Ten huize van … is a Flemish talk show that first appeared on TV1 (Eén) in 1957.

Each episode, presenter Joos Florquin visited a Famous Fleming or Famous Dutchman and interviewed him in his own home. For three days he installed himself in the home of the person in question, while his camera crew shot footage. Most of the interviewees were from the political or cultural world. The first guest was Gerard Walschap. More than 250 followed. The interviews centered on the interviewees. They were able to talk freely and were only in the picture themselves. In other words, true oral history.

Over the decades, Florquin interviewed an impressive number of people. The interviews were written down afterwards, compiled and published in a series of books. When Florquin died in 1978, the program was also stopped for a long time.

Only in the 1990s did new episodes appear around “At the home of”, this time with Edward De Maesschalck as interviewer (34 episodes). From 2003 Frieda Van Wijck took over the presentation.

An overview of many of the interviewed:

In 1982, the then BRT (now VRT) broadcast Maurice De Wilde’s legendary documentary series De Nieuwe Orde. About collaboration with the German occupiers during World War II.

This was followed by other series: about the resistance, the Eastern Front, punishment… For these documentaries, Maurice De Wilde and his collaborators interviewed more than 300 people. Among them well-known collaborators such as Jef Vande Wiele, leader of DeVlag, and Rex leader Léon Degrelle. People from the resistance, ministers, lawyers and professors were also interviewed by Maurice De Wilde in his characteristic style.

Documentaries by Maurice De Wilde
The New Order – 19 episodes
The Suspects – 4 episodes
The Time of Retaliation – 8 episodes
The Eastern Frontiers – 7 episodes
The Repression – 5 episodes
The Collaboration – 10 episodes
The Youth Collaboration – 4 episodes
 

DOCUMENTARIES

On Curaçao, Paul Brenneker and Elis Juliana collected a large amount of oral data beginning in 1958.

Their oldest informant was born about 1853, ten years before the abolition of slavery.

Most of the information collected by Juliana and Brenneker is stored in the Zikinzá Collection, a database consisting of 1,400 songs, stories, and life histories. Anecdotes, childhood memories, rituals and folk songs were taped from 267 informants.

Content-wise, Brenneker and Juliana were concerned with capturing the knowledge and wisdom of the older, rural population, who still lived isolated from the city and encroaching modernization on Banda’bou or Band’riba.

www.elisjuliana.org

Rose Mary Allen used the Zikinzá collection for her dissertation, “Di ki manera,” on the Afro-Curaçaoan population in the period after the abolition of slavery.

Rose Mary Allen:

In this study I will present the key factors determining the social and cultural life of Afro-Curaçaoans during the first fifty years after the abolition of slavery in 1863. I will do so through a socio-cultural analysis of the social system of which they formed part. Their position within slave society will be the starting point, followed by an evaluation of the two principle elements of social control after emancipation: the State and the Roman Catholic Church. Rather than viewing Afro-Curaçaoans as mere objects to be acted upon, in this analysis I cite them as resilient agents, rising to – and often resisting in a variety of ways – the challenges and restrictions they faced in a free society. Their resilience and resistance are best demonstrated through the factors from which they drew their sustenance; these being mainly their social networks – such as families, peer groups, co-workers, local communities – and their culture, brought to the fore, for example, in their songs, stories and rituals. 

Rene Vicente Rosalia (b. 1948) received his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam on the legal and ecclesiastical repression of tambu, the multifarious and rich Afro-Antillean cultural expression that recalls the slave past. In addition to being the word for felling drum, tambu is also a collective term for polyrhythmic music, played in twelve-eighths time, dance, symbolism, sacred and everyday rituals, entertainment, community building, conflict resolution, information provision, social protest and courting.

He used the Zikinzá collection in addition to his own interviews.

See: Article Bernadette de Wit in the Groene Amsterdammer: https://www.groene.nl/artikel/duivelsdans

José Gotovitch was born in 1940. A Belgian historian, he graduated in history from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he later taught contemporary history for many years. His doctoral thesis, which he defended in 1988, focused on the Belgian communists from 1939 to 1944. José Gotovitch joined the Centre for Research and Historical Studies of the Second World War in 1967 (later CegeSoma). He became its director from 1988 to 2005. He was also the scientific director of the Centre des archives communistes de Belgique (CARCOB) for several years.

José Gotovitch worked mainly on communism in Belgium but also on the Communist International in Moscow. He also examined the history of the Second World War from a social and prosopographical perspective. The nearly 400 interviews he conducted from 1970 to the end of the 1990s thus focused largely on communism in Belgium (P.C.B.), but also on resistance networks during the Second World War, as well as collaboration (Rex, flamingantism). Among others, he interviewed many politicians, ministers, Belgian and foreign secretaries general.

Following these interviews, he published numerous books and articles, including L’An 1940 ; Du rouge au tricolore ; Du communisme et des communistes en Belgique : approches critiques ; L’Europe des communistes : identités politiques européennes ; La Seconde Guerre mondiale en Belgique : orientation archivistique ; Les occupations allemandes en Belgique, etc.

Lijst met interviews in alfabetische volgorde van respondenten

After the 50th anniversary of the flood disaster, which left so many scars on Texel, in Zeeland, North Brabant and South Holland, renewed attention is being paid to the stories of the eyewitnesses.

Former director of the Watersnoodmuseum, Jaap Schoof – himself an eyewitness – has set up the project ‘Oral History, 1953 the story’. Schoof speaks with victims, rescuers and relief workers. Although the project officially ended in November 2013, stories are still coming in. The archive now contains more than 300 