The Aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands

The last days of WW2 in the Netherlands were violent and confusing. Then what? How was the aftermath of WWII in the Netherlands? This video I will talk about the shooting on Dam Square, the Georgian Uprising on Texel by the Georgian Legion (Russenoorlog), the punishing of collaborators (for example members of the NSB party and the Dutch volunteers for the Eastern Front) which was done by members of the Domestic Forces (Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten). Then there were plans of Dutch annexations of German lands and Operation Black Tulip was planned. For Holland WWII had delived the country a lot of material damage. Cities were bombed, factories and railways destroyed and many houses were lost. After the Second World War in the Netherlands was over it was time to rebuild te country.
History Hustle presents: The Aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands.

SOURCES
– Dat nooit meer: de nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederland (C.A.M. van der Heijden).
– Veldgrauw. Nederlanders in de Waffen-SS (Evertjan van Roekel).
– NOS Bevrijdingsjournaals.

IMAGES

MUSIC
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

SOUNDS

[paulkaptein]

I believe my parents carried with them to the United States the emotional scars of the German occupation, as well as the cumulative Dutch experience following WW1, including the depression of the 1930s, unmechanized labor, lack of gender equality, inheritance practices, and Catholic vs Protestant politics that resulted in large family sizes. Lack of post-war economic opportunities created additional stress. Much of our extended family split up and left for places like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Our family in America was cut off from the mainstream Dutch culture, which seemed to move on, adopting the colorful optimism of Mondrian’s modernism. My parents wartime suffering as teenagers never had a proper environment in which to heal. In America, our family lived in a kind of time capsule, oriented toward the experience of the war. My parents shared many emotional stories. They were lifelong kleptomaniacs. My mother would be caught stealing small items at the grocery store. She was always reclusive. My father ran his own business, and always set the example that no outside authority could tell us how to live or what to do. When the police where on our driveway, as they often were, my father would always tell them to find something better to do. The whole situation was both high functional and highly dysfunctional. We grew up feeling a unique sense of lawlessness that I believe came directly from the war experience. Finally, at age 60, my eldest brother, who was born in the Netherlands and had a difficult transition as a young child, hung himself. I think my parents had no idea how to help him since he was a baby. He abused substances most of his life. While I do not claim to make an objective cause and effect case of what past events lead to future events, I can certainly say that the war and the German occupation played a highly significant role in our lives as former Dutch citizens. Sorry if that was too much to read.

[grasmattt]

I like how he got super excited because the Netherlands finally got their own hill.

[efjeK]

My grandparents were all teenagers during the second world war and, though they survived relatively unscathed, they all had their own traumas. My parents also carry that with them in a way. Some examples: My grandmother almost starved in Delft in the winter of 1944-1945, she now has diabetes and is overweight and she hoards food. Every cupboard of hers has cookies or chocolates or something else stashed inside. She is also very emotionally distant. On practical matters she chats all day, but she keeps how she feels about things hidden from everyone else. My grandfather had the same thing being emotionally distant and my father and his siblings still have trouble sorting out their feelings about things. They tend to bottle stuff up and then explode when it becomes too much. I think the whole mentality of "don't look back, look forward" encouraged people to not deal with their traumas at all...

[jonlenihan]

I'm an American baby boomer, from a mixed ethnic working/middle class district in the northeast.
When I was in school, during the 1960s, there was a fellow student named Ellen. Ellen's parents were "refugees" from Europe. They had been resettled in our district, because there was an organized Jewish community, which could provide them with support, social services.
Ellen's mother had had a European husband and child, who did not survive the war. She met Ellen's father in a DP camp. They came to America together. Ellen was born in our town.
At home alone, during the day, Ellen's mother was sometimes gripped with anxiety, which she could not manage. She knew that something terrible was happening to Ellen. She would rush to the school, demand to see her daughter.
The sympathy of the school officials did not last. Ellen's mom was barred from school property. She was disruptive. And so, a couple of times per month, students with window seats, could see Ellen's mother, standing across from the school, rocking back and forth and wringing her hands.

[peteraalpol]

My father was born on December 7th 1942 in Hilversum. He married my mother and moved to England in 1966. As a child I would spend many holidays with my Oma who still lived in the same house my father was born in. As a tool maker for Phillips, my Opa was sent to Germany as forced labour but escaped the train on the way and spent the remainder of the war in hiding. A hollow cavity was made in one of the bedroom walls where he hid during the day, and only came out at night. He had 3 children (my father being the youngest, and only a baby). The eldest, my uncle Aad, knew about his father in the wall, but uncle Ton who was about 5 at the time didn’t, as it was feared that he might talk and give away his fathers hiding place. This was one of many stories I have about my families time during the way, including things such as when Uncle Ton was shot at by gestapo for collecting coal that was pushed from a moving German lorry which was passing his house. The bullet holes are still visible in the walls opposite. Fortunately he was not hurt. I want my son ( who is English ), to know and see these stories, but Covid-19 is stopping us from visiting Hilversum. Maybe one day.

