Creative Non-Fiction

Johanna Van Zanten

3 Comments

The nation was disgusted by the whitewashing of so many who had been morally stained by their conduct during the war years. Politicians who had been collaborators were elected again and resumed their jobs in positions of trust. The police force and the justice system was judged and found lacking, and was tainted for the following twenty years. Many Dutch people, including the police, had actively caused the deportation of Jewish Dutch. Those that had been registered members of the Dutch Nazi parties were severely punished, targeted, scapegoated and were often the subject of severe abuse in prisons, even when they had committed no real criminal act beyond signing up for that dreadful party.

There was no honor in survival. My parents, like so many others, never wanted to tell us children what happened in their lives during the war. Bury it, move on, don’t think about it. That was the thought of the day. Yet, Remembrance is big in the Netherlands. On May 4 the Dutch remember the fallen. This is called Remembering the Dead. On May 5 they celebrate the liberation of World War II.  I am unable to push back tears when I see on TV expressions of gratitude on the faces of Dutch citizens and their children even after 70 years. Canadian and American soldiers, members of the liberating allies, have become mythical heroes in my homeland.

I am an immigrant. I remember my Dutch trauma on Remembrance Day, the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I cry for the wonderment on the faces of the very few allied veterans left, who probably do not understand the heavy Dutch tribute. These veteran think they had simply done their job and had an adventure.  But at what great sacrifices! Unfortunately, war did not stop after the Second World War. Atrocities continues and the promise of “Never Again” has been severally broken. We see refugees by the millions seeking a place of peace. Discrimination continues for people that are different, look different, believe something different and live differently.

We are all guilty when we do not stop others in their hate propaganda; when we do not protest loudly enough, and when we think it is not up to us to shelter the displaced or help relocate refugees. We didn’t keep our parents’ promise of “never again”, however well intended. I cry for that fact, and for the imperfect world we are living in; for our environment that is so damaged, and filled with so many damaged people. The world has become one country with many survivors of all kinds of wars. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and maybe at the eleventh hour, let’s not forget!

 

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3 Comments

johanna April 11, 2017 at 4:11 pm

One mistake that I would like to correct here: Jan Tenkink, the deputy minister of Justice during the WWII did not stay on in his function and resigned from his post March 1941after the occupation by the Germans. He was not executed.

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Miklos Legrady April 21, 2017 at 10:38 pm

Thank you for this wonderful document. Also for writing so well, so clearly.

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Marja Hogeweg April 23, 2017 at 9:21 pm

Wat een indrukwekkend verhaal Joeke ! Dat moet een belevenis zijn geweest om je vaders aantekeningen te lezen. Mooi dat het voor iedereen te lezen op deze manier, en inderdaad stof tot nadenken.

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