Conclusion
Not only were collaborators' children's experiences of war far from uniform, the ways in which their memories were framed also varied. Some stayed in the Netherlands and experienced the liberation of their homeland and subsequent arrest of (one of) their parents at home.
These arrests were often accompanied by violence. A central experiential element of the war for these children was the loss of trust in their familiar environment: neighbors, friends, and acquaintances could become dangerous people who had the right to arrest and humiliate their parents and to hit or bully the children. Other children were billeted with farmers in the eastern or northern provinces in the last stages of the war and were identified after liberation not as evacuees but as “political delinquents.” The possession of a “secret identity” that must be kept hidden is one of the central elements in their war experience. Feelings of loss often manifested themselves later when some of these children were sent to foster families or children’s homes. This too became remembered as unjust punishment in later years.56Children who went to Germany often experienced fighting and bombardments. Their flight, self-identification as refugees, and sometimes personal experience of fighting at the front created identities of victimhood that were not accepted when they returned to the Netherlands. The disillusionment they experienced when their suffering was not acknowledged and, worse, when they were treated as “collaborators” is a significant element in their memories. The long-hoped-for return home was a disappointment. “Berserk” and Rinnes present this as a betrayal by Dutch society: instead of upholding the ideal of the innocent child and complying with his or her need for help, safety, and love, society instead betrayed the child that returned home from a nightmare.
Instead of safety and normality, the end of the war seemed only to usher in a new phase of continued suffering, humiliation, and rejection.The reconstruction of liberation and internment experiences in the memoirs has been influenced by the belief that postwar society punished not only Nazi collaborators but also their “innocent” children. Since the late 1970s, it has become increasingly common to show compassion for the former children of collaborators and to encourage them to tell their stories within the framework of being unjustly punished for the actions of their parents. This framework fits in with more critical Dutch debates about the Second World War with regard to national myths of heroism and resistance that began in the late 1960s. Consequently, the children of collaborators found ways to tell their stories that in the social contexts of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s had been ignored or met with disapproval. In the immediate postwar years, the crimes of their parents, rather than the impact of the war on these children, had been the focus of public comment and criticism.
The primary narrative construction of the lives of the children of collaborators as histories of social retribution in the postwar period has obscured their experiences of the war itself. The focus on the ways in which these children were “punished” by society has also overshadowed the role that their parents played in their wartime experiences. Some authors have scrutinized their childhood memories and tried to understand their relationship with their parents and the effects of their parents’ choices. Duke Blaauwendraad-Doorduijn and Sytze van der Zee, for instance, undertook such a journey and, thus, were able to provide a much more multifaceted impression of the repercussions of the Second World War than the accounts of Rinnes and “Berserk.” Regardless of the kind of memoir produced, however, what remains is a legacy of children whose lives were irrevocably changed and damaged by war.
Whether victims or naive participants, the children of Nazi collaborators demonstrate, through their stories how the use of the “innocent child” label enabled Dutch public discourse to address the topic of collaboration and slowly integrate it into the broader Dutch collective memory of the war. These memories are of great importance when studying the legacy of collaboration. The specific narrative of unjust punishment by society is, however, still a blinkered one when it comes to questions of innocence, responsibility, and guilt. Furthermore, experiences that do not fit into this framework remain as silent as the children themselves, their voices still drowned by the cacophony of “acceptable” war stories.Notes
1. I. P Spruit, ed., Onder de vleugels van de adelaar. Kind van de Führer. Levensverhaal van een Nederlands e ex-SS’er, op getek end door Inge P Spruit. Bussum, The Netherlands, 1983.
2. In the days following Dolle Dinsdag, approximately 65,000 collaborators and their families fled to the north of the Netherlands and to Germany: L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, 10b Eerste helft: Het laatste jaar, deel II. The Hague, 1980, p. 281.
3. J. C. H. Blom, “Lijden als waarschuwing. Oorlogsverleden in Nederland,” Ons Erfdeel. 4, 1995, pp. 531-541.
4. J. Vanderwal Taylor, A Family Occupation. Children of the War and the Memory of World War II in Dutch Literature of the 1980s. Amsterdam, 1997, p. 19.