[andynixon]

I'm English but my godmother was Dutch . She was a nurse during the occupation forced to care for wounded German troops . She told me horror stories about being beaten by the gestapo, hunger and nearly freezing during the winter .
My aunt was Danish with similar stories - this generation suffered a lot .

[colonial]

My wife's family spent WW2 in Japanese camps in the East Indies. She was born after the war, and heard some stories of privations and harsh treatment. The families were deported to The Netherlands by the Indonesians. Shortly after we were married in 1980, I was in a cafe' in her mother's village and unthinkingly answered a server's question in German. She stopped cold, looked me straight in the eye, pointed a finger at me and told me in perfect English, "Remember, we do not speak German here." Even 40 years after the end of WW2, many Dutch people had a visceral dislike of Germans.

[richardsleep]

As a Brit who's Dad was a Captain in the Royal Tank Regiment - those guys didn't talk about it, but rather gave off a grim menace. In my 30s I cycled from Amsterdam to Utrecht with all those cemeteries of "a bridge too far" by the wayside. Speaking no Dutch I asked some locals the way (they didn't speak much English either). The Old guy asked his wife "Deutch?" (about me) she said nee Engles - then they loved me lol.

[vanvlietdesign]

I was born in 1952 in Amsterdam. My parents didn't speak of their experiences, their high school years were under occupation. I felt cut out of their lives, and driven by their effotts to forget. I resented that immensely, and became very rebellious, ending up spending my high school years as a dropped out hippy. I was really lost. The only thing I had going for me was an insatiable quest for answers to the hung over fog of war. My parents sought to distance themselves from all of their roots, but I became interested to know spiritual reality-based life. To their chagrin, and my own amazement, I became a born again Christian. History and my future opened up tremendously for me from there.

[oliverhuttinga]

So my grandparents experienced ww2 firsthand. They're both still alive (98 and 96) and have told me little about their experience. My grandfather was in the Dutch resistance and did quite important things too. For example, he participated in the 'Tilburgse Zegeltjeskraak' (I would love to see an episode about this!!!). After the war, he was awarded a medal for his deeds but refused it. He always says that, he just did his job and anyone else would have done the same.
Naturally, my parents are both from the 2nd generation. My mom doesn't talk much about how things affected her but my dad does, sometimes (his dad is the resistance fighter).
Over the years I have noticed that me and my parents have a different mindset and that's because I have not experienced war personally or through my parents.
It is really difficult to say how you notice this. A big part of this is happening psychologically, which can't easily be explained. But for example 'scarcity' is always important theme: Everything has to be either saved, reused or stored. No food is thrown away and you have to be extremely careful with any items you own.

[spartacusgladiator]

Im an American who at the age of 9 a Dutch family moved next door to our home in Pasadena California. The husband of this family was a scientist who became a visiting professor at Cal Tech where Albert Einstein taught for 2 years. The wife would tell my Mom how they ate Tulip bulbs to survive those harsh years of Nazi occupation. In 2009 I got orders to the Netherlands as an educator at AFNORTH in Brunssum. I bought a home in Landgraaf and my wife planted tulip bulbs. We went to Keukenhof and I told the stories to my wife of Nora and her family that lived next to us. Whenever I see a Tulip, I think of Nora and her husband and the brutal years they endured. We still have good friends in the Netherlands. One family helped me sell my home during Covid as traveling back to Europe with quarantines would have been difficult. As a reward, we flew them to Arizona and took them all over 6 states. When I traveled in Europe, I would ask Dutch people, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? They all answered, OF COURSE< IM DUTCH!!!

[CharlesvanDijk-irbl]

I remember the 50's eggs and chickens were still a luxury and you were always reminded "we eat 10 times better than during the 'honger winter'". The picture of the cat of that time took the place of honour, he managed to steal an eye fillet (from the German naval barracks was the theory) of beef just in time for Christmas 1944. He was the only member of the family who was not skinny and helped out on numerous occasions.

[Backwardlooking]

My father served in the Royal Navy and as a young boy I talked with him as he had many photographs of his experiences.
They were allowed to buy official photos so he had ones from all theatres; Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, and Indian Ocean.
He lost many shipmates. My Uncles served as a Bomb Disposal Officer on the Home Front, at Dunkirk, India, and Burma. Sadly one was killed in the Normandy invasion. I found that others such as my Secondary school headmaster who was an Army Major would volunteer experiences from the Desert War and the occupation of Germany. We owe all of those and previous generations our freedoms which the Ukrainians are currently fighting to preserve. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[michaelmazowiecki]

