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A good start
-giving birth in the Netherlands

Vertelburo
 
Number of interviews: 6
Accessibility: public (in the course of 2024)
Transcripts: yes
Period of interviews: 2021
Medium: MP4

 

 

Vertelburo

Creators: Jet Homoet en Ane C.Ose

info@vertelburo.nl

 

The interviews are stored at Atria and DANS

 

 

immaterieelerfgoed.nl

This Oral History project (working title: The Home Birth Culture) consists of six filmed oral history interviews with birth care professionals, a documentary (70′) and a trailer. On Instagram are short street interviews with parents and healthcare professionals.

 

Oral History interviews with: midwives Franka Cadée, Erna Kerkhof and Djanifa de Conceicao, maternity nurses Thea Groeneveld and Pien Jasper and gynaecologist Martine Hollander.

The life stories of the six birth care professionals provide insight into who and what shaped them, how they came to choose their profession and what experiences they have had in practising it. They share their knowledge about the unique birth care of the Netherlands from their personal experience and perspectives. Together, they paint a powerful but also vulnerable picture of a birthing culture under great pressure from a zeitgeist of medicalisation, market forces and modern man’s drive for control. Pregnant women’s freedom of choice to give birth safely at home is at stake as a result.

How valuable and exceptional our birth care is, which most Dutch people take for granted, is shown by the penetrating stories of these professional women about the overwhelming and special nature of every birth, about the importance of a familiar face during parturition -at home and in the hospital, about the function of pain and the consequences of trauma, poverty and racism. As a result, the interviews and film are also a reflection on our society and core values such as trust in ourselves and our fellow man, autonomy and freedom of choice.

 

‘Home birth culture’ has had the status of Immaterial Heritage Netherlands since 2021.

 

The Oral History project Een goed begin – bevallen in Nederland was set up by Vertelburo. Filmmakers Ane C. Ose and Jet Homoet have many years of experience in recording life stories commissioned by individuals and organisations.

Women professors

 
Time period: 1950 - 2000
Number of interviews: 5
Accessibility: Online
Transcripts: Unknown
Remarks:

Interviewer: Dieneke Stam

 

Atria has recorded the life stories of female professors.

2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the appointment of the first female professor in the Netherlands, Johanna Westerdijk (extraordinary professor of plant pathology (phytopathology), Utrecht University) (see photo). Every reason to pay ample attention to the current position of female professors just now. The advance of women in universities is still slow. With 18% female professors, the Netherlands ranks fourth lowest in the EU.

 

Women professors’ stories

Atria portrays the careers and life histories of a number of professors. Their stories reflect a unique part of the history of women in the 20th and 21st centuries. Five female emeritus professors, from different universities and different disciplines, were interviewed according to the scientific oral history method. They were asked about the course of their careers and how they look back on them as women and professors.

The integral interviews can be accessed through Atria.

 

Onder professoren

Women’s shelter

 
Time period: 1974-2011
Number of interviews: 5
Accessibility: Unknown
Transcripts: Unknown
Period of interviews: Unkown
 

This Oral History project interviews five women who have left their mark on the 40-year history of women’s shelters in the Netherlands.

 

The role of the Blijf-van-m’n-Lijf shelters and the women who founded the first shelter and who have been directors of the growing organisation at decisive moments, or who have otherwise had a great influence on the development of the women’s shelter. Their personal and professional story complements the sources in the literature and archive on women’s shelters (i.e. Blijf-van-m’n-Lijf).

 

The interviews also focus on the significance of the self-help principle as initially developed in Blijf-van-mijn-Lijf.

 

ATRIA – blijf van m’n lijf

 

 

Dolle Mina

'Dolle Mina's' [Women's Lib] demonstrating for the right of birth control and abortion showing their bellies with the slogan 'baas in eigen buik' [woman's right to choose]. Utrecht, 14 March 1970.
 

dolle mina

 

Interviewers: Nienke, Poortvliet, Marijke Naezer, Mieke Aerts, Barbara Henkes

 

Number of interviews: 8

Dolle Mina was a left-wing, radical feminist action group. Despite the formal rights women had, there was still a lot of injustice and disadvantage. Through playful actions, they wanted to improve women’s rights. Their sources of inspiration were campaigning women in the US and the Maagdenhuis occupation in Amsterdam. The action group took its name from the nickname of women’s campaigner Wilhelmina Drucker. This combative feminist of the first hour was nicknamed ‘Iron Mina’. Wilhelmina Drucker pursued the same goals as the action group a century earlier.

 

ATRIA -> Dolle Mina

Women’s Peace Movement

Vredesgang der Nederlandse Vrouwen, Amsterdam - 18 mei 1936
 
Time period: 1914-1940
Number of interviews: 8
Accessibility: on demand
Transcripts: none
Period of interviews: around 1982

 

 

THERE WERE ONCE two women’s peace unions, the Algemeene Nederlandsche Vrouwen Vredebond and the Internationale Vrouwenbond voor Vrede en Vrijheid. Both had been founded at the beginning of World War I with an appeal to something like women’s special responsibility for a better world. The ANW was of the so-called apolitical ‘improve the world start with yourself’ type. Its members went on home visits like salvation soldiers to propagate peace from person to person. The IVW, the Dutch branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, was self-confident, professional and politically dyed-in-the-wool in the feminist suffrage struggle. Like self-appointed mediators, its leaders, including Aletta Jacobs, went round heads of state and prime ministers to organise peace.

 

Political scientist Marijke Mossink explains what moved both unions in her dissertation De levenbrengsters – Over vrouwen, vrede, feminisme en politiek in Nederland 1914-1940. On 10 May 1940, they had come within a hair’s breadth of merging, after years of disputes over the forms of action and organisation of their female mission.

