The Dutch Resistance Museum is not as famous as The Anne Frank House, but it is worth visiting. Located in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, it contains exhibits about the Holocaust in The Netherlands as well as varying reactions of the general Dutch population to German occupation. Not to be missed is the “junior” part of the museum that highlights the wartime lives of four children including a Jewish girl, Eva, who went into hiding, and a Christian girl named Nelly.
Eva and her family were betrayed and sent to Auschwitz. She and mother survived the war; her father and brother did not. A video interview with an elderly Eva depicts a woman who mourns her lost loved ones but is determined to remain positive. She is grateful to the Dutch Christians who helped her family and has done her best to forgive the murderers. Eva believes to harbor anger in one’s heart only clouds the potential beauty of life.
Nelly belonged to The Youth Storm, the Dutch equivalent of The Hitler Youth. The Dutch Nazi Party (” NSB”) had approximately 100,000 members by 1944, and Nelly’s parents were ardent members. Nelly and her family were arrested by the Dutch at the war’s end and placed into an internment camp along with thousands of other NSB members and their families. They lost property and civil rights and were subjected to forced labor. Many of these NSB families ended up permanently impoverished. The Dutch populace shunned them, and NSB children — particularly those in The Youth Storm — experienced little sympathy. The elderly Nelly asserts her parents were right to join the NSB because it gave them “good opportunities.” She is proud of her involvement with The Youth Storm and claims she had no idea Jews were being murdered because there weren’t any Jews living around her at the time. Nelly is adamant she will never participate in the annual Liberation Day festivities on May 5th, for it would be like celebrating the poor treatment she and her family received.
I had an opportunity to discuss the contrasting views of Eva and Nelly with a museum employee. This woman told me she had an elderly neighbor named Lina (now deceased) whose wartime experience was similar to Nelly’s. Lina was the daughter of NSB members and a member of Youth Storm. However, instead of remaining in The Netherlands until the end of the war, she fled with her parents on “Dolle Dinsdag.”
In the Fall of 1944, the Allies began liberating the Netherlands, but a shortage of troops meant they were only able to free the South. (The North was not liberated until the following May.) On Tuesday, September 5th, 1944, it was widely rumored all of Holland was about to become German-free. This day came to be known as Dolle Dinsdag (“Crazy Tuesday”) because of the temporary and exuberant celebrations by the Dutch people.
Well, not everyone celebrated.
Approximately 60,000 NSB members and their families — including a teenage Lina — fled south to Germany. They were interned by the Allies in 1945 and met with contempt by the German people. Lina’s father had held a high position within the NSB, but she considered he “did his duty.” She also had fond memories of her time in The Youth Storm and refused to waste time worrying about the Jews. However, anger gnawed away at her because not only did Germans show little interest in families like hers, the Dutch persecuted the family “for no good reason” when they returned to Holland.
September in the Netherlands is a time of harvest and renewal. There are Flower Parades filled with floats and flowers, Heritage Days that celebrate museums and historical sites and Prinsjedag when the monarch gives an annual speech and rides in a golden coach. These days bring out great national pride. But for Lina, September was the most miserable month of the year because her world fell apart on Crazy Tuesday. Lina died a lonely, tormented person.
It says in Proverbs 10:12:
“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”
How remarkable that someone like Eva, a Jew who suffered unimaginable horrors and lost family to murder, retained her hope, while Nelly and Lina were chewed up with anger and resentment! They refused to face truths about themselves and the world. They brushed off genocide and denied the merest suggestion of culpability. They failed to understand a heart filled with bitterness does not allow any room for love.
Some might call that crazy.
This article was published in The Jewish Advocate on September 25, 2015.