I had a Polish father and an Italian mother. My father fought in 1939 near Warsaw, then lived during the German terror occupation to August 1944 when the Warsaw Uprising took place for 2 months. He was taken POW to April 1945 when freed by the Canadians near the Dutch border. He then served in the Polish army in western Europe. He was obsessed with his WW2 experiences and frequently had bad nightmares about them. He spoke about some of them but not all. My mother, Italian by birth and French by upbringing, was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1943 in Toulon, France. She spent 6 months in solitary prison, then 17 months in one of Dachau's sub camps in Austria near Salzburg. She would not speak about her WW2 experiences, just occasionally berating us children for leaving uneaten food on the plate, which food we would have to eat at the next meal. This was a result of her prison and concentration camps experience. Both my parents traumatic WW2 definitely impacted on us. 3 of our 4 grandpRents were killed by bombing in 1944, my paternal grandfather in Warsaw by the Germans and both maternal grandparents by US airforce bombing of Toulon. Watching what is currently happening in Ukraine is a very sad reminder of WW2.

[Roverman]

My parents spoke openly about the war while I grew up mostly as my mother would say “ That it would never be forgotten “
We didn’t realize how much they were effected by the war until my mother visited the Army 8th Air Force museum in Georgia, USA. This is where the effect of PTSD presented itself . A old flyer helped my mother and spoke with her and said that they all to this day have those episodes. He was so kind to her and calmed her . She was suddenly flooded with memories she had buried away in the mind of a child that for that day came back as fresh as the days that it happened. So so very sad 😢

[kathyvangogh]

I love your work. Thank you so much. You’re the history teacher everyone should have! Anyway, my Father was 17 on VE Day, having barely survived. He was an only child but they hid 2-3 others in their home all through the war. Nazis occupied their home in Epe many times. I recently found some hand written letters from my Grandparents written to Canadian relatives just days after liberation. They tell of my grandmother being marched through the house with a pistol at her back while the house was searched. Indeed, my father was often hiding right under the kitchen floor - under the STONE floor because they knew that Nazis shot through the wooden floors. They also had made hiding spots in the walls. Also, the drunkenness of the soldiers was an opportunity for them to steal back a bit of their own fuel and food from the Germans, none of which they were not allowed to have. My grandfather writes that as soon as the writing was on the wall he decided to become a farmer in order to feed his family and it did work for the first two years but nothing could be done during the hunger winter and they like so many others very nearly starved to death. Another horror written about was the torture of a neighbour who was a Doctor. They ripped out all his finger and toe nails, smashed his hands and then for fun (as written) hung him until he was almost dead, then revived him to repeat. Just awful, I could not read these letters all at once, I had to read them in small bites. They all emigrated to Canada which is where I grew up. My father rarely talked about the war and his coping strategy for getting through it all was, and remained, to try to feel and show very little emotion. My father never hugged me until I was about 16, but only because I started hugging him and eventually he started returning and expecting hugs. He did tell me a few stories, one of which I will close with to leave you with on a happier note: near the beginning of the war, my grandfather anticipated what drunk soldiers were capable of, so he had a big hole built and had “his man” smash all the liquor bottles into this hole and buried it all. My father, a kid of 13, stole a magnum of champagne and some other bottle of booze from the supply. He ran into the woods and buried them. On VE Day, ( or more likely, a few days afterwards) his father mentioned that he wished they had something to celebrate the day. My father suddenly remembered the bottles he had “ rescued”, ran into the woods and returned triumphantly with the two bottles and was a hero!

[jockbrandis]

I was born in the Netherlands after the war. My father had been a German POW and my mother and older brother and sister almost starved to death. We all left for Canada as soon as possible. The war was central to what my family became but no one talked about it. It was only when I read my late mother's diaries did I realize the true horror. Joost

[rowlandmak]

My father was 9 years old and held his father's hand as they witnessed together the 1940 German firebombing of Rotterdam. In the last winter of the 1944/45, the family members had very little food. My mother was luckier growing up on a farm in Drenthe. Her family hid 4 Dutch soldiers saving them from being sent to Germany to work in factories.

[brianclark]

I'm American and my grandfather had dutch roots from his mom. He was only a teenager when the war was over, but I later found out that his cousin was a glider pilot during the war but never made it back home. He was deployed during Operation Market Garden to liberate Nijmegen just a few miles from Arnhem, where the family originally came from. Even though I didn't know him I still feel this urge to visit his grave someday.

[marycahill]

My next door neighbor here in Canada is of Dutch background. She came from a family of 12 children. Her father had fought in Indonesia during the war, and he developed a love for spicy food over there. In the early 1950s they immigrated to Canada from Friesland. The father worked as a tailor, and Mom stayed at home to manage the family. My neighbor and her siblings are all practicing Christians who belong to the Dutch Reformed church. They grew up poor in Canada, but there was always enough food, and they could go to school. She became a registered practical nurse. One of her brothers became a policeman, and so on. All the boys were taught to be tailors, but most chose other professions. They all know how to work hard hard, manage their money, save money, and they take care of each other. I have noticed that many of her nephews and nieces own their own businesses -- landscaping, carpentry, electrical contracting etc.