the Bovencamp farm, though he is an NSB member who has informed on the resistance before—is another indication of its frankness about the moral complexities of occupied life and the taking of lives by either ‘side’. It is also a sign that postwar generations in the Netherlands continued to dispel some of the long-held myths about heroic resistance and non-existent collaboration. And whilst Pastorale 1943 presents an unflattering portrait of at times chaotic resistance in a small Dutch town, what really sets it apart from the early 1960s films, and even to some extent from Soldaat van Oranje made the previous year, is its presentation of the real dilemmas and human difficulties faced by these ordinary people who suddenly find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 199

SHATTERED MYTHS, BLEAK TRUTHS: ASSIMILATING COLLABORATION AND RESISTANCE IN THE 1980S AND BEYOND

200 |

Just as a more human face of resistance and collaboration was revealed in the films from the late 1970s, so the journey towards greater three-dimensionality and openness continued its forward momentum in the decade to follow. As seen with images of the enemy, Dutch identity, and life under occupation, evolving public perceptions of the moral dilemmas, misjudgements, and everyday choices concerning resistance and collaboration approached some kind of resolution by the mid-1980s. After 1986, only a further eight Dutch films were made about the war,12 which explains why the 1980s signifies to a certain extent this plateau of understanding—as though public attitudes towards some of the strongest, mythically ingrained, and contentious aspects of the war reached their own synthesis, to be assimilated and reflected in the films of this era.

De Aanslag (1986) Those who don’t know their past don’t understand their present. Remember that, Tonny!13 Willem Steenwijk to his son, Anton, in De Aanslag

In one of the chance meetings between the adult Anton Steenwijk and key figures from his past that occur in De Aanslag, Anton meets Cor Takes, one of the resistance couple that shot NSB policeman Fake Ploeg in the pivotal attack of the film’s title. They meet at a resistance veteran’s funeral in 1966. The funeral is for a friend of Anton’s father-in-law, and at first Anton and Takes are not aware of the many connections between them: that the assault had actually happened outside Anton’s neighbours’ house and that Ploeg’s body had then been dragged outside the Steenwijks’ own house, thus condemning Anton’s parents and brother to execution by the SD that same night. Nor does either man realize initially the devastating fact that the woman with whom twelve year-old Anton had shared anxious hours in a pitch-dark German prison cell was none other than Truus Coster. Truus was Takes’ resistance partner in the Ploeg assault. She was also his lover, though to his unending regret, Takes had never told her how much he loved her. After the assault went wrong, the NSB member Ploeg shot and wounded Truus just before he himself was killed by Takes. Truus was then imprisoned by the SD and subsequently executed in the dunes. The funeral for the resistance veteran is Dutch Protestant in tone, extol-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ling the sobriety and patriotism of the dead man. It is also very well attended, giving us a sense of the respect and popularity of this person. And yet this is a private reunion, really, for these resistance men, as the Dutch resistance had been marginalized incrementally and by this time in the film’s narrative, 1966, national public celebration of the Dutch resistance had dwindled significantly. The resistance veterans themselves had to strive to keep their remembrance alive in the post-war decades by whatever means they could. Pieter Lagrou describes the Dutch post-war government’s efforts to ‘de-politicise the collective memories of the war’ (2000: 13) and points out this peculiarly Dutch enigma of ‘the incredible shrinking resistance’ (2000: 64). This startling ‘shrinking resistance’ contrasts significantly with France’s policy to openly honour its resistance veterans, certainly in the first few decades after liberation. France, however, would have to come to terms with its own dark past of occupation and the consequences of collaboration and the Vichy regime. This resistance funeral scene in De Aanslag represents one of the only occasions at which Dutch veterans could legitimately meet up with old friends and former comrades. Though many real resistance veterans were Christian-affiliated, Communist-based factions are represented here in the character of Cor Takes. From what we later learn of Takes’ ascetic demeanour and impoverished living circumstances, there is more than a small suggestion that left-wing veterans by far suffered the worst marginalization throughout the post-war decades, which had inevitable financial, social, and emotional consequences for them. Verbal exchanges between Anton and Takes, now an elderly veteran, represent some of the most poignant moments of the film. Anton gradually realizes the extent of the loss suffered by Takes, just as he slowly begins to comprehend over the course of the film just how far the shockwaves of the assault that bitter January night reverberated. These reverberated in a devastating way not just for Anton but also for his neighbours the Kortewegs, who had moved the dead NSB policeman’s body from outside their house; for Fake Ploeg’s son, who was Anton’s school friend, and whose family were subsequently heavily castigated for the father’s collaboration; and, perhaps most powerfully of all, for Cor Takes. Sitting side by side on a bench outside the church where the funeral was held, Anton and Takes are stunned in this their first meeting to discover their wartime connection with Truus and with events from 21 years before. Anton is initially reluctant to engage with Takes about the past but is pushed by him to go through what happened. Until now, they have each dealt with their personal legacy of that devastating night in contrasting ways. Anton has chosen (or been compelled by traumatic circumstances) to forget, to bury his past, to use amnesia (interestingly, he works an anaesthetist) as a way of distancing himself from traumas set in motion that one night. Takes, using a

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 201

202 | 14. Anton Steenwijk and Cor Takes discuss the assault, De Aanslag

totally contrasting process, tenaciously re-tells the story and plays it out in his mind, precisely so that he does not forget what he lost in the war. Anton, seeming to recognize just how little he knows or remembers of that time, eventually wishes to know more about Truus, and in seeking this knowledge, the process of his own recovering emotional memory of occupation is catalyzed into motion. Takes, in turn, is desperate to find out factual information about his lover Truus, but Anton was only a young boy at the time and can remember practically nothing. A frustrating mismatch of consciousness, knowledge, and memory persists between them. The men at last talk over the events of the resistance assault and its aftermath, becoming very emotional in the process, both breaking down in tears. Whilst not altogether unexpected, this produces a moment of pathos. Filmed in long-held candid shots, close-up on one or both of the men’s faces, and cutting to blue-tinted flashback scenes from the assault in 1945, this is an affecting piece of filmmaking. Anton’s father-in-law notices their crying and, once Takes has pushed a scrap of paper containing his address into Anton’s breast pocket and walked away, he tells Anton: ‘During the war Gijs was tortured by the Gestapo and never said a word. Now he sits next to you and he won’t shut up!’ Gijs was Takes’ resistance name during the war. This is a telling moment, one that is indicative of an urge within the film’s narrative towards the unburdening of dark secrets from the past, a need for absolution and for the talking through of the traumas of war and rebalancing the forgetting that had

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

endured for too long. These are the sentiments lying at the heart of De Aanslag and, indeed, at the core of this book. The second time Anton meets Cor Takes, in the resistance man’s rundown house in Amsterdam, he discovers the secluded and alienated manner in which Takes has been living all these years. This provides further evidence of his invisibility in the eyes of Dutch society as well as pointing to his aloneness as a man. It is as though his life had stopped that January night, for in a gloomy basement room which resembles a resistance museum, Takes has preserved Truus’ gun, a lipstick-kissed map of Europe, and most touching of all, a woman’s bicycle leaning against the wall. This is Truus’ bicycle from the night she was wounded in 1945, and this long-since unused, forlorn machine is an intensely powerful signifier, representing at once Dutchness, the power of Takes’ love for Truus, the dissolution and seeming futility of their resistance world, and the enemy who took her away from him. By introducing such textual evidence of the suppression and evanescence of the resistance in the Netherlands, De Aanslag is hinting at the mindset of mid-1980s Dutch society, its unconscious drive towards recapturing a lessmythologized past, re-igniting a more human image of the Dutch experience of occupation, and bringing resistance to the fore again as a subject both for public debate and as a topic for film. This time the focus would not be the celebration of mythical victories and glorious resistance heroes but rather the recollection simply that these men and women existed at all.

In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986) It seems at first as though the start of Ate de Jong’s In de Schaduw van de Overwinning, when the core resistance group carry out a seemingly well-planned raid on a population registry building, recalls a more traditional filmic view of resistance in which action, efficiency, and loyalty were the key sentiments. This would certainly push against Barnouw’s description of De Overval as the ‘last real resistance film’ (1986: 23), for here—24 years on in 1986—perhaps another ‘real resistance film’ is coming into focus. Yet within a few minutes of the opening scene it becomes clear that In de Schaduw van de Overwinning exposes a contradictory and ambiguous representation of Dutch resistance that at once denies it consideration as a traditional resistance film. For not only does the resistance group make the foolish mistake of forgetting the ignition device for their bomb—a bomb that is meant to destroy a large quantity of personal documents relating to Dutch citizens and hence of great importance to the German occupiers—they also use injections of a strong sedative to overpower the guards in the building. These guards are ter-

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 203

204 |

rified as the injections are administered; they are held down and injected in the arm, unaware whether or not the shots are lethal. They are then laid on the staircase landing and stripped so that their uniforms can be used by resistance members as disguises. These glimpses of blundering forgetfulness and disturbing sedation in the film’s opening minutes indicate a flawed and somewhat ruthless side to the resistance’s work. This ‘anti-heroic’ representation of resistance in In de Schaduw van de Overwinning reinforces the drive within these 1980s films towards exposing within their narratives some of the most controversial facets of the occupation. The unpleasant injecting tactic is interesting because it is a side to resistance work not yet seen in Dutch film, though at least it appears that the guards are being sedated and not killed. In Pastorale 1943, the character Van Dale was drugged by the SD commander, but even in that progressive film, we would not expect the resistance to make use of such a sinister method. In de Schaduw van de Overwinning takes a further step towards depicting a plateau of moral behaviour so blurred and ambiguous that any clear-cut goed and fout distinctions from earlier films have, it seems, finally been expunged. When resistance woman Hansje eventually brings along the missing ignition device, the group sets the bomb timer and exits the building. The bomb explodes as planned, but though no further reference is made to the bound, drugged, and stripped guards, we are left with a nagging suspicion that they have been left to burn to death when the building goes up in flames. The real focus the film is the choices people are faced with during the war, the differing degrees of resistance, and the various interpretations of collaboration. The risky path of action and violence taken by Peter Van Dijk differs from the equally dangerous (though very different) route of deception taken by David Blumberg with his fabricated Von Spiegel list of Jews who might gain safe passage to Switzerland and therefore escape persecution. Though Blumberg’s choice can be interpreted within the narrative as an intellectual means of resisting, by persistently liaising with the SD occupiers about his list, he is in perennial danger of their finding out the truth that and also risks being labelled as a collaborator. Blumberg is in fact considered as such, though he insists to the resistance that he is not a collaborator and that he is one of them, just employing a different method of resisting.14 That the character of Blumberg was based on a real person, Friedrich Weinreb, a controversial figure in Dutch war history, only increases this ambiguity.15 This remarkable ambiguity is the film’s great strength. Although Van Dijk appears to be a passionate resistance member and their newly appointed leader, he is also a resistance ‘martyr’, placing his calling to carry out resistance tasks above his duties to his wife, children, friends, and lovers. This is markedly different from Blumberg’s happy and harmonious home life with his loving

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

wife Rebecca and their children, whose safety he tries everything he can to preserve by the close of the film. In Van Dijk’s character we can construe implied criticism of the potential for wartime resistance members’ blind, even selfish commitment to a cause. Contrast this with the unwavering commitment to action coexisting with an unyielding familial harmony depicted in De Overval, in which almost everyone was involved in the resistance—on an emotional if not also practical level. At the very end of In de Schaduw van de Overwinning, Van Dijk manages one final act of resistance martyrdom. Having been shot and paralyzed from the waist down, he is hiding out in a deserted apartment when the SD discovers his location. His current lover, Sanne, is shot and killed by SD gunmen outside the building, and Van Dijk manages to crawl on his stomach out the back of the apartment to a nearby empty building and drag himself to the upper floor. Once inside, he unpins a suicide grenade just as his nemesis, SD officer Schwarz, catches up with him. ‘Finally I get to meet you. I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long’, Schwarz tells him in the darkness. He offers Van Dijk his hand in an odd gesture of formality at this tense meeting of hunter and quarry. But it is the live grenade that Van Dijk places firmly in Schwarz’s hand by way of a reply, not his own hand… There is a fundamental though subtle discrepancy between the final outcomes for Van Dijk and Blumberg in the film, though Van Dijk dies and Blumberg survives. Van Dijk knew just before his death that his former lover Hansje was pregnant with his baby. The film’s final image is of Hansje at a street market stall a year later holding a baby, reminding us that Van Dijk was aware that his resistance legacy might continue through his progeny. Although Blumberg’s resistance work was important theoretically in terms of the Jewish lives he might have saved had his fictional Von Spiegel list been successful, in the end it all turns to dust as he sees that all those on his list have either perished in the Dutch transportation camp or have already been moved to Auschwitz. Near the film’s end, a chilling scene depicts in close-up a train at the transit camp being packed full with camp prisoners ready to depart for Poland.16 Familiar, unsettling images and sounds of wooden compartment doors closing, anguished cries, people loaded on wagons, shouted orders, barking guard dogs, steam issuing, and train brakes bracing are prominent in the visuals and soundtrack. Blumberg and his family are also to be transported, but suddenly his regular SD contact, Kohler, beckons to him at the train-side and gives him a choice: ‘You can go to Poland or you can help me. You didn’t think you could escape that easily from me!’ Even though Kohler knows that General von Spiegel does not exist and the fabricated list of Jewish citizens was a ruse, he still wants Blumberg to work with him, give him something his superior will believe. ‘Just make it up—you’re so good at lying’, Kohler tells him. Pointing to Blumberg’s wife and young son being led away from the transport train,

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 205

206 |

Kohler means that the family will be spared the death camps, though Blumberg will be expected to work in some form of camp administration. In another echo of Sophie’s Choice, though different from Mr Korteweg’s hurried decision to lay the dead NSB policeman’s body outside the Steenwijk home in De Aanslag, Blumberg chooses life, but he appears morally and emotionally diminished by this choice he was forced to make. He had to choose for his family, who might now just survive the war…but at what cost? Blumberg thought of his family in a way that Van Dijk, who preferred the honour and valour associated with the resistance cause, did not. Blumberg will now have to work in some unimaginable way in the transport camp that will appear to everyone else to be collaboration, though we know the dilemma he faced in order to save his family. The camera pulls out from a close-up of his face in the scene’s final shot as the train pulls slowly away from its blocks. A whistle sounds with a shrill wail, very prominent in the soundtrack—and so reminiscent of a human scream—as the engine pushes the train on its grim roll towards its ultimate, deathly destination. Blumberg’s face embodies agony and disbelief at the circumstances in which he finds himself. This is not what he expected of his intellectual war work that he was convinced was a form of resistance. Vos, a Dutch man who has chosen the black market and pure profiteering as his means of living through the occupation, is one of the film’s most obvious or overt collaborators, profiting well as he does from black market activities. But in keeping with the film’s shadows of uncertainty and ambiguity across the spectrum of collaboration and resistance, even he is not presented as exaggerated or evil. Vos, whose name, interestingly, translates as fox in English—hinting at a sly, somewhat cunning character—is an oddity, an amusing mercenary. His humour is evident in the scene when he shows Blumberg around his huge, dimly lit warehouse full of the artefacts, furniture, curios, and artworks he has amassed during the occupation. Vos holds up a painting, telling Blumberg ‘A real Van Gogh…yours for twenty thousand guilders.’ He then reaches to the painting behind it, which looks identical. ‘Another genuine one…painted after his death. Two thousand guilders.’ It is an unusual and witty exchange, hinting at the disappearance of private and public artworks during the occupation and at the wartime Dutch art forgery business. Vos is a fixer, someone who will get anything for anyone—at a price. He tells Van Dijk and Blumberg later in the film that he’ll deal with Jews, the resistance—whomever, so long as the price is right. He says he prefers not to deal with the German occupiers, though the justification for this is not an ideological or ethical one, it is purely on the basis that he considers the Germans unreliable in paying their bills. For the time In de Schaduw van de Overwinning was made, Vos represents an acknowledgement of the more practical types of

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

ordinary Dutch people in wartime, profiting from shortages and working in the black market simply as one of the ways of getting through the war. The Dutch middle-aged couple who are willing to ‘sell’ to the SD the whereabouts of a Jewish couple they know are in hiding for the sum of seven and a half guilders per Jew offer the film’s bleakest exposition of collaboration and public behaviour. It is the sheer ordinariness with which they approach the SD desk in the foyer of the headquarters building that makes this snapshot of betrayal all the more chilling. The couple are concerned that furniture and possessions belonging to their neighbours, who were Jewish, have been seized by the SD. But this middle-aged couple’s bicycles were also taken because they had been stored in their neighbours’ shed. They attempt to ‘bargain’ with the SD, to swap information about two Jewish onderduikers they know of, in exchange for their bikes. No, this will not be possible, but they can nevertheless inform on the Jews for the going rate. The man and woman look at each other as though weighing this up, then silently nod their assent to one another, taking away the form the soldier gives them. That this scene of callous yet mundane betrayal is witnessed by David Blumberg, himself a Jew, as he waits seated in the foyer for one of his regular meetings with SD contact Kohler, strengthens its power to shock. Blumberg shakes his head, distraught and unbelieving at the value placed on human life at just a handful of guilders. This powerful scene is a reminder of the ‘reverse myth’ of collaboration and the degree of public involvement in lesser, though still significant forms of collaboration such as the one depicted here—offering information to the SD, or being a member of the NSB.

Zwartboek (2006) Images of resistance and collaboration in Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek from 2006 continue to an extent the movement towards greyness and growing awareness of the darkest facets of the occupation revealed above all in my readings of De Aanslag and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. But they do not move filmic representations of occupation forward by that much. Zwartboek seems not to progress much beyond the plateau of understanding that 1980s films signify. It is as though a point was reached in the decade of the 1980s in which film’s ability to assimilate and reflect Dutch cultural memory on screen arrived at a point of resolution…perhaps even impasse, with forward movements in the 30 years to follow not altering to any appreciable extent the country’s filmic images of war. Zwartboek, set towards the end of the occupation, traces the journey of a Jewish singer, Rachel Stein, whose hiding place in Holland is bombed. After

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 207

208 |

a failed attempt to escape to safety in which all of her family are murdered by the SS, she joins the resistance. Rachel alters her appearance by lightening her hair, infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters with a new identity as singer Ellis de Vries, and begins a relationship with SS officer Ludwig Müntze under orders from the resistance group. In many ways Zwartboek can be viewed as a companion piece to Verhoeven’s Soldaat van Oranje from almost 30 years earlier—with Rachel Stein inhabiting the Erik Lansof role. However, Zwartboek’s characters inhabit a grey zone of moral ambiguity more readily than earlier films. Resistance heroes are murderers and schemers, there are unexpected collaborators, and Rachel’s sexual relationship with SS officer Ludwig Müntze, though contrived at first, develops to become a loving yet contested relationship. Zwartboek also places Jewish experiences of occupation and persecution firmly centre stage: the film’s leading role is a Jewish female. An indication of the admixture of ambiguity in Zwartboek regarding resistance, collaboration, and images of Jewishness comes near the start of the film. Rachel Stein and her parents and brother, together with a group of other Jewish families, seek safe passage via the South of the Netherlands to Belgium on a cargo barge. The man who has organized the journey wishes them good luck but does not step on board. While that should have aroused suspicion, the passengers are not too concerned and the boat sets off. Friendly, intimate chatter ensues and Rachel catches up with her family after a period in hiding. But as darkness falls, a passenger notices the barge has changed direction. At that confused moment, floodlights open up and deafening automatic rifle fire from an SS ship that has sailed right up close sprays profusely across the barge’s human cargo. Typical of director Verhoeven’s tendency towards the visceral, this murder scene of Dutch Jewish citizens is graphic and violent. The soundtrack roars with machine gun bullets thudding into human flesh and with screams of panic and terror. Much blood is shown. Seeing her parents and brother shot and killed right next to her, Rachel makes a split-second decision to dive off the boat and stay as long underwater as she can; by so doing, she becomes the only one to survive the massacre. The shock is a triple shock: not only have we witnessed a stark scene of mass Jewish murder by the SS, it was the Dutch man leading them to the barge who betrayed them. Another Dutch character, Mr. Smaal, whose ‘black book’ of the film’s title listed these Jewish families’ names and wealth assets, also betrayed them. He is the unexpected collaborator, and as such he evidently gave the list of Jewish families and names in his notebook to the SS. Thus Zwartboek shows the chilling ordinariness of collaboration as well as its deadly consequences in this mass killing of Jews on the barge…just when they were trying to escape persecution. I put forward that whilst Zwartboek does reveal more openness about resistance, collaboration, and certainly graphic details of Jewish perse-

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

cution, it really is continuing, not by a great deal, an onward movement set in process by the Dutch war films of the late 1970s and consolidated in films throughout the decade of the 1980s. That plateau of understanding has not really been surpassed in the 30 years following De Aanslag and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning.17 In many ways, the later Dutch war films from the 1980s (and beyond, as seen in Zwartboek) are more honest, depicting blatant informing to the SD, choices and pressures facing people regarding resisting or collaborating, and the often life-altering consequences of such decisions. The later films evince a more vulnerable view of resistance, building on the human flaws evident in images from the late 1970s and continuing to push away from the resistance’s mythologized depictions in earlier films, especially De Overval. De Aanslag from 1986 depicts a hitherto unseen facet of resistance—its disappearance and disintegration by neglect, as this most eulogized and exalted aspect of Dutch war mythology is pushed to the sidelines of social memory. It seems one of the most prominent shifts discerned in these Dutch films about war and occupation across the post-war decades has been in the drawing together of such seeming polar opposites as the Dutch and the Germans, resistance versus collaborators, and heroes against an unfeeling, inhumane enemy. This chronological movement towards a grey zone of more normal, human behaviour displaying, as it does, both strengths and weaknesses, has been evident throughout all four thematic film chapters. What these filmic representations of the war have revealed above all in chapter five is post-war Dutch society’s emerging comprehension of the increasing fallibility of the resistance myth and a corresponding understanding of the human weaknesses, choices, coercion, and widespread ordinariness epitomizing much of the personal and societal experience of occupation.

Resistance and colla b o r ation

| 209

Conclusion

A DUTCH OCCUPATION: RE-WRITING AND RE-IMAGINING THE WAR This book has explored in detail the trajectory of images of the German wartime occupation of the Netherlands in Dutch feature films, with an emphasis on films made between 1962 and 1986. It has revealed the complex, evolving role played by film in Dutch cultural memory and examined how film can embrace and assimilate the communal legacies of war. This was carried out via detailed readings of seven war films, alongside the consideration of a range of other films produced up to 2014. The key films were analysed according to four themes: the enemy, Dutch identity, life under occupation, and resistance and collaboration. Focusing in on ‘snapshots’, scenes, and ‘small moments of material life’ in the films (Kracauer 1997: 303)—alongside the interpretation of the filmic registers of cinematography, soundtrack, editing and spectatorial positioning—we came to identify significant changes over time in the films’ images of war. This was most noticeable in the progression from an early, ‘black-and-white’ response to the occupation, most evident in De Overval from 1962, towards much more complex, nuanced representations from the late 1970s through to the 1980s of the ambiguities and moral choices faced by Dutch citizens during the war. Distinctions between goed (Dutch) and fout (Germans or collaborating Dutch) became markedly less clear-cut in the films from Soldaat van Oranje (1977) onwards. The contrast between occupier and occupied had been at its most potent in De Overval, the scenes of which were replete with instances of representation by comparison—shots of vengeful, unfeeling German occupiers possessing a veneer of civility, followed by brutality, in contrast to the morally upright, conquering, heroic, intelligent, and unflinchingly patriotic Dutch citizens. What is not shown in the films—what I have named representation by omis-

| 211

212 |

sion—became at times more telling than what was actually depicted. The absence of references to Jewish persecution, German friendship bonds, and the deprivations of the Hunger Winter in favour of heroic, unwavering resistance came to define De Overval (the myth of resistance was powerfully at work in this film). We saw that the absence in film of images of the most harrowing aspects of the occupation does not happen in a political or ethical vacuum. It relates to society’s tendency to push the horrors of war aside and play out its fears and anxieties through the filter of cultural texts (here, films) that can also serve a mythologizing function. Brought to the forefront of ‘present-ness’ instead are those pieces of war history deemed the most psychologically palatable, self-serving, and heroic—in other words, what can be coped with at that time. This, essentially, is what cultural coping and the rewriting of history is all about. The chronological gaps in Dutch films about the war, as well as the absence of certain themes from the screen, are another indicator of ‘what is not shown’—in fact, what is entirely missing from film subjects. Soldaat van Oranje had been key to the depiction in film of a developing shared society of occupation in the occupied Netherlands. Dutch families played and interacted alongside German soldiers on the beach, and German paratroopers politely bought milk from a milkcart, even leaving the milkman a tip, indicating the move towards adaptation, co-habitation, and survival alongside the enemy. Blurred boundaries of national identity were also shown in terms of both internalized feelings of patriotism and belonging (and whose side you choose—in Alex’s case, he chose to join an SS tank regiment because of his German mother) but also unclear distinctions of identity and belonging with regard to speech and clothing. This clothing theme is neatly illustrated in the scene in which Dutchman Erik Lanshof passes as a German officer whilst wearing a British naval uniform—evidence of a complex, tripartite blurring of identity. He ‘takes on the mantle’ of the supposed enemy, the Germans, whilst actually wearing the officer’s coat of his British allies. The 1970s films, especially the remarkable Pastorale 1943, showed a more open, human portrayal of flawed resistance, and Soldaat van Oranje illustrated many motivations for collaboration, including coercion, family loyalty, free will, and passive collaboration. Jacques—the ‘passive collaborator’ sitting out the war, passing his law exams, and waiting to see how things will turn out—may be a closer representative of the more normal response to long-term occupation than we might at first think. At the end of Soldaat van Oranje, when only Jacques and Erik are left alive after all their friends have been killed, Jacques tells his friend: ‘We’ll simply start again where we left off five years ago.’ I became aware through my readings of these films that images of occupation in Dutch films from the 1980s had reached what I describe as a plateau of understanding, as though a point had been reached in which film’s ability to

