Remembered pain

One Thousand Fears

Ineke Neutel
Cardinal Books, 2023.

Author and scholar Daniel Taylor has a succinct definition of the genre of memoir: “Memoir is remembered pain.” Ineke Neutel’s One Thousand Fears certainly fits that category as she probes her wounded childhood in the frontline city of Nijmegen during WWII. Neutel’s father was Reformed pastor Wiebe van Dijk, a man responsible for his wife, four children and an entire congregation under Nazi occupation.

“This project was motivated by my wish to understand what my brothers and I experienced,” says Neutel. “In 1944, I was five years old, trying to make sense of the ugliness around me: constant explosions, buildings next door changing into piles of rubble; fires on all sides; having to sleep in our day clothes cramped together in a small cellar every night for many months.”

This desire to “make sense of” is precisely what Dyana Herron, instructor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, identifies as “narrative therapy.” “I’m not a psychologist,” says Herron, “but it seems obvious that writing one’s story – and beyond that, crafting one’s story – can be an empowering process, and a healing one. When we write, we are allowed to be in total control of situtions that may have left us feeling out of control or broken when they occurred. We are also allowed to honor (you could even say “bless”) the characters and events that populate our lives. We are encouraged to find metaphorical meaning and identify themes in our lives that make our narratives feel more coherent, which may also lead to a more integrated sense of self.”

A child’s puzzling and random memories do not a memoir make. The “crafting” of Neutel’s story hinges on her father’s “real time” notes, hastily inscribed, as well as his carefully preserved sermons. Adding further context are saved letters and extensive interviews with family members. A retired research scientist, Neutel’s strong investigative skills augment those personal recollections with the broader input of historians. Her efforts culminate in a detailed and corroborated story with sombre authenticity. But it’s also an enriching story, “honoring,” as Professor Herron describes, the characters and events that shaped her life.

Neutel attains that “more integrated” narrative for herself, but ultimately can’t quite plumb the depths of her parents’ experiences. Despite her father’s compulsion to log details during the apex of their terror, after the war he was reluctant to revisit the time of a thousand fears: when each Sunday he preached from his Christian convictions, but couldn’t name the perpetrators of evil for fear of reprisal, when he was forced to flee with his family under direct shelling, when he was repeatedly called upon to console the bereaved and the bereft, when he faced the relentless threat of being taken hostage since pastors were often imprisoned to enforce community compliance. Neutel concludes that her parents’ determination to remain outwardly calm despite their own terror helped to protect the mental health of their children, but suspects that her dad suffered from some degree of PTSD throughout later life.

In time the family emigrated to Canada. Rev. van Dijk became pastor of St. Catharines Christian Reformed Church. He pastored several other congregations and also served as the principal of Hamilton District Christian High School. The sturdy faith that sustained Wiebe and Dirkje in their wartime crucible propelled them to a new life in a new country.

This memoir, with its historical approach, is a magnifying lens into the cataclysm that bat-
tered Nijmegen, focusing on a particular little girl, a particular family and a particular church community. Richard Rohr, another wise writer, has said, “If you don’t transform your suffer-
ing, you’ll transmit it.” In One Thousand Fears Ineke Neutel has transformed a legacy of fear into a gift of thoughtful reflection for others to ponder.