Reading the Dutch CRC World War II Experience

For me, reading about the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands can bring about a visceral response. Recently, for example, I was seized with waves of terror while listening to an audiobook version of The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It by Nina Siegal. In this remarkable book, I recognized stories of razzias, hunger, hatred, violence and resistance.

I grew up hearing about experiences like this from relatives and thought they were “just history.” Yet the war ended fewer than a dozen years after I was born; now, as a senior citizen, I realize that is not a long time at all.

Undercurrents of fear formed our Dutch immigrant culture. We knew what could happen, what did happen. We did not necessarily fear resurgent Nazism (although I do now). My father incessantly denounced the looming dangers of Communism. This led me to fashion knives from discarded saw blades and hide them around our three-acre property, preparing for the inevitable need for resistance. Fright was everywhere. At church, I learned the horrors of hell and the unsettling uncertainty of my eternal fate.

I am still trying to make sense of growing up in a strange, strange land while channelling the angsts, sorrows and hardships of immigrants. Hearing parallel experiences has been a key part of this process. Three recent books have been helpful for me in different ways: a novel, a memoir of Dutch immigrant life, and a novelized version of an actual immigrant who died young.

Riveting historical fiction

Forgetfulness: The Holocaust Orphan Jay’s Lost Dutch-Jewish Family Story

Richard Reitsma
Resource Publications, 2024.

Richard Reitsma, a retired librarian, came to Canada as a child in 1955 and later studied in the Netherlands. During his studies, he was shaken to learn how more than 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Nazi Occupation, often with Dutch collaboration. He’d not heard much about this among the immigrants.

His historical fiction novel goes back and forth between rural Friesland during the Occupation and Dutch post-War immigrants in Ontario. Both settings were familiar to me. My mother’s family is from Friesland. I remember driving with her once on a visit there, and she pointed at a farm distant from the highway. “That would have been a good place to hide from the Germans,” she said. She told tales of dark-haired “cousins” who showed up in her Christian school before she realized, after the War, that they had been Jewish children in hiding.

Forgetfulness explores a mystery of unexplained tensions between immigrants over the War. It delves into the contrasting Dutch Calvinist responses to the Nazis: outright resistance, collaboration, or middle-of-the-road acquiescence – each stance defended theologically. The book shows how deeply divided Dutch people were. I did not know much about that growing up. I knew there were collaborators, but mostly I heard only of heroism.

Reitsma unearths the Dutch tendency, especially among immigrants, to bury unseemly memories. A character says, “We must remember the good and forget the bad things that have happened to us.” All three books here reviewed seek to overcome forgetfulness, a gift to us “third culture” Dutch kids, not knowing whether we were Dutch or Canadian, who still try to understand so much that just was not discussed.

Much in this book rang true. For example, the culture’s tendency to divide the world into good or bad, black and white, with no room for ambivalence or ambiguity. Things were absolute – people were either on their way to heaven or hell. Period. (My inability to buy into such dogmatic absolutism was a big barrier to hearing my call to ministry.) I also recognized Reitsma’s observation that open affection was not always encouraged, a point illustrated in the other two books, too.

Most disturbing is pondering how people could be so divided at a time when moral choices seem clear. Then I remember controversies of our recent pandemic or the heretical directions of Christian siblings on the other side of the border, and I think: Here we go again.

A true story of immigration

Born in a Barn

Mary VanderKooy Guldemond
Self published, 2022.

Mary VanderKooy Guldemond, a retired Christian school teacher, has written a memoir of growing up in South Holland (not far from where my father was raised). Then her family, her parents with ten children (and three more to follow), came to Canada in the mid-1950s.

VanderKooy’s childhood dwelling had a barn and house under one roof, not uncommon back there, and from that comes the great title. She explores the bewilderment of immigration and being pulled in two different directions, by two different cultures. Life was difficult, not only because of immigration, which is challenging enough, but also because of the size of their family.

This charming book includes interspersed photos. Guldemond recounts in great depth her life in both countries. While much was familiar to me, I learned things too (e.g. what kind of trees are used for klompen, wooden shoes).

I resonated with her comments about the centrality of the Christian Reformed church. I recognized dynamics that I often encountered in family, church and Christian school: prevalence of gossip and teasing, even bullying; rigid parents, especially fathers, who seldom expressed apologies or regrets. She writes: “We didn’t have to deal with feelings if we kept busy. We’d been raised to keep some feelings private. We could show unhappiness through irritability or angry outbursts, but … sadness, confusion or fear were not readily expressed. Life was about survival, doing things that needed immediate attention.”

Times were tough. When survival is not assured, there is no room for introspection. People needed to be flink, tough and brave, to do what was needed or, as Guldemond puts it, “gritting their teeth and putting mind over matter.” Even when a great tragedy struck, the oldest daughter died in her early twenties, the children were not consoled or encouraged to grieve. Instead, they wore bright colours to the funeral.

Guldemond honestly names things that perplex her about her upbringing, but comes to empathetic understanding of her long-suffering parents, who ultimately found peace and a good life in Canada.

Semi-biographical novel

A Life Cut Short

Magdalena Vanderkooy
Friesen Press, 2024.

Magdalena Vanderkooy, a retired librarian, is the younger sister of Mary VanderKooy Guldemond. Many stories in A Life Cut Short overlap with Guldemond’s (for example, how their father tried to smuggle potatoes into Canada but then, as a devout Calvinist, felt overwhelmed by guilt and confessed to the immigration officers).

Magdalena’s book is a novel. Magdalena was a baby when the family immigrated, and so her immigration account relies on research and family interviews. She imagines the experiences and inner life of her older sister Truus (in Canada, she became Trudy), who would die in her early twenties. I could not find one word amiss in this skillfully written book. (No small thing for me as I’m the kind of curmudgeon who critiques restaurant menus).

Trudy, a teen immigrant and the oldest daughter, took lots of responsibility in the family. Not only for household chores and caring for siblings, but going out to work at one job after another – picking strawberries, house cleaning, childcare – and giving most earnings back to her struggling family. Here, too, the word flink comes up frequently.

There are touching reports of immigrants helping each other, and again, how the Christian Reformed church was central to survival. There are accounts of how tough life could be. Once for St. Nicholas, the parents could only afford three chocolate letters and divided them into pieces for the many children.

As the story moves on, we see Trudy’s increasing fatigue and mysterious maladies. She even goes to live in the Netherlands for a year for better medical care. At times, Trudy is overwhelmed by responsibilities and can feel neglected in a large family. She never had a boyfriend or much time for fun, and had long-time premonitions that she might die. A Leighton Ford Crusade was instrumental in helping her feel secure in her Christian faith and at peace when her actual death approached.

These three historical books are a good counterbalance to the audiobook I listened to in the car. They remind me that I am not alone in trying to make sense of immigrant childhood, and that wrestling with difficult chapters in history is an experience many share. Literature like this helps me to trust that there is purpose, even providence, in the most challenging circumstances.