Oral history interviews with feminists who pioneered women’s mental and physical health care.

For brief descriptions of the interviewees, see the website van Artria

In the past 50 years, a large number of migrants have come to Amersfoort to build a new life for themselves. Archives Eemland could not find any information about their history. In order to change this and to make future source research possible, Archives Eemland has set itself the goal of collecting source material about migrants. The oral history project ‘Diversity of the Amersfoort Memory’ laid the foundation for this.

The collection now consists of 40 interviews (24 of which are publicly accessible) with Amersfoort-based migrants. Information on the content and background of the project can be found at www.archiefeemland.nl.

During the Second World War, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN) experienced a church war that resulted in the so-called Liberation of 1944. With the Liberation, 90,000 Reformed people (approximately twelve per cent) left the GKN and founded a new denomination, later called the Reformed Churches (Vrijgemaakt).

Little is known about how young members of the church experienced the wartime split.
In this oral history project, a number of them will have their say. The central question is how they experienced the wartime church split.

The wartime schism was a major event. National Socialism was considered an anti-Christian ideology by most Reformed people. The members of the GKN therefore played a relatively large role in the resistance against the occupying forces, although there were also well-known Reformed people who joined the NSB and SS. The divisions could be twofold: either for or against Nazism, or both for or against the separation of the church. In any case, the close ties of friendship and family within the community were under great pressure. From the very beginning, those who separated were criticised for their broken unity. The Vrijgemaakten, however, emphasised that they were fighting the same battle for freedom of conscience in church and society.

National Monument Camp Amersfoort, on the border of Leusden and Amersfoort, is one of the three best known Dutch memorial centers. Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 37,000 prisoners were incarcerated for short or long periods of time in this transit camp, which was also a penal camp under the direct command of the SS.

Over the years Camp Amersfoort National Monument has been able to interview more than 100 former prisoners about their time in the camp during the Second World War. These extraordinary interviews provide an impressive glimpse into what life was like in Camp Amersfoort at the time. Stories about punishment, the bad food, the cruel regime, but also about fellow prisoners and how you tried to survive as a prisoner. As far as possible all interviews will be made available in the near future.