 

 

De levenbrengsters
over vrouwen, vrede, feminisme en politiek in Nederland 1914-1940

Marijke Mossink

Stichting beheer IISG, 1995 – 252 pages

 

 

Proefschrift van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculteit Politieke en Sociaal-Culturele Wetenschappen. Door middel van een vergelijkend onderzoek naar de Algemeene Nederlandsche Vrouwen Vredebond en de Internationale Vrouwenbond voor Vrede en Vrijheid is nagegaan hoe het mogelijk was dat deze twee vrouwenvredesorganisaties naast elkaar bestonden, en waarom het zo moeilijk was om tot een fusie te komen. Centraal staat de betekenis die in beide organisaties aan de begrippen ‘vrouwen’, ‘vrede’ en ‘organisatie’ werd toegekend.

 

 

 

Red women

 
Time period: 1975 - 2000
Number of interviews: 8
Accessibility: Unknown
Transcripts: Unknown
 

Oral History interviews with eight women who played important roles in the Red Women and women’s training centre De Born

 

For brief descriptions of the interviewees see the website van Artria

Moving Lesbians

Part of: Moving Women's Interviews
 
Time period: 1960-2019
Number of interviews: 5
Accessibility: Online
Transcripts: Summaries

Moving Lesbians contains excerpts from the life stories of five lesbians who contributed greatly to the visibility and emancipation of lesbians in the Netherlands from the 1960s onwards. The pieces come from 5 long video interviews, which are included in Atria’s oral history collection Moving Women’s Interviews.

 

The women portrayed are:

 

The portraits and life stories of the individual women also tell a story about crucial social changes for lesbian women. The film was on continuous display at Atria and the Amsterdam Museum during EuroPride (2016). The portraits can also be viewed on the playlist Moving Lesbians  op Atria’s YouTube kanaal.

We women demand

Abortusdemonstratie 10 sep 1977 - Fotograaf Sjan Bijman - F63-98
 
Time period: 1974-1984
Number of interviews: 12
Accessibility: Online
Transcripts: Unknown
 

What struggles have women in the Netherlands fought for self-determination and proper access to abortion?
The action group Wij Vrouwen Eisen grew out of Dolle Mina’s abortion group. In 1974, the group organized a large demonstration with three demands:

 

  • abortion out of the penal code
  • abortion in the health insurance system
  • the woman decides

 

That demonstration was followed by many years of action for free abortion, education and lobbying.

In 2020, members of We Women Demand will launch five filmed interviews about the action committee’s abortion struggle together with Atria. The films will complement the archive of We Women Demand that can be accessed at Atria.

Daughters of collaborating parents

 

GETUIGENVERHALEN.NL

 

Realisation project:

Aletta, instituut voor vrouwengeschiedenis

atria – DOCHTERS VAN NSB’ERS

 

Timeframe: 1927-2009
Location: Nederland
Number of interviews: 8

 

Thematic collection: Erfgoed van de Oorlog

DANS: https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xba-748r

 

For a long time, not much was known about the experiences of women whose parents were on the ‘wrong’ side during the years of German occupation. In this oral history project, women are interviewed who were born before 10 May 1940 into a National Socialist family. At least one of their parents had National Socialist sympathies or was a member of the National Socialist Movement (NSB), the National Socialist Dutch Workers’ Party (NSNAP), the Black Front or the (later) National Front.

 

In addition, the women interviewed meet at least one of the following characteristics: membership of a National Socialist youth organisation (such as the Youth Storm); having worked for the German Red Cross; having fled after Dolle Dinsdag (5th September 1944); having been interned and/or tried after liberation without or with one of their parents; having been placed in a foster family and/or children’s home after liberation because of the internment and/or trial of their parents.

 

Recording the testimonies of the ‘daughters’ of collaborators provides insight into the world of a category of women who have long kept silent about their backgrounds and experiences. Even though a number of them have written down their memories, the women have often not dared to reveal much about their experiences in, for example, a National Socialist youth organisation. The interviews also shed light on how Dutch society dealt with the issue of guilt and punishment after the German occupation.

NSB women in the war

GETUIGENVERHALEN.NL

 

Realisation project:

Aletta, instituut voor vrouwengeschiedenis (©)

atria

NSB vrouwen in de oorlog

 

Timeframe: 1935-2008
Location: Netherlands
Number of interviews: 11

 

Thematic collection: Erfgoed van de Oorlog

DANS: https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-zgv-ff3x

 

As a political organisation, the NSB also had great appeal for women. One third of the members were women, an unprecedentedly high percentage at the time. Since 1938, the National Socialist Women’s Organisation (NSVO), an NSB branch organisation, also existed and was open to women who were not NSB members. In 1942, the NSVO had 20,000 members. Little was known so far about the experiences of women who were members of the NSB or other National Socialist organisations. In this oral history project, women who were members of the NSB between 1931 and 1945 are interviewed. 

 

Most of the interviews were recorded on audio only; the women did not want to be filmed because an NSB past is still a taboo. Central to the interviews are the women’s memories of their activities during the occupation, their experiences after Dolle Dinsdag and their internment after the war. The interviews reveal, among other things, that their membership in the NSB was hardly a conscious choice, because they had grown up in an NSB family. Furthermore, it appears that the motives for becoming a member of secondary organisations could vary widely. It is generally assumed that NSB women were, on average, poorly educated. From the interviews we can conclude that this image needs some adjustment. It also appears that National Socialism has lost none of its attraction for two interviewed women.

Rijksarbeidsleider Hierl brengt een bezoek aan meisjeskamp aan de Schelenberg