5. For example: Stichting Icodo, Oorlogskinderen: toen en nu. Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1995; F A. Falch, Kinderen van... : interviews met de naoorlogse generatie. Leiden, 1999; E. E. Werner, Through the Eyes of Innocents: Children Witness World War II. Boulder, CO, 2000; C. Landgraf and R. Pfirschke, eds., Unterwegs mit Koffer und Teddybär: Europas Kinder und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Riga, Latvia, 2005.
6. Sources for the memories and experiences of these children include press clippings (“Knipselarchief,” Netherlands Institute of War Documentation [NIOD], Amsterdam); B.
Kromhout, Fout geboren. Het verhaal van kinderen van foute ouders. Amsterdam; Antwerpen, Belguim, 2004; M. Lindt, Als je wortels taboe zijn. Verwerking van levensproblemen bij kinderen van Nederlandse nationaal-socia- listen. Kampen, The Netherlands, 1993; G. Scheffel-Baars and P. Mantel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen.” Unpublished manuscript, 1987; T. Vorst-Thijssen and N. de Boer, Daarpraat je niet over! Kinderen van foute ouders en de hulpver- lening. Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1995 (1993); various published and unpublished autobiographies mentioned in the references below. This article is part of a broader research project on children of Dutch collaborators in early postwar society (1945—1960) that includes the study of literature, archival sources, personal documents, and interviews. Publication of a monograph on this subject is projected for autumn 2008.7. See J. C. H. Blom, In de ban van goed en fout?: wetenschappelijke geschiedschri- jving over de bezettingstijd in Nederland. Bergen, Norway, 1983; A. D. Belinfante, In plaats van bijltjesdag: de geschiedenis van de bijzondere rechtspleging na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Assen, The Netherlands, 1978; I. de Haan, Na de ondergang: de herinnering aan de jodenvervolging in Nederland, 1945—1995. The Hague, 1997; J. Withuis, Erkenning : van oorlogstrauma naar klaagcultuur. Amsterdam, 2002.
8. Vanderwal Taylor, Family Occupation, p. 16.
9. Ibid., p. 19.
10. The NSB (NationaalSocialistische Bewegung was the Dutch Nazi party, founded in the early 1930s.
11. This remark is often made in interviews. See also Armando and H. Sleutelaar, De SS’ers: Nederlandse vrijwilligers in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Amsterdam, 1967, p. 435; R. Rijke (Piet van Weelden), Niet de schuld, wel de straf. Herinneringen van een NSBkind. Bussum, The Netherlands, 1983(1982), p. 167.
12. “De eerste tien jaar van de oorlog 1940—45. Van een oorlog die maar niet voor- bij wil gaan.” Unpublished manuscript, 2006. The author stated in a personal communication that he desires to remain anonymous.
13. For example, M. Diederichs, Wie geschoren wordt moet stilzitten. De omgang van Nederlandse meisjes met Duitse militairen. Amsterdam, 2006. The practice of shaving women’s heads was not unique to the Netherlands and also occurred in France, Belgium, and Norway: F. Virgili, La France “virile”: des femmes ton- dues H la liberation. Paris, 2000; E. B. Drolshagen, ed., Nicht ungeschoren davon gekommen: das Schicksal der Frauen in den besetzten Ländern, die Wehrmachtssoldaten liebten. Hamburg, Germany, 1998.
14. S. van der Zee, Potgieterlaan 7. Een herinnering. Amsterdam, 1997, p. 23.
15. Ibid., p. 43.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., p. 176.
18. Ibid., p. 58.
19. Scheffel-Baars and Mantel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen,” p. 61. The names of the interviewees were altered in the thesis.