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

assimilate and reflect Dutch cultural memories of the occupation arrived at a point of resolution—an impasse, even. The films from this decade had moved even further towards progressive and yet complex representations of German occupiers, the resistance, collaborators, persecution, and family life until the arc of our trajectory of change seemed to achieve a resting point. In De Aanslag, the kindly desk sergeant, Schulz, was a significant (and until that time unseen) example of genuine compassion from an ‘enemy’ character. He became a catalyst for the compassionate feelings both of young Anton and of Schulz’s own colleagues after Schulz was gravely injured in a British air raid. This same film portrayed the increasing invisibility of the resistance in Dutch post-war society via the poignant character of resistance veteran Cor Takes who ‘during the war…was tortured by the Gestapo and never said a word. Now he sits next to you and he won’t shut up!’ This was a telling moment, spoken to the film’s protagonist Anton by his father-in-law. De Aanslag focused on the overwhelming and lasting psychological damage of war for the Dutch and indicated an urge, both in the film and in Dutch society in the mid-1980s, to unburden the dark secrets of the past, to talk through the traumas of war, and to begin to rebalance the forgetting that had endured for too long—to begin to come to terms with the enduring imprint of occupation, which was to be a lasting one for the Dutch. These were the sentiments both at the heart of De Aanslag and at the heart of this book. In fact, the ten-year period leading to 1986 had witnessed the production of several Dutch war films of significant high quality and production values in terms of script, cinematography, editing, and soundtracks. Included among these are Soldaat van Oranje and Pastorale 1943, together with Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, De Aanslag, and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. The latter is a particularly exceptional and yet underrated film that is little known outside of the Netherlands—perhaps somewhat ‘in the shadow’ of the better-known De Aanslag, itself a compelling film about personal and societal trauma, loss, memory, redemption, and peace. And yet despite this high point in the production of films about the occupation, the progression in depictions of collaboration, resistance, and occupation over the following 30 years (since 1986) have not altered a great deal. This is why I describe this period of the 1980s as a plateau of understanding, which I suggest has subsequently hardly altered at all. Verhoeven’s 2006 film Zwartboek may have inched it forwards slightly by its depiction of a female, Jewish protagonist and its portrayals of a resistance murderer and unexpected collaborator. But films from the 1990s (such as 1992’s De Bunker), together with Het Bombardement (2012) and Oorlogswinter (2008), do not seem to further develop representations of the occupation—if anything, they seem to take a regressive step. The Dutch war films studied in this book offer glimpses of aspects of the

C onclusion

| 213

214 |

occupation that are both heroic and life-affirming—unified resistance, patriotism, familial harmony, and enduring bonds of camaraderie and friendship—or traumatic and destructive, inhabiting the darkest facets of human behaviour and experience—physical and psychological torture, the Holocaust and the betrayal of Dutch Jews, forced or willing collaboration, fractured families, cannibalism, and the bitter deprivations of the Hunger Winter. Across the spectrum of resistance images, De Overval offered the most life-affirming vision. It was infused with a kind of resistance osmosis that permeated every aspect of the resistance group and their missions. But the most intriguing images of occupation encountered through my readings of these films were those that rested in the zone of ordinariness and shades of ambiguity between the extremes of goed and fout, between heroic resistance and demonized occupiers and collaborators—as seen above all in Soldaat van Oranje, Pastorale 1943, and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning. These images are the ones inhabiting the grey and morally intricate area in which most of us live in our daily worlds. This is the world of survival, day-to-day decision-making, routine bureaucracy, bonds of family and friendship, and consideration for others. Yet our ordinary daily lives also encompass human error, pragmatism, selfishness, bigotry (though we might not know or admit the extent of it), and fear. The films do not hold all of the answers, but they are one valuable and compelling cultural means by which to gauge present-day Dutch society’s interpretations of its historical, traumatic pasts. The pasts referred to within the world of the films translate to a succession of pasts. Whether that is the past of occupation from 1940 to 1945 or the past of the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s and beyond or the past from even further back in Dutch history, each becomes temporally bonded to its products of culture, one of the most potent of which in our modern age is film. These pasts also represent moments along the path of Dutch recovery and post-war reconstruction: politically, societally, economically, and, perhaps most profound of all, psychologically, that are subsequently revealed, often unconsciously, in the films from that time. What lies at the heart of this sociology of representation is how a nation’s films re-tell its history. The films analysed in this book form part of a Dutch cultural landscape of memory and of myth, of aspiration and of regret. The films connect to the tapestry of Dutch pasts, layers of histories recreated and remediated in the social memories of generations. These communal memories both extend far into the past of the Dutch Golden Age and project forward to the present-days of the films’ production, the hoped-for nows of acceptance, of remembrance, of accountability, and of transparency. As Anton Steenwijk’s father-in-law tells him in De Aanslag: ‘It seems that it will all bubble up to the surface one day, for everyone...our sickness.’

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

NOTES INTRODUCTION 1

Kracauer (2004) referred here to how German films from 1920 onwards (fictional films rather than documentaries) could be seen as indicators of the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

2

This pervasive myth of the resistance concerns perceived numbers of resistance workers against actual numbers taking part. In Dutch popular imagination, the vast majority of people fought in the resistance, whereas the number officially engaged in resistance activities was small. A ‘reverse myth’ suggested the number of collaborators was far fewer than actual figures. Collaboration is a complex concept, one that is examined more fully together with resistance in chapters one and five.

3

See Richard Howells, Myth of the Titanic (2012: 21, 33). Howells advocates a cultural approach to history in which people’s beliefs about what did or did not happen are addressed as well as the historical facts. He describes retrospective mythogenesis by noting that it was only after the Titanic liner sank that it came to be considered ‘unsinkable’, thus mythologizing it in popular memory after the disaster. A similar process is seen with Dutch society’s mythologizing of wartime events after they occurred.

4

Lagrou describes the intentions of the German invaders regarding the potential for ‘Nazification’ of Western European countries targeted for invasion and occupation.

5 A text-first approach is advocated by Howells, which prioritizes the study of the text of a cultural artefact over its context, though I still acknowledge the importance of context. See Howells (1999: 421-438, in particular, 435).

| 215

6

The seven Dutch war films analysed in detail are all filmed in their indigenous language. Of the commercially available DVDs, only two contain English subtitles (Als Twee Druppels Water and Soldaat van Oranje); the other five exist only in Dutch language versions with no subtitles (not even in Dutch).

7

The exception is De Aanslag, which begins during the final winter of occupation, 1944-1945, after which it traces the protagonist’s journey over a 40-year period as he comes to terms with his memory and the legacy of war. The closing section of Als Twee Druppels Water (1963) is set in the early months of post-liberation, but most of the film takes place during the occupation.

8

The directors for the seven key films analysed are all Dutch except for one. English director Paul Rotha made 1962’s De Overval. As he spoke no Dutch, he worked alongside dialogue director (and Dutch native) Kees Brusse, who also acted in the film.

9

216 |

See the Appendix for a list of top 20 all-time Dutch films by box office admissions as of September 2015. Two of the seven films analysed in detail in this book appear in the list. The list covers film admissions over the period 1945 to 2014.

10

For more on these stages of Dutch post-war recovery, see Van der Heijden (2003: 343-345; chapters 15-17) and Blom (2007: 123-131).

11

See chapter one for more on cultural coping.

12

Paul Fussell explores myth, war, and popular culture with reference to World War One in The Great War and Modern Memory (1977).

13

This may be a particularly British trait (I am British) or perhaps a reflection of certain British attitudes to national sports. The same cannot be said of Dutch sportsmen and women, or American sportspeople who, when interviewed at international sports events, tend to present an attitude of striving to win, expressing disappointment when that does not happen.

CHAPTER 1 1

This is in line with the social constructionist approach to cultural studies and representation. For more on this see page 13.

2

Kracauer referred here to how German films from 1920 onwards (fictional dramatic films rather than documentaries) could be seen as indicators of the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

3

See Barthes, Mythologies (2000). By ‘what-goes-without-saying’, Barthes means the ideological abuse hidden inside the ‘decorative display’ of cultural products and practices—in other words, the accepted codes, what is understood without question to exist (but which is actually an ideological construct).

4

See Howells (1999: 434) for more on ‘self’ and ‘the other’.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

5

For example, US feature films such as United 93 and World Trade Center (both 2006), the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty, many television documentaries, and numerous articles, books, image collections, and memorial websites.

6

The producer of the 2006 film World Trade Center, Michael Shamberg, declared in an interview that families, survivors, and the emergency services consulted by the filmmakers ‘feel strongly it is never too soon to remember the courage and heroism of that day’. The tone of Shamberg’s words reveals his reverential attitude towards the victims and survivors, and a tendency towards mythologizing can be gleaned from the phrases ‘true story’, ‘never too soon’, heroism’, and ‘courage’.

7

For example, keeping one’s head down and trying to survive daily life could be interpreted as ‘passive’ collaboration, as no active resistance is shown. On the other hand, resistance did not always mean taking part in raids or shooting Nazi sympathizers. It could involve listening to illegal radio stations, discussing the war with friends, or even ‘psychological resistance’. This remains a controversial area of Dutch history. See Hirschfeld (1991) and Kossman (2005) for more on this grey area of collaboration and resistance.

8

Howells points out that many decades (now more than 100 years) after the sinking of the Titanic liner there remains a keen public interest in it, as shown in numerous films and books and even a Broadway musical, which indicates the enduring power of modern myth in contemporary popular culture.

9

See Hakkert (2003: 163-178) for more on the precarious situation for Dutch Jews during the war.

10

Howells describes the enduring cultural fascination with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, a fascination outliving its real-life significance as a historical event.

11

In contrast, Belgium, which was more used to defending its borders after its involvement in World War One, had an army twice the size of the Netherlands’ forces, at around 600,000.

12

See De Jong (1970: part 3 May 1940: 260-264; 279-292) about Wilhelmina and the royal family during the occupation.

13

See Anderson, A Forgotten Chapter: Holland Under the Third Reich [Online]. Available at: http://www-lib.usc.edu/~anthonya/war/main.htm (from lecture presented on 17 October 1995); accessed 14 September 2015.

14

For further details on the pre-war instructions for senior civil servants issued by the Dutch government in 1937 on how to behave in the event of an enemy occupation, see Philip Morgan’s forthcoming book: Between bad and worse: Economic and administrative collaboration in Nazi-occupied Northern and Western Europe, 1940-1945 (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). Chapters 3 and 5 deal with the governmental guidelines and their application.

15

The Allies’ political and military drive to reach Berlin first (before the Soviet troops) was a major factor in their failure to liberate the whole of the Netherlands at this late stage in the war.

notes

| 217

16

Anderson (1995).

17

Lagrou cites Gerard Trienekens’ revision of 16,000 deaths, after Louis de Jong’s original 22,000 figure. See Trienekens (1985).

18

The remaining Dutch Jews (about 33,000 people) from the pre-war population of 140,000 survived in hiding, or a small number managed to escape the Netherlands at the start of the war.

19

See Lagrou (2000: 59-77) for a more detailed account of Dutch resistance veterans as ‘troublesome heroes’, both in government post-war policy and in public consciousness.

20

Quote from the Commissie voor Oorlogsgedenktekens (‘Commission for War Monuments’), 15 February 1947, APCM (Archief van het kabinet van de MinisterPresident, Ministerie van Algemene Zaken – ‘Archive of the cabinet of the Prime Minister, Ministry of General Affairs’), The Hague, 351.853, monumenten (‘monuments’). In Lagrou (2000: 72).

218 |

21

The Transport Minister’s full name was Theodorus Stephanus Gerardus Johannes Marie van Schaik, although he was known as Steef van Schaik. However, it is common in the Netherlands to address ministers by their title and surname only.

22

Known since 2010 as the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, it is situated on the Herengracht in Amsterdam and continues to be a source of information about the war in the Netherlands for public interest, educational programmes, and academic research.

23

Howells (2012) talks about the symbolic significance of the Titanic as a modern myth compared to the historical facts of its sinking.

24

See Albers, Baeke, and Zeeman (eds.) (2004: 48-49; 124-125; 304-305) for more on Joris Ivens and the Dutch documentary school.

25

The implication of the effects of landscape, quality of light, and the sea on Dutch cultural life and the national psyche will be further explored in chapter three.

26

The literal English translation of Strijd Zonder Einde is Battle without End.

27

Now known as the Nederlandse Filmacademie after several changes of name since its inception in 1958, the NFA is still based in Amsterdam.

28

Skoop magazine (pronounced ‘Scope’ in English) ran for 30 years from 1963 until 1993.

29

There is no English translation for Spetters. The film concerns the aspirations of amateur dirt bike riders in a small Dutch town. Literally, Spetters translates as ‘arrogant young men’, ‘hunks’, or ‘dropouts’ and is also a word for ‘splashes’ (for example, water or mud splashes).

30

Although its English title is normally Soldier of Orange, Soldaat van Oranje was also released in the US as Soldier of the Queen and originally released in the UK as Survival Run.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

31

Verhoeven’s Hollywood directing career would later include Robocop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Showgirls (1995), Starship Troopers (1997), and Hollow Man (2000).

32

At the time of writing in 2016.

33

Jan de Bont worked, for example, as cinematographer on The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Basic Instinct (1992), and directed Speed (1994), Speed 2 (1997), Twister (1996), and The Haunting (1999). Ate de Jong directed Drop Dead Fred (1991), was associate producer on Enigma (2001) and producer of Left Luggage (1998) and De Ontdekking van de Hemel (The Discovery of Heaven, 2001).

34

Het Bombardement was not well-received critically due mainly to its predominant love-story narrative amidst the Rotterdam bombing of May 1940.

35

See François Stienen in Albers et al. (2004: 81). The Film Fund is financed by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Recreation, and Social Welfare and was instigated also on the initiative of the Nederlandse Bioscoopbond (the Dutch Cinema Union), or NBB. This originated in 1918 and continues to be an important and influential organization contributing a substantial annual grant to the Film Fund.

36

The online database of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Awards (Oscars) shows all eight Dutch winners throughout the Awards’ history. Two are for short documentaries, three are short animations, and the remaining three are for Best Foreign Language Film. See also René van Dam in Albers et al. (2004: 177) for a list of other Academy Award nominations received by Dutch productions, in these and other categories.

37

The issue of whether a cohesive Dutch cinematic identity exists is not the focus of this book; nevertheless it is a pertinent aspect.

38

Schoots refers to only three of the films I examine—De Overval (1962), Als Twee Druppels Water (1963), and Soldaat van Oranje (1977)—though they are not explored in detail.

39

Such is the scarcity of scholarly writing on the specific topic of Dutch war films, with only miscellaneous articles or book chapters and no complete book until this one, that the work of certain scholars, such as Barnouw, Barten, and Schoots tends necessarily to bridge both historical as well as cultural and sociological perspectives.

40

See also Barten (1990: 224, 241-242).

41

The film’s title comes from a radio message from Queen Wilhelmina in which she hoped that the long years of war had ‘not been in vain’ (‘niet tevergeefs’ in Dutch), and hoped for a new and better world. Wilhelmina had in turn taken the phrase from a poem by H.M. van Randwijk.

42

LO-LKP was an alliance between the organization which became the Landelijke Organisatie voor hulp aan Onderduikers, (‘National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding’), or LO, and the Landelijke Knokploegen (‘National Assault

notes

| 219

Group Force’), or LKP—various small resistance assault groups who also raided ration coupons distribution offices and undertook occasional raids to free resistance members from jail. 43

Nevertheless, during this period several documentaries and successful films in other genres were made, such as Fanfare and Dorp aan het Rivier (both 1958), and Het Mes (1961).

44

De Bezetting was transmitted in 21 parts on Dutch television between 1960 and 1965. Louis de Jong, director of RIOD, was the driving force behind this series.

45

Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema’s memoirs were published as Soldaat van Oranje (1987; orig. pub. 1970).

46

Barten’s work dates from 1990, so his comments about further gaps in the production of Dutch war films relate only to the period from 1986 to 1990. He could not know how relatively few Dutch war films would be produced over the following 25-year period.

220 |

47

At the time of writing in 2016.

48

Although three films have been made recently: Süskind and Het Bombardement in 2012, and Oorlogsgeheimen in 2014.

49

Simon Vestdijk had written the source novel Pastorale in 1945 which was published in 1948. There is no English translation for Verstappen’s subsequent film Pastorale 1943; the title simply refers to the resistance activities of a small Dutch town in the rural (‘pastoral’) Betuwe area in Gelderland province in 1943.

50

The resistance group in Pastorale 1943 are part of the LO rather than the LKP— see note 42 above on the difference between the LO and the LKP.

51

Some emphasis on the main character’s natural red hair is understandable, as it forms an important part of the plot. Having dyed her hair black in order to disguise herself as a resistance member, she is subsequently ‘unmasked’ in the film’s denoument when a prison guard notices her hair is a different colour at its roots, her hair is washed by the guards, the dye runs, and her own red hair colour is revealed, condemning Schaft as the sought-after red-haired suspect.

52

Mulisch’s source novel De Aanslag was published in 1982.

53

The present-day of the film is approximately when the novel was published, in 1982, four years before the film was made.

54

At the time of writing in 2016.

55

De Tweeling was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003.

56

Especially the international film career of director Paul Verhoeven.

57

This 100,000 figure is out of a wartime Dutch population of nine million, thus over 1% of the total population.

58

Barnouw also mentions that five of the eighteen Germans convicted in Holland were executed. This figure, and that of executions of Dutch citizens, was not

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

high in comparison to other countries such as Belgium, where 242 people were executed after the war. 59

Barnouw cites Dutch Cinema: Several Necessary Conditions, a radio transmission by the station Voice of the Netherlands, broadcast on 13 April 1946.

60

Up to the time of Barten’s 1990 article, though since 1986 only a further eight Dutch films have been produced with war and occupation as their main theme.

61

Blom describes World War Two as de oorlog, adding the parenthesis (zoals we in Nederland zeggen) (‘as we say in the Netherlands’).

62

For more on the Netherlands’ Napoleonic occupation see Blom and Lamberts eds. (1998) and Jaap ter Haar (1985).

CHAPTER 2 1

Kracauer was referring originally to German feature films from 1920 onwards reflecting the rise to power of Hitler and Nazism.

2

Axis of evil is a term first used by George W. Bush in 2002 to describe the perceived threat that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea posed to Western democracy in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks. According to Bush, these countries supported terrorism and sought to possess weapons of mass destruction. Subsequently, Cuba, Libya, and Syria have been added to that list.

3

Examples of films depicting hidden psychological dangers as well as overt enemies include: The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925), Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972), East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955), That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977), The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940), Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985), Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978), and À bout de Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). Numerous films about warfare contain even clearer delineations between opposing sides—a ‘self’ and ‘the other’ dynamic.

4 The Sicherheitsdienst (or SD) was the security and intelligence service of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the elite Nazi party protection squadron. It was SD officers and henchmen with whom Dutch people had much contact during the occupation, along with the affiliated Gestapo who ran the security police and administered concentration camps. 5

The last Dutch war film had been De Dijk is Dicht, directed in 1950 by Anton Koolhaas.

6

This corresponds with descriptions by Van der Heijden (2003: 343) and Blom

7

Though this book does not explore in detail the assimilation of war and occu-

(2007: 123-131) of a second phase of Dutch post-war recovery. pation in other cultural forms, it is interesting to note just how early some of the themes are dealt with in Dutch literature compared to the medium of film.

notes

| 221

Simon Vestdijk’s novel Pastorale was published in 1948, 30 years before the film appeared, and Vestdijk had in fact written it in 1945. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, written by Theun de Vries in 1956, appeared in film form only in 1981. The reasons behind these temporal discrepancies between film and literature and why literature appears to push the boundaries earlier than film are interesting grounds for further research. 8

The translation of quotations from these Dutch films are my own, as are translated extracts from the written texts in Dutch. Two out of the seven films analysed in detail (Als Twee Druppels Water and Soldaat van Oranje) include English subtitles in their commercial DVD releases; however, I have used my own translations over the subtitles as there are occasional inaccuracies in the subtitling.

9

Classifying the occupiers was discussed at the beginning of this chapter.

10

See Kracauer, ‘National Stereotypes as Hollywood presents them’ (1949) in B. Rosenburg and D. Manning White (1957: 257). Kracauer’s focus is American

222 |

popular films from the 1930s and 1940s, but his arguments are relevant for Dutch society’s expectations of the portrayal of the occupiers and the larger point about films reflecting what society wants them to. 11

Paul Rotha directed documentaries such as The Face of Britain (1935), which revealed him as a filmmaker with strong socialist leanings. He wrote the book The Film Till Now in 1930, which established his intellectual credentials. Rotha made the documentaries The World is Rich (1947) and World without End (1953), both of which won British Film Academy awards, and he was head of the BBC Documentary Unit from 1953 to 1955. De Overval was one of three feature films he made.

12

Rudolf Meyer was a Jewish film producer who had fled his native Germany in 1933 to escape persecution from the Nazis. He produced several notable Dutch feature films, such as Fanfare in 1958 and De Overval in 1962.

13

See later in this chapter for more on German dialogue spoken by German characters and understood by Dutch characters as well as by the films’ audiences, with particular reference to the scene with the German parachutists in Soldaat van Oranje.

14

The use of high-angle shots such as these from Grundmann’s more elevated point of view tends to signify a loss of power and impact for the subject in the frame—in this case, Bakker. The opposite effect is gained by using low-angle shots, filmed from below looking up at the subject (the subject could be a person, a monument, a building), thus rendering it more dominant and powerful.

15

See note 7 of this chapter on the assimilation of war and occupation in literature.

16

Parallels can be drawn with British portrayals of the German enemy in films from the last 70 years, in which a similar fixity in representations of facets of the enemy can be seen when compared with other aspects of the war.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

17 As De Overval concentrates so much on patriotism and resistance, the resistance raid itself (the ‘silent raid’ of the film’s title) will be analysed in more detail in chapters three and five. 18

Als Twee Druppels Water was adapted for the screen by its director, Fons Rademakers, from Dutch author Willem Frederik Hermans’ 1958 novel De donkere kamer van Damocles (The Darkroom of Damocles).

19

The Spitting Image is the film’s translated English title, though the literal translation of Als Twee Druppels Water is ‘like two drops of water’—or, as one would say in English, ‘like two peas in a pod’.

20

As Germany was and remains a close, important economic neighbour of the Netherlands, many Dutch children learn German at school, often in addition to English and French.

21

See Kracauer (2004: 7) for more on this ‘inner life of the nation from which the films emerge’.

22

| 223

The cinematographer was Frenchman Raoul Coutard, who had previously worked with Jean-Luc Godard on À bout de Souffle (1960) and Alphaville (1965), and with François Truffaut on Jules et Jim (1962).

23

This reminds us that literary cultural texts (such as W.F. Hermans’ 1958 source novel for Als Twee Druppels Water) were beginning to erode the traditional goed versus fout notions of the enemy and of resistance and collaboration—often earlier than film.

24

1968 had seen the release of De Vijanden, a Belgian/Dutch co-production directed by Hugo Claus, but not really a Dutch war film about the occupation.

25

More on the interaction between the occupiers and the indigenous Dutch can be found in chapter four.

26 27

Published as Soldaat van Oranje (1987, orig. pub. 1970). Engelandvaarder is not easily translated into English but was the name for Dutch people who escaped or attempted to escape from occupied Europe during World War Two and made the dangerous journey to England, often by sea. The North Sea crossing was even attempted by two Dutchmen in a canoe, a journey they completed in four days. Many went on to join the Allied armed forces, the Dutch government in exile in London, the resistance, or the secret service. Others, like Dutch Jews, were fleeing to avoid persecution and deportation. The exact numbers are difficult to find due to the fragmentary nature of their arrival (with many, varied entry routes attempted) but it is generally agreed that there were around 1,700 Engelandvaarders (of whom 50 were women) in total throughout the war. Not all of them reached England alive. See more on Engelandvaarders in Louis de Jong (1979 Part 9; London; 1st half: 122-123 and 492-495).

28

Before the Tartan Video DVD release (2002), which includes English subtitles.

notes

29

This building is Het Binnenhof in The Hague, the Dutch complex of government and parliamentary buildings, which was appropriated by the German occupiers during the war. Erik has travelled to The Hague, which is not far from Leiden.

30 Vestdijk’s Pastorale was written in 1945 and published in 1948. 31

The Betuwe is situated between the two main rivers, the Rhine and the Waal, in

32

Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging or NSB—the (Dutch) National Socialist Move-

the province of Gelderland. Doornwijk is a fictitious place. ment. 33

Spectacles have been used to powerful effect in many films; think of Robert Walker’s character Bruno Antony in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), who strangles Miriam Haines as her thick spectacles fall to the ground. Her murder is viewed off-kilter and unclear as though from behind the lens of the glasses. Later young Barbara Morton, wearing similarly thick glasses, triggers a dramatic reaction in the murderer Bruno.

224 |

34 In Soldaat van Oranje, for example, Dutch women interacting with German soldiers in the Scheveningen beach scene, and at a party for the Nazi elite later in the film. 35

I address in more detail this intermingling of the Dutch and the Germans as well as feminist implications of filmic depictions of such inter-occupier/occupied relations and the chronological movement in films towards showing a shared society of occupation in chapter four.

36

Consider sexually liberal 1970s Dutch films such as Blue Movie (1970), Wat zien ik (1971), and Turk’s Fruit (1973) with its explicit masturbation and casual sex scenes. It is difficult to imagine an American or British feature film of the same vintage and theme (for example Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far, made in 1977) showing a close-up of a used condom in quite such a matter-of-fact way.

37

The poster is indeed a copy of A Grotesque Old Woman (also known as The Ugly Duchess) painted in 1515 by Flemish painter Quentin Matsys (1466-1530), founder of the Antwerp School.

38 The Ridderzaal (or Knights’ Hall) is the main central building in Het Binnenhof, used for the state opening of parliament, queen’s/king’s speeches, and other official engagements. 39

These eight 1980s films are: Charlotte (1980), Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981), Bastille (1984), De IJssalon (1985), Het Bittere Kruid (1985), Soldaten Zonder Geweren (1985), De Aanslag (1986), and In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986).

40

For example, in Soldaat van Oranje, Jan’s brutal torture contrasted with the Scheveningen beach scene showing ordinary Dutch people and German soldiers interacting or the invading paratroopers politely drinking milk. In Pastorale 1943, there is the psychological torture and drugging of Van Dale versus portrayals of three less typical German characters.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

41

Fons Rademakers had also directed Als Twee Druppels Water in 1963.

42

Mulisch’s novel De Aanslag was published in 1982.

CHAPTER 3 1

My concept of Dutch identity and Dutchness acknowledges the work on identifiers of nationality, belonging, and the use of the ‘-ness’ suffix of both Geertz, writing about ‘Balineseness’ in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973: 448), and Howells, in his examination of ‘Britishness’ in ‘Self Portrait: The Sense of Self in British Documentary Photography’ (2002: 101-18).

2

Wilhelmina was queen of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948, when she abdicated in favour of her daughter, Juliana. Wilhelmina’s reign is the longest to date of any Dutch monarch.

3

Historically, the Dutch have had to ‘tame’ water, disciplining it by the ingenious use of polders, bridges, canals, drainage systems, dikes, and dunes.

4

The ‘Golden Age’ of the Netherlands (known then as the Dutch Republic) was a period between 1600 and 1700 in which it became a centre of excellence in sea trade, culture (especially fine art), politics, and science.

5

To date, although about 27 per cent of the Netherlands lies below sea level, 60 per cent of its population live in these sub-sea level areas. Due to its extreme flatness and open borders, the Netherlands has always been susceptible to attack by land, sea, and air.

6

It is hoped that my being a non-Dutch native brings a more objective perspective to the textual analysis of these Dutch films, allowing an impartial approach without the subjective legacy of a Dutch historical and cultural past.

7

This was discussed at the close of chapter one.

8

The DVD of De Overval used in this research dates from 2003. It was the first commercial release of the film, after the film had been fully restored and conserved by the Amsterdam Film Museum (now EYE Nederland) in 2002 from four heavily damaged original film prints.

9

Apart from slightly higher areas around the Hoge Veluwe near Apeldoorn and in the province of Zuid Limburg.

10

These aspects of the portrayal of women in Dutch war films will be explored fur-

11

This reminds us of the importance of the latent as well as overt content of cul-

ther in chapter four. tural texts. 12

Birdsong is evident in several other Dutch war films including Pastorale 1943, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar, and De Aanslag, tending to function as alarm calls or signals of moods for the films’ human characters but always allied to other signifiers of Dutchness such as tree-lined avenues, sand dunes, and rural farmlands.

notes

| 225

13

The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963, used techniques of manipulating recordings of natural birdsong to produce its stark and sinister soundtrack.

14

According to Schoots (2004: 46).

15

See the section on Soldaat van Orange in chapter two.

16

For further information on the Netherlands’ appeal to Nazi Germany and the plans to Nazify the Netherlands, see Lagrou (2000: 7), Blom (1998: 436-437), and Morgan (2003: 98-99 and 179).

17

It was pointed out in chapter two that the language barrier would have been more problematic had Germany invaded Great Britain, the USA, or another English-speaking nation, as few native people understood or spoke German in comparison to the good level of German comprehension and language skill in the Netherlands.

18

At the time of writing in 2016. See chapter one’s section on Dutch war films for more on the films made since 1986.

226 |

19

Hannie Schaft was executed in the dunes at Bloemendaal, near Haarlem, on 17 April 1945, just two and half weeks before the liberation.

20

About 16,000 people died of starvation during the Hunger Winter, and in May 1945 some 250,000 Dutch citizens were estimated to be suffering from malnutrition-related illnesses.

21

Schindler’s List was directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993.

22

See chapter one, note 51 for why some emphasis on Hannie Schaft’s natural red hair colour is understandable.

23

Noting again a correlation between ‘naturalness’ and Dutch identity.

24

See an illustration of Hobbema’s painting in Rosenberg, Slive, and Ter Kuile (eds.) Dutch Art and Architecture 1600-1800 (1977: 274). For other Dutch landscape and interior paintings, see the same publication, especially 239-274 (landscapes, open skies, far horizons) and 208-216 (interiors, ‘through’ doorways inside the painting, artists Pieter de Hooch and Jan Vermeer), and the book Vermeer by Roberta D’Adda (2005).

25

See D’Adda (2005: 139) for a more detailed description of this painting.

26

See Rosenberg, Slive, and Ter Kuile (1977: 214).

CHAPTER 4 1

The assimilation of occupation and war in Dutch literature tends to be dealt with earlier (in some cases, considerably earlier) than in film, suggesting that literature is not subject to such degrees of ‘war weariness’ as film. Though Simon Vestdijk’s novel Pastorale was published in 1948, the film was not made until 1978. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar written by Theun de Vries in 1956 appeared in film only in 1981.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

2

There had been a gap of over a decade in Dutch feature films about the war before De Overval appeared, and there would be a further fourteen-year gap between Als Twee Druppels Water in 1963 and Soldaat van Oranje.

3

Original Dutch quote: ‘Nederlands speelfilm De Overval waardig document van het verzet. Juist omdat hij zo reëel is’, headline from Nederlands Hervormde Courant, 21 December 1962.

4

Original Dutch quote: ‘Friese verzetsdaad herleeft in film.’ Headline from Trouw, 4 October 1962.

5

Original Dutch quote: ‘De film is herbelevenis van hun werkelijkheid.’ Headline from Eindhoven newspaper Philips Koerier, 23 March 1963.

6

It is acknowledged that the interpretive, textual analysis I use in this book, applying socio-cultural criteria, requires hindsight and, ideally, a degree of objectivity, to arrive at these understandings.

7

The title of the 1958 novel on which the film is based, W.F. Hermans’ De donkere kamer van Damocles (The Darkroom of Damocles), alludes to Ducker’s photographic darkroom, the photographic evidence he is unable to produce at key moments, and a play on ‘The Sword of Damocles’ myth.

8

In Hermans’ original novel, Ria, the older cousin, sexually abuses Ducker as a boy when he moves in with them after his mother kills his father.

9

This is another visual reminder of the legacy in film of Dutch interior and landscape painting: looking ‘through a doorway’ to the scene beyond.

10 11

Michael Powell made Peeping Tom in 1960. For example, ‘thriller van het verzet’ (‘thriller about the resistance’), from a headline in the Nieuwe Haagsche Courant, 21 February 1963.

12

Original Dutch quote: ‘Film lijkt op werkelijkheid’ (‘The film resembles reality’), headline in Het Vrije Volk, 16 March 1963.

13

Original Dutch quote: ‘Moedige “film noir” van Europese allure,’ De Volkskrant headline, 21 February 1963.

14

Remembering too that literature (such as Hermans’ 1958 source novel for this film) often broached some of the more difficult aspects of the occupation earlier than film.

15

Though Kracauer was writing about German feature films from the late 1920s and 1930s, his writing has relevance for modern analysis.

16

The issue of Dutch people working for the SD, whether by choice or coercion, is

17

Wim Verstappen directed Blue Movie in 1970, and Paul Verhoeven made Wat

examined further in chapter five. Zien Ik? in 1971 and Turks Fruit in 1973. 18

The fact that five out of seven of the friends are killed during the film (Jan, Nico, Guus, Alex, and Robby) has some bearing on this alteration in the film’s tone.

19

Jan is executed in the rough sand dune area called the Waalsdorpervlakte, a couple of kilometres from the beach at Scheveningen, near The Hague—the beach

notes

| 227

on which German soldiers and Dutch citizens intermingled earlier in the film. The shooting by the SD of Dutch prisoners, many of them resistance members, occurred here and in other dune areas along the Northern Dutch coast. Several hundred were murdered between 1940 and 1945. After the war, Dutch NSB leader Anton Mussert and other war criminals were executed at the Waalsdorpervlakte. Today, the area is a national war monument to the resistance. 20 The Boy’s Own Paper was a British adventure story magazine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries aimed at young boys. Storylines often included daring and heroic elements. There were several other Boy’s Own titles created in the USA and Canada. 21

It also reminds us that literature often deals with the darker issues of occupation earlier than film. Simon Vestdijk’s source novel Pastorale was written in 1945 and published in 1948—30 years before the film appeared.

228 |

22

Ettore Scola directed Una Giornata Particolare in 1977.

23

Hannie is killed in the dunes near Bloemendaal. During the occupation several hundred resistance fighters were executed by shooting and buried in dune areas including Bloemendaal and Waalsdorpervlakte. The real-life Hannie Schaft was one of the very few female resistance fighters executed by the occupiers during the war.

24

See the section in chapter one on post-war considerations for more on this imprint of occupation.

25

Becoming an anaesthetist is an interesting choice of profession for Anton. I interpret that anaesthesiology symbolizes his wish to ‘blank out’ the events of his past and could also relate to a desire to take away other people’s pain…as well as numb his own painful memories. This links to the idea of consciousness, which, for Anton, means a literal consciousness or unconsciousness, signifying either awareness…or a blocking out of reality.

26

This peace march in De Aanslag is an amalgam of two real Dutch anti-war demonstrations: the Amsterdam peace march of 21 November 1981 in which around half a million Dutch people took part, and one in The Hague in 1983. Harry Mulisch, author of the 1982 source novel, must have been influenced by the Amsterdam march, a very significant socio-political event in the Netherlands.

27 In Sophie’s Choice (directed by Alan J. Pakula in 1982), Sophie is forced by an Auschwitz guard to choose either her son or daughter to be saved whilst the other will be sent to the gas chambers. 28

The shots of Van Dijk’s home recall the perspective and open doorways to other rooms captured in paintings by Pieter de Hooch—see the last section of chapter three on the legacy of the Dutch landscape in painting and film.

29

Het Bittere Kruid directed by Kees van Oostrum, and Dimitri Frenkel Frank’s Het IJssalon, both from 1985, were Dutch films involving Jewish families, although neither film focused in this detail on Jewish ritual or religious life.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

30

Cohen Katz’s fate is not known, though we can guess it is not positive. Johan Schults later asks his brother August if he can help arrange Cohen’s release from prison, but August cannot, or will not, do anything further to help.

31

This might well be Westerbork transit camp in the north-eastern Dutch province of Drenthe, where trains departed directly for extermination camps in Nazioccupied Poland.

CHAPTER 5 1

The Netherlands had one of the highest rates of collaboration of any occupied country.

2

By ‘what-goes-without-saying’, Barthes means accepted societal codes, understood without question to exist, but which actually are ideological constructs.

3

The retrospective aspect of societal and cultural mythologizing is key, as myths about the occupation, such as the myth of resistance, were created mainly after the war.

4

See also Lagrou (2000: 59-77) for a fuller account of the treatment of Dutch resistance veterans, both in governmental post-war policy and in public consciousness.

5

For more on the Europe-wide reaction to resistance veterans, see Lagrou (2000: 64; 19-78).

6

This focusing on the future echoes Van der Heijden and Blom’s descriptions of the second phase of Dutch post-war recovery (Van der Heijden 2003: 343; Blom 2007: 125-126).

7 In Als Twee Druppels Water, Turlings the young doctor is a member of the NSB and is the film’s only overt collaborator. Protagonist Ducker is accused by the post-war Dutch authorities of collaborating, although he thought he was carrying out positive resistance work for his doppelganger, Dorbeck. This presents a much more complex depiction of collaboration and resistance than might be expected in 1963. Although it fits some traditional views of the enemy and Dutchness, Als Twee Druppels Water presents a skewed and unorthodox view of relationships, resistance, and collaboration, appearing ‘out of time’ with current thinking about the war. 8

Swinnen asserts that the film’s characters seem to act like ‘templates’ for wartime roles—though there is a deeper level at play, expressing ‘the complexity of the fabric of Dutch society at the time’ (Swinnen 2004: 144).

9

This contrasts with the collaborators from the early 1960s films—Foss and Koopman in De Overval and Turlings in Als Twee Druppels Water, whose motivations remained unknown.

notes

| 229

10

This is the first time a Dutch film openly depicts the threat of Jewish persecution and refers to a concentration camp in relation to the likely perilous outcome for a Jewish character. Als Twee Druppels Water had included a brief reference to a concentration camp in its closing scenes, though not with any Jewish connection. This mention of the camp comes as Ducker’s formerly rancorous uncle, Frans, is revealed after the liberation to be a traumatized, dementing, wheelchair-bound old man due to his (not elaborated upon) experiences in a German concentration camp.

11

This contemporary ‘storytelling’ opening narration in Pastorale 1943 provides an interesting contrast to the beginning of Soldaat van Oranje, where 1940s-style newsreel seamlessly mixes archive with new footage, accompanied by an authentic-sounding wartime Dutch newsreader’s voiceover.

12

At the time of writing in 2016.

13

Anton’s father’s words in De Aanslag shortly before the traumatic events of January 1945 are very apposite, as throughout his adult life, Anton continually does not understand his past. Much of what happened that traumatic night is a mystery, and it is only once he gathers new information from chance meetings with people from that time that Anton starts to piece together fractured memories and ‘know his past’. By so doing, he makes sense of the present and the past. This has resonance for Dutch society at the time De Aanslag was made (1986), which was coming to terms with ‘what really happened’ during the war years— or their interpretation of it.

14

An interesting etymological aside is that Spiegel means mirror in both Dutch and German—suggestive of the fabricated general Von Spiegel’s being Blumberg himself, or a ‘mirror’ of himself.

15

In de Schaduw van de Overwinning is a fictional film, though the two main characters were based on actual persons. Peter van Dijk was based on resistance fighter and sculptor Gerrit van der Veen, and the source for David Blumberg was Jewish economist and writer Friedrich Weinreb, who supposedly tried to save Dutch Jews from the concentration camps by inventing ‘emigration lists’. Weinreb was convicted of collaboration after the war but was later pardoned, yet there are many who consider him guilty of fraud and collaboration. The long-standing post-war controversy over whether he did or did not really collaborate became known in the Netherlands as the ‘Weinreb Affaire’.

16

This is likely to be Westerbork transit camp in the north-eastern Dutch province of Drenthe.

17

At the time of writing in 2016.

FILMOGRAPHY De Aanslag (The Assault, Fons Rademakers, 1986) À bout de Souffle (Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) Alicia (Wim Verstappen, 1975) Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) Alleman (Everyman, Bert Haanstra, 1963) Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) Als Twee Druppels Water (The Spitting Image, Fons Rademakers, 1963) Antonia (Antonia’s Line, Marleen Gorris, 1995) Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992) Bastille (Rudolph van den Berg, 1984) The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) Bezet Gebied (Occupied Territory, Frans Dupont, 1946) De Bezetting (The Occupation, Dutch television documentary series, historical consultant Louis de Jong, director Rob Swanenburg, 1960 to 1965) The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) Het Bittere Kruid (Bitter Sweet, Kees van Oostrom, 1985) Blue Movie (Wim Verstappen, 1970) Het Bombardement (The Bombing, Ate de Jong, 2012) Brandende Liefde (Burning Love, Ate de Jong, 1983) A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977) De Brug (The Bridge, Joris Ivens, 1928) De Bunker (The Bunker, Gerard Souteman, 1992) Le Chagrin et La Pitié (The Sorrow and The Pity, Marcel Ophuls, 1969) Charlotte (Frans Weisz, 1980) The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978) Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972) De Dijk is Dicht (The Dike is Sealed, Anton Koolhaas, 1950)

| 231

Dokter Pulder Zaait Papavers (When the Poppies Bloom Again, Bert Haanstra, 1975) Dorp aan het rivier (Village on the River, Fons Rademakers, 1958) Drop Dead Fred (Ate de Jong, 1991) East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955) Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapur, 1998) Enigma (Michael Apted, 2001) The Face of Britain (Paul Rotha, 1935) Fanfare (Bert Haastra, 1958) Frank en Eva (Living Apart Together, Pim de la Parra, 1973) Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) Una Giornata Particolare (A Special Day, Ettore Scola 1977) Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000) Glas (Glass, Bert Haanstra, 1958) The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)

232 |

The Haunting (Jan de Bont, 1999) Hollow Man (Paul Verhoeven, 2000) The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990) De IJssalon (The Ice-Cream Parlour, or Private Resistance, Dimitri Frenkel Frank, 1985) In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (In the Shadow of Victory, Ate de Jong, 1986) Indonesia Calling (Joris Ivens, 1946) Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) Karakter (Character, Mike van Diem, 1996) Keetje Tippel (Cathy Tippel, Paul Verhoeven, 1975) Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, 1998) LO-LKP (Max de Haas, 1949) Max Havelaar (Fons Rademakers, 1976) Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (The Girl with the Red Hair, Ben Verbong 1981) Het Mes (The Knife, Fons Rademakers, 1961) Niet Tevergeefs (But Not in Vain, Edmond Gréville, 1948) Nieuwe Gronden (New Earth, Joris Ivens 1934) De Ontdekking van de Hemel (The Discovery of Heaven, Jeroen Krabbé, 2001) Oorlogsgeheimen (Secrets of War, Dennis Bots, 2014) Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime, Martin Koolhoven, 2008) De Overval (The Silent Raid, Paul Rotha and Kees Brusse, 1962) Pastorale 1943 (Wim Verstappen, 1978) Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985) Regen (Rain, Joris Ivens, 1929) Rembrandt, schilder van de mens (Rembrandt, painter of men, Bert Haanstra, 1957) Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987) Rotterdam-Europoort (Joris Ivens, 1965)

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998) Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) The Searchers (John Ford, 1956) Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995) Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange, Paul Verhoeven, 1977) Soldaten zonder Geweren (Soldiers without Guns, Kees Hin, 1985) Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982) Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994) Speed 2 (Jan de Bont, 1997) Spetters (Paul Verhoeven, 1980) Spiegel van Holland (Mirror of Holland, Bert Haanstra 1951) Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) De Stem van het Water (The Voice of the Water, Bert Haanstra, 1966) Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) Strijd zonder einde (The Rival World or Battle without End, Bert Haanstra 1955) Süskind (Rudolf van den Berg, 2012) That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Buñuel, 1977) Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990) Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight, Paul Verhoeven, 1973) De Tweeling (Twin Sisters, Ben Sombogaart, 2002) Twee Vrouwen (Two Women, George Sluizer, 1978) Twister (Jan de Bont, 1996) United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006) De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man, Paul Verhoeven, 1983) De Vijanden (The Enemies, Hugo Claus, 1968) Een Vlucht Regenwulpen (A Flight of Rainbirds, Ate de Jong, 1981) Wan Pipel (One People, Pim de la Parra, 1976) Wat Zien Ik? (Business is Business, Paul Verhoeven, 1971) The World is Rich (Paul Rotha, 1947) World Trade Center (Oliver Stone, 2006) World without End (Paul Rotha, 1953) Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012) Zes Jaren (Six Years, Henry M. Josephson and Charles Huguenot van der Linden, 1946) De Zondagsjongen (The Sunday Boy, Pieter Verhoeff, 1991) Zoo (Bert Haanstra, 1962) Zulu (Cy Enfield, 1963) Zwartboek (Black Book, Paul Verhoeven, 2006)

filmog r aph y

| 233

BIBLIOGRAPHY b o o k s a n d j o u r n a l a rt i c l e s

Abrahams, Anna, Mariska Graveland, Erwin Van’t Hart, and Peter Van Hoof (eds.), MM2: Experimentale film in Nederland sinds 1960 (MM2: Experimental film in the Netherlands since 1960) (Amsterdam: de Balie/Filmbank, 2004). Albers, Rommy, Jan Baeke, and Rob Zeeman (eds.), Film in Nederland (Film in the Netherlands) (Amsterdam and Gent: Ludion and Filmmuseum Amsterdam, 2004). Anderson, Anthony E., A Forgotten Chapter: Holland Under the Third Reich [Online]. At: http://www-lib.usc.edu/~anthonya/war/main.htm (from lecture presented October 17, 1995), accessed 14 September 2015. Anon., Kroniek Van De Twintigste Eeuw (Chronicle of the Twentieth Century) (Amsterdam: Agon (Dutch Edition), 1989). Bakker, Kees, Joris Ivens and the Documentary Context (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999). Bal, Mieke, A Mieke Bal Reader (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006). Bal, Mieke, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer (eds.), Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present (Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1999). Barnouw, David, De Bezetting in een Notendop (The Occupation in a Nutshell) (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2005). Barnouw, David, ‘Holland: The Second World War and the Image of Occupation. With a comparison of Britain’, Filmhistoria Vol. 3, no. 1-2 (1993): 49-54 (proceedings from the International Conference on War, Film and Society, Barcelona, 12-15 February 1992). Barnouw, David, ‘The Image of Occupation’ in Occupation, Collaboration and Resistance in Dutch Film (Utrecht, The Netherlands 21-24 September 1986: Holland Film Promotion, Circle of Dutch Film Journalists (KNF), 1986).

| 235

Barten, Egbert, Toenemende vrijheid. De vewerking van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in de Nedelandse speelfilm (Growing freedom. The assimilation of World War Two in Dutch feature films) in Dick Schram and Cor Geljon, Overal sporen. De verwerking van de Tweede Wereldoorlod in literatuur en kunst (Traces everywhere. The assimiliation of World War Two in literature and art) (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1990). Barthes, Roland, Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath (London: Fontana Press, 1977). Barthes, Roland, Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers (London: Vintage, 2000). Barthes, Roland, The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art and Representation, translated by Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991). Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations, translated by Harry Zorn (London: Pimlico (orig. pub in German, 1955), 1999). Benjamin, Walter, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, translated by John Osborne

236 |

(London: Verso (orig. pub in German, 1963), 1977). Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1988). Bernink, Mieke, Fons Rademakers - Scènes uit leven en werk (Fons Rademakers - Scenes from his life and work) (Abcoude: Uitgeverij Uniepers, 2003). Bertina, B.J., De zaal loopt leeg: de Nederlandse speelfilm na 1940 (The cinema halls are emptying: Dutch feature films after 1940) (Amsterdam: Stichting IVIO, 1970). Bessel, Richard and Dirk Schumann (eds.) Life after Death. Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe during the 1940s and 1950s (Cambridge: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 2003). Bishoff, Ruud, Hollywood in Holland: de geschiedenis van de Filmfabriek Hollandia 19121923 (Hollywood in the Netherlands: the history of the Hollandia Film Factory 1912-1923) (Amsterdam: Thoth, 1988). Blom, Ivo, Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003). Blom, J.C.H., Crisis, Bezetting en Herstel: Tien Studies over Nederland 1930-1950 (Crisis, Occupation and Recovery: Ten Studies on the Netherlands 1930-1950) (The Hague: Universtaire Pers Rotterdam, 1989). Blom, J.C.H. and E. Lamberts (eds.), History of the Low Countries (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998). Blom, J.C.H., In de Ban van Goed en Fout (Preoccupied by Right and Wrong) (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007). Bovenkerk, Frank, ‘The other side of the Anne Frank story: The Dutch role in the persecution of the Jews in World War Two’, Crime, Law and Social Change 34 (2000): 237-258. Brinks, Jan Herman, ‘The Dutch, the Germans and the Jews’, History Today 49, no. 6 (1999): 17-23.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Cowie, Peter, Dutch Cinema (London: Tantivy Press, 1979). D’Adda, Roberta, Vermeer (New York: Rizzoli International Publications Inc., 2005). Dankers, J. and J. Verheul, Bezet Gebied, Dag In Dag Uit (Occupied Land, Day In Day Out) (Utrecht and Antwerp: Uitgeverij Het Spectrum, 1985). Dawidowicz, Lucy, The War against the Jews 1933-45 (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975). De Jong, Louis, ‘Help to People in Hiding’, Delta: A review of Arts, Life and Thought in the Netherlands 8, no. 1 (Spring 1965): 37-79. De Jong, Louis, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (The Kingdom of the Netherlands during the Second World War), 12 vols. (Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 1969-1988). De Keizer, Madelon (ed), ‘Een dure verplichting en een kostelijk voorrecht’ - Dr. L. de Jong en zijn Geschiedwerk (‘A costly obligation and a delightful privilege’ - Dr. L. de Jong and his Historical Work) (’s-Gravenhage: SDU Uitgeverij Koninginnegracht, 1995). De Vries, Theun, Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (The Girl with the Red Hair) (Amster-

| 237

dam: Em. Querido’s Uitgeverij (orig. pub. 1956), 2005). Dibbets, Karel, Sprekende films: de komst van de geluidsfilm in Nederland, 1928-1933 (Talking pictures: the introduction of sound films in the Netherlands, 1928-1933) (Amsterdam: Otto Cramwinckel, 1993). Eagleton, Terry, The Idea of Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000). Elsaesser, Thomas, European Cinema (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005). Frank, Anne, Het Achterhuis (The Diary of Anne Frank) (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2008). Frank, Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank, translated by B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday (London: Pan Books (orig. pub. Holland: Contact Amsterdam, 1947), 1981). Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1977). Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). Haanstra, Bert, Het bewogen oog (The moving eye) (Utrecht: Westers, 1983). Hakkert, Adriaan, Wel Vergeven, Niet Vergeten: Geschiedenis van Nederland dedurende de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Forgiven, but not Forgotten: the History of the Netherlands during World War Two) (Soesterberg: Uitgeverij Aspekt, 2003). Hall, Stuart, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage, 1997). Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Erik, Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier of Orange) (Utrecht: Het Spectrum (orig. pub. 1970), 1987). Hermans, Willem Frederik, De donkere kamer van Damocles (The Darkroom of Damocles) (Amsterdam: G.A. Van Oorschot (orig. pub. 1958), 1981). Hirschfeld, Gerhard, Bezetting En Collaboratie: Nederland Tijdens De Oorlogsjaren 19401945 (Occupation and Collaboration: The Netherlands in the War Years 19401945), translated from the orig. German by Piet Jaarsma (Haarlem: H.J.W. Becht (orig. pub. in German 1984), 1991).

b i b liog r aph y

Hjort, Mette and Scott Mackenzie (eds.), Cinema and Nation (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Hofstede, Bart, Nederlanse cinema wereldwijd - De internationake positie van de Nederlandse film (Dutch Cinema Worldwide - The International Position of the Dutch Film) (Amsterdam: Boekmanstudies, 2000). Howells, Richard, ‘Atlantic Crossings: Nation, Class and Identity in Titanic (1953) and A Night to Remember (1958)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 19, no. 4 (1999): 421-38. Howells, Richard, Myth of the Titanic (Centenary edition, Palgrave Macmillan (orig. pub. London: Macmillan and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 2012). Howells, Richard, ‘Self Portrait: The Sense of Self in British Documentary Photography’, National Identities 4, no. 2 (2002): 101-18. Howells, Richard and Robert W. Matson (eds.), Using Visual Evidence (Maidenhead and New York: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill, 2009).

238 |

Howells, Richard, Visual Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003). Kossman, E.H., De Lage Landen: Twee Eeuwen Nederland en Belgie Deel II - 1914-1980 (The Low Countries: Two Centuries of the Netherlands and Belgium Part Two 1914-1980) (Amsterdam: Olympus (orig. pub. 1978), 2005). Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (Oxford: Princeton University Press, revised and expanded edition (orig. pub. 1947), 2004). Kracauer, Siegfried, ‘National Stereotypes as Hollywood presents them’ (1949) in B. Rosenburg and D. Manning White, Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America (Illinois: The Free Press, 1957). Kracauer, Siegfried, The Mass Ornament, translated by Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995). Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Princeton: Princeton University Press (orig. pub. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 1997). Lagrou, Pieter, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation. Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Lagrou, Pieter, ‘The Politics of Memory. Resistance as a Collective Myth in Post-war France, Belgium and the Netherlands, 1945-65’, European Review 11 (2003): 527549. Mathijs, Ernest (ed), The Cinema of the Low Countries (London: Wallflower Press, 2004). Menger, Truus, Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever (Amsterdam: Printscript BV, 1982). Minco, Marga, Het Bittere Kruid (Bitter Sweet) (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker (orig. pub. 1957), 2004). Morgan, David, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images (London: University of California Press, 1998).

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Morgan, Philip, Between bad and worse: Economic and administrative collaboration in Nazi-occupied Northern and Western Europe, 1940-1945 (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Morgan, Philip, Fascism in Europe 1919-1945 (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). Moore, Bob, ‘‘Goed en Fout’ or ‘Grijs Verleden’? Competing perspectives on the history of the Netherlands under German Occupation 1940-1945’, Dutch Crossing: A Journal of Low Countries Studies 27, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 155-168. Moore, Bob (ed), Resistance in Western Europe (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000). Moore, Bob, Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands 1940-1945 (London: Arnold, 1997). Mulisch, Harry, De Aanslag (The Assault) (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1982). Ribbens, Kees, Een eigentijds verleden: Alledaagse historische cultuur in Nederland 19452000 (A contemporary past: Everyday historical culture in the Netherlands 19452000) (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002). Rosenberg, Jakob, Seymour Slive, and E.H. Ter Kuile (eds.), Dutch Art and Architecture 1600-1800 (Middlesex and New York: Penguin Books, 1977). Saxton, Libby, Haunted Images: Film, Ethics, Testimony and the Holocaust (London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2008). Schoots, Hans, Van Fanfare tot Spetters: Een Cultuurgeschiedenis van de jaren zestig en zeventig (From Fanfare to Spetters: A cultural history of the 60s and 70s) (Bas Lubberhuizen, 2004). Schram, Dick and Cor Geljon, Overal sporen. De verwerking van de Tweede Wereldoorlod in literatuur en kunst (Traces everywhere. The assimiliation of World War Two in literature and art) (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1990). Sorlin, Pierre, European Cinemas European Societies 1939-1990 (London: Routledge, 1991). Stienen, François, ‘De Overval (1962)’ and ‘Goed of Fout?’ (‘Right or Wrong?’), in Albers, Rommy, Jan Baeke, and Rob Zeeman (eds.), Film in Nederland (Film in the Netherlands) (Amsterdam and Gent: Ludion and Filmmuseum Amsterdam, 2004). Suleiman, Susan Rubin, Crises of Memory and the Second World War (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Cambridge University Press (orig. pub. 2006), 2008). Swinnen, Johan, ‘Soldaat van Oranje’ chapter, in Mathijs, Ernest (ed), The Cinema of the Low Countries (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), pp. 141-148. Taylor, Jolanda V., A Family Occupation: Children of the War and the Memory of World War Two in Dutch Literature of the 1980s (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997). Ter Haar, Jaap, Geschiedenis van de Lage Landen (History of the Low Countries) (Weesp: Fibula-van Dishoeck, 1985). Trienekens, Gerard, Tussen ons volk en de honger. De voedselvoorziening, 1940-1945 (Between our people and starvation. Food supply, 1940-1945) (Utrecht, 1985).

b i b liog r aph y

| 239

Van den Berg, J.Th.J., M.C. Brands, G. Hirschfeld, and E.J.H. Schrage, Het Belang van de Tweede Wereldoorlog (The Importance of the Second World War) (Den Haag: SDU Uitgevers, 1997). Van der Heijden, Chris, Grijs Verleden (A Distant, or Grey, Past) (Amsterdam: Olympus, 2003). Van der Veen, Harm, Westerbork 1939-1945: Het Verhaal van Vluchtelingenkamp en Durchgangslager Westerbork (Westerbork 1939-1945: The Story of the Refugee Camp and Transport Camp Westerbork) (Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork (Westerbork Camp Remembrance Centre), 2003). Van Galen Last, Dick, ‘The Netherlands’ chapter, in Moore, Bob (ed), Resistance in Western Europe (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), pp. 189-221. Van Miert, Jan, Oorlog en Bezetting (War and Occupation) (Utrecht/Antwerp: Kosmos Z & K Uitgevers, 1994). Vande Winkel, Roel and Leen Engelen (eds.), Perspectives on European Film and History

240 |

(Gent: Academia Press, 2007). Van Vree, Frank, In de schaduw van Auschwitz. Herinneringen, beelden, geschiedenis (In the shadow of Auschwitz. Memories, images, history) (Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij, 1995). Vestdijk, Simon, Pastorale (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij de Arbeiderspers (orig. pub. 1948), 1977).

n e w s pa p e r a rt i c l e s a n d f i l m r e v i e w s

Dutch articles on the seven war films analysed in detail in this book (films and articles listed chronologically): De Overval (1962) Trouw, ‘Friese verzetsdaad herleeft in film’ (‘Friesian resistance action brought to life on film’), 4 October 1962. Algemeen Dagblad. ‘De Overval volbloed film over het verzet’ (‘The Silent Raid is a fullblooded film about the resistance’), 21 December 1962. De Telegraaf, ‘De Overval is goed’ (‘The Silent Raid is good’), 21 December 1962. Friesch Dagblad, ‘De Overval; verfilmd monument voor de achste december 1944’ (‘The Silent Raid; filmic memorial of 8 December 1944’), 21 December 1962. Het Vrije Volk, ‘Enorm enthousiasme voor film De Overval’ (‘Tremendous enthusiasm for the film The Silent Raid’), 21 December 1962. Nederlands Hervormde Courant, ‘Nederlands speelfilm De Overval waardig document van het verzet…juist omdat hij zo reëel is …’ (‘Dutch film The Silent Raid is a worthy document of the resistance…precisely because it is so true’), 21 December 1962.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

Trouw, ‘Film is bijna even goed als de echte overval’ (‘The film is almost as good as the real raid’), 22 December 1962. Philips Koerier, ‘De film is herbelevenis van hun werkelijkheid’ (‘The film re-experiences their reality’), 23 March 1963. De Telegraaf, ‘De Overval, verhaal over Nederlandse helden’ (‘The Silent Raid, a story about Dutch heroes’), 16 April 1975. Als Twee Druppels Water (1963) Algemeen Dagblad, ‘Nederlandse verzetsfilm, toproman W.F. Hermans naar celluloid van Rademakers’ (‘Dutch resistance film, great novel by W.F. Hermans translated into film by Rademakers’), 26 July 1962. De Telegraaf, ‘Fons Rademakers greep heel hoog. “Als twee druppels water” een speelfilm met allure’ (‘Fons Rademakers aimed high. The Spitting Image is a movie with style’), 21 February 1963. De Volkskrant, ‘Moedige “film noir” van Europese allure’ (‘Courageous “film noir” with an imposing, European style’), 21 February 1963. Nieuwe Hervormde Courant, ‘Als Twee Druppels Water – thriller van het verzet’ (‘The Spitting Image - thriller about the resistance’), 21 February 1963. Het Vrije Volk, ‘Film lijkt op de werkelijkheid’ (‘Film resembles the reality’), 16 March 1963. De Volkskrant, ‘Film Rademakers weer in roulatie’ (‘Rademakers film back in circulation’), 19 August 2003. Het Parool, ‘Misschien wel de beste Nederlandse film’ (‘Possibly the best Dutch film ever’), 19 September 2003. Soldaat van Oranje (1977) Leidse Dagblad, ‘Paul Verhoeven denkt aan miljoenenproject, maar … “Soldaat van Oranje” zal geen hoera-film worden’ (‘Paul Verhoeven is thinking about a million dollar project, but…“Soldier of Orange” will be no self-congratulatory film’), 8 August 1975. Het Vrije Volk, ‘“Soldaat van Oranje” versterkt ons saamhorigheidsgevoel’ (“Soldier of Orange” reinforces our feelings of solidarity), 1 September 1976. Het Vaderland, ‘Soldaat van Oranje blijft steken in rozige oppervlakigheid’ (‘Soldier of Orange remains stuck in rose-tinted superficiality’), 22 September 1976. Algemeen Dagblad, ‘Duurste film ooit in Nederland gemaakt krijgt ook Engelse versie. Soldaat van 5 miljoen’ (‘The most expensive Dutch movie ever made is getting an English version. Soldier of 5 million’), 23 September 1976. De Volkskrant, ‘Boeiend studenten avontuur uit de oorlogsjaren’ (‘Enthralling student adventure from the war years’), 23 September 1976. De Waarheid, ‘Soldaat van Oranje: de oorlog in rokkostuum’ (‘Soldier of Orange: the war in coat and tails’), 23 September 1976.

b i b liog r aph y

| 241

Het Parool, ‘Nieuwe verzetsfilm: “Soldaat van Oranje”’ (‘New resistance film: “Soldier of Orange”’), 23 September 1976. Het Binnenhof, ‘Vragen rond Nederlands duurste speelfilmproduktie’ (‘Questions about the Netherlands’ most expensive film production’), 24 September 1976. Pastorale 1943 (1978) Winschoter Courant, ‘Een verzetsfilm met allemaal aardige mensen’ (‘A resistance film in which everyone is a nice person’), 30 July 1977. De Volkskrant, ‘Pastorale in woord en beeld’ (‘Pastoral in words and images’), 13 September 1977. Haarlem’s Dagblad, ‘Wim Verstappen toont keerzijde van de medialle in andere verzetsfilm’ (‘Wim Verstappen shows the other side of the coin in a different kind of resistance film’), 14 April 1978. NRC Handelsblad, ‘Pastorale 1943 werd beste film van Wim Verstappen. Ironisch

242 |

portret van een mentaliteit’ (‘Pastorale 1943 is Wim Verstappen’s best film. Ironic portrayal of a state of mind’), 21 April 1978. Trouw, ‘Verstappens “Pastorale 1943” De bezetting zonder grauwsluier’ (‘Verstappen’s “Pastorale 1943” The occupation without a veil of mist), 21 April 1978. Haagsche Post, ‘Pastorale 1943. Eindelijk een goede Nederlandse film’ (‘Pastorale 1943. Finally a good Dutch film’), 29 April 1978. Het Meisje met het Rode Haar (1981) Algemeen Dagblad, ‘Speelfilm zonder sterren’ (‘A film without stars’), 9 April 1981. Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, ‘Regisseur van “Meisje met het rode haar”: “Ik maak geen heldin van Hannie Schaft”’ (‘Director of “Girl with the Red Hair”: “I’m not making a heroine out of Hannie Schaft”’), 24 April 1981. De Volkskrant, ‘Het verzet van Hannie Schaft’ (‘Hannie Schaft’s resistance’), 5 September 1981. Eindhoven’s Dagblad, ‘Film Ben Verbong geen hommage aan Hannie Schaft. Koude oorlog was doodslag voor “Het meisje met het rode haar”’ (‘Ben Verbong’s film is no tribute to Hannie Schaft. The Cold War was fatal for “The Girl with the Red Hair”’), 12 September 1981. De Waarheid, ‘Een prachtige film maar er had wat meer communisme in gekund’ (‘A beautiful film, but it could have done with more communism in it’), 15 September 1981. Haagsche Post, ‘Het licht-roze portret van Hannie Schaft’ (‘The rose-tinted picture of Hannie Schaft’), 26 September 1981. De Volkskrant, ‘Hannie Schafts ideologie is in film verdoezeld’ (‘Hannie Schaft’s ideology is glossed over in the film), 1 October 1981.

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

De Aanslag (1986) Algemeen Dagblad, ‘De Aanslag schitterende film geworden’ (‘The Assault has been made into a wonderful film’), 6 February 1986. Trouw, ‘De Aanslag: mooi boek mooi verfilmd’ (‘The Assault: wonderful book beautifully filmed’), 6 February 1986. De Volkskrant, ‘Mijn film is emotioneler dan het boek’ (‘My film is more emotional than the book’), 7 February 1986. De Waarheid, ‘De Aanslag maakt verleden oud-verzetsstrijders heel invoelbaar’ (‘The Assault makes the past of former resistance fighters very recognizable’), 7 February 1986. Het Vrije Volk, ‘De Aanslag; Rademakers filmversie van succesboek. “Hoe krijg je ‘t voor elkaar, riep Mulisch”’ (‘The Assault; Rademakers’ film version of the successful book. “How did you do it, Mulisch exclaimed”’), 13 February 1985.

| 243

In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (1986) NRC Handelsblad, ‘Ate de Jong maakt oorlogsfilm over conflict tussen verzet en collaboratie’ (‘Ate de Jong makes a war film about the conflict between resistance and collaboration’), 15 August 1985. De Telegraaf, ‘Verraders en helden in bezettingstijd’ (‘Traitors and heroes during the occupation’), 19 August 1985. Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, ‘“Weinreb-film van Ate de Jong: Het betrekkelijke verschil tussen heldendom en lafheid’ (‘“Weinreb-film by Ate de Jong: The relative difference between heroism and cowardice’), 23 August 1985. Algemeen Dagblad, ‘Nieuwe film van Ate de Jong mag gezien worden’ (‘New film from Ate de Jong must be seen’), 9 January 1986. De Tijd, ‘Wat is collaboratie, wat is verzet?’ (‘What is collaboration, what is resistance?’), 10 January 1986. Het Parool, ‘Listige verzetsman was geen slechterik’ (‘Cunning resistance fighter was no bad guy’), 11 January 1986. De Volkskrant, ‘Schaduw van een prachtige verzetsfilm’ (‘Shades of an excellent resistance movie’), 16 January 1986. Utrechts Nieuwsblad, ‘Falende film over collaboratie, verzet’ (‘Unsuccessful film about collaboration, resistance’), 16 January 1986.

b i b liog r aph y

GLOSSARY OF DUTCH AND GERMAN TERMS aanslag

assault or attack

bezet occupied bezetting occupation Het Binnenhof

Dutch government and parliamentary buildings in The



Hague, appropriated by the occupiers during the war

Bloemendaal

area of dunes near Haarlem where hundreds of resistance



fighters were executed by firing squad during the

occupation collaboratie collaboration Dolle Dinsdag

‘Mad Tuesday’, 5 September 1944

doppelganger

double, someone remarkably resembling another person

Douwe Egberts, or DE

Dutch coffee brand

Duitsers Germans Engelandvaarders

Dutch people escaping to England, often by sea, from the

occupied Netherlands fusilleren

execute by firing squad

fout

(relating to a person) a traitor, a collaborator

Gestapo

abbreviation of Geheime Statspolizei (Secret State Police),



Nazi Germany’s official secret police

goed en fout

right and wrong (used often in the context of goed Dutch

citizens against fout collaborators) herdenkingsdag

national remembrance day (for example, 4 May in the



Netherlands commemorates those killed in all wars since



and including World War Two)

herstel

recovery and recuperation (both personal and economic)

historisch besef

historical consciousness

Hongerwinter

Hunger Winter, 1944-1945



| 245

jenever Dutch gin het joodse volk joods

the Jews

Jewish

Joodse Raad

Jewish Council

LKP

Landelijke Knokploegen (National Assault Group Force),



the Dutch resistance’s attack and liquidation specialists

LO

Landelijke Organisatie voor hulp aan Onderduikers

(National Organization for Assistance to People in Hiding) leger



army or armed forces

Luftwaffe

German air force

moffen

Germans (derogatory term, the Dutch equivalent of the

English terms Jerries or Krauts) NSB

246 |

Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging: the (Dutch) National

Socialist Movement NFA

Nederlandse Film Academie, the Netherlands Film



Academy, now known as the Nederlandse Filmacademie



after several changes of name since its inception in 1958

Nederlands Filmfonds

Netherlands Film Fund

NIOD

Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, formerly



the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, now

the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies onderduikers

people forced into hiding in the occupied Netherlands

de oorlog

‘the’ war, that is, World War Two

overval resistance raid overwinning

victory

Radio Oranje

Radio Orange: illegal radio station through which Queen



Wilhelmina maintained regular contact with her



populace in the Netherlands from exile in London

Reichskommissar

Reich (High) Commissioner

represailles reprisals De Ridderzaal

the Knights’ Hall, the main building of the Binnenhof,



used for state openings of parliament, queen’s/king’s



speeches, and other official engagements

RIOD

Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, the State



Institute for War Documentation

Scheveningen

seaside town near The Hague, also the site of a wartime

prison Schmaltz

a type of goose fat, paté-like

Schnapps

a strong, dry alcoholic clear drink

I M AG E S O F O CC U PAT I O N I N D U TC H F I L M

SD, or Sicherheitsdienst

German security and intelligence service of the

Schutzstaffel SS, or Schutzstaffel

elite Nazi party protection squadron, of which the Waffen

SS was a special armed unit Universum Film AG

Universal Film Limited, or UFA: German film



conglomerate controlling all film production in the



Netherlands during the war

verrader traitor, collaborator het verzet the resistance verzetsstrijder

resistance member/fighter

‘Volk en Vaderland’

‘Folk and Fatherland’, the weekly Dutch NSB newspaper

Waalsdorpervlakte

area of dunes near Scheveningen beach, close to The



Hague, where hundreds of resistance and Jewish



prisoners were executed by German firing squad. Dutch

NSB leader Anton Mussert was executed here in May 1946. ‘De Waarheid’

‘The Truth’, the Dutch Communist Party newspaper,

1940-1990 Waffen SS

special armed unit of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (or SS)

de Wallen

‘the Walls’, Amsterdam’s red light district

Wehrmacht

the German armed forces, including army, navy, and air

force Het Wilhelmus

the Dutch national anthem

zeitgeist

spirit of the time; atmosphere within society at a given



moment; the cultural and intellectual (also moral)



climate of an era

zwart en wit

black and white

zwarthandelaar

black marketer

glossa r y of dutch and ge r man te r ms

| 247

APPENDIX TOP DUTCH FILMS BY BOX OFFICE ADMISSIONS Top 20 Dutch films, 1945-2014, by box office admissions, as of September 2015:

title

release date

admissions (1,000s)

1

Turks Fruit

22.2.73 3,338

2

Fanfare

24.10.58 2,636

3

Ciske de Rat (1955)

7.10.55

2,433

4

Wat zien ik?

04.09.71 2,359

5

Blue Movie

30.09.71 2,335

6

Flodder

18.12.86 2,314

7

Viper’s Nest 2/Gooische Vrouwen 2

04.12.14 1,975

8

Viper’s Nest/Gooische Vrouwen

10.03.11 1,914

9

Keetje Tippel

06.03.75 1,829

10 Alleman

20.12.63 1,665

11 Ciske de Rat (1984)

29.03.84

12 Soldaat van Oranje

22.09.77 1,547

13 Flodder in Amerika

03.07.92 1,494

14 De Overval

21.12.62 1,474

15 Love is All/Alles is Liefde

11.10.07 1,318

16 Koninkrijk voor een Huis

11.03.49 1,292

17 Stricken/Komt een Vrouw bij de Dokter

26.11.09 1,211

18 Kruimeltje

09.12.99 1,136

19 Sterren stralen Overal

30.01.53 1,130

20 Spetters

28.02.80 1,124

1,593

Source: Nederlands Filmfonds ‘Film Facts and Figures’ publication, September 2015.

| 249

42

Het Meisje met het Rode Haar

1981 581

50

Als Twee Druppels Water

1963 473

72

Pastorale 1943

1978 337

79

De Aanslag

1986 311

100+

In de Schaduw van de Overwinning 1986