20. Kromhout, Foutgeboren, pp. 62—63. The names of the interviewees were altered in the book.
21. Ibid., p. 63.
22. Ibid., pp. 62—63.
23. Scheffel-Baars and Mantel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen”; Kromhout, Fout geboren.
24. For instance, I. van Bekkum, “Vlucht naar Duitsland.” Unpublished manuscript, 2003; C. Gosewins, Een licht geval. Amsterdam, 1980, p. 165; ScheffelBaars and Mantel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen”; Kromhout, Fout geboren.
25. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Deel 12. The Hague, 1988, p. 498.
26. See also the stories of “Miep” and “Jan” in Kromhout, Fout geboren, pp. 43, 46.
27. Gosewins, Een licht geval, p. 127.
28. D. Blaauwendraad-Doorduijn, Niemandsland. Amsterdam, 1989, p. 33.
29. Ibid., p. 35.
30. Also “Mijn verhaal had niet verteld mogen worden. Een zwijgende generatie sterft uit.” Unpublished manuscript, 2006. The author stated in a personal communication that she desires to remain anonymous.
31. Gosewins, Een licht geval, p. 129.
32. Blaauwendraad-Doorduijn, Niemandsland, p. 39.
33. Scheffel-Baars and Mantel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen,” p. 59. Also: Vorst-Thijssen, de Boer; Kromhout, Fout geboren.
34. Rijke, Niet de schuld, wel de straf, pp. 30, 39—40.
35. For instance: “Mijn verhaal had niet verteld mogen worden.”
36. Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV) was the Nazi welfare organization that took care of German refugees from Eastern Europe and fleeing collaborators from the West.
37. Van Bekkum, “Vlucht naar Duitsland,” p. 26.
38. N. C. K. int Veld, De S.S. en Nederland: documenten uit S.S.-archieven 1935— 1945. The Hague, 1976; de Jong, 10b, p. 291.
39. Rijke, Niet de schuld, wel de straf, p. 93. Also: Spruit, Onder de vleugels van de adelaar.
40. J. Vanderwal Taylor, “Rinnes Rijke’s Niet de schuld, wel de straf as a Social Phenomenon: An Attempt to Come to Terms with a Tragic Past,” Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies. 2, 12, 1991, pp. 28—32.
41. I. de Haan and J. W. Duyvendak, In het hart van de verzorgingsstaat. Het Ministerie van Maatschappelijk Werk en zijn opvolgers (CRM, WVC, VWS), 1952—2002. Zutphen, The Netherlands, 2002.
42. M. Bossenbroek, De Meelstreep. Amsterdam, 2001.
43. Scheffel-Baars and Martel, “NSB-kinderen in tehuizen,” pp. 58—60.
44. Ibid.
45. Rijke, Niet de schuld, wel de straf, p. 167.
46. P Berserk [pseud], De tweede generatie: herinneringen van een N. S. B.-kind. Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1985.
47. Ibid., p. 60.
48. Ibid., p. 62.
49. Ibid., pp. 66—68.
50. Despite various public debates and a parliamentary enquiry in the late 1940s, the general feeling in the Netherlands seemed to have remained that what had happened in the internment camps of ex-collaborators was unsurprising given the harsh occupation regime the Dutch had suffered: de Jong, 10b; A. D. Belinfante, In plants van Bijltjesdag: de geschiedenis van de Bijzondere Rechtspleging na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Assen, 1978; P. Romijn, Snel, streng en rechtvaardig: politiek beleid inzake de bestraffing en reclassering van “oute” Nederlanders, 1945-1955. Houten, The Netherlands, 1989.
51. It seems to have been a common form of humiliation; many who served in the SS also remember it from their time in the SS-instruction camps.
52. Berserk, De tweede generatie, p. 68.
53. Blaauwendraad-Doorduijn, Niemandsland, p. 89.
54. Ibid., pp. 91-92.
55. For other examples, H. Piersma, ed., Mensenheugenis. Terugkeer en opvang na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Amsterdam, 2001.
56. I. M. Tames, “Children of the ‘Enemy Within’. Reintegration of the Children of Dutch Collaborators in the Early Postwar Years.” Unpublished paper presented at the SHCY Conference “In the name of the child.” Norrkoping, Sweden, June 2007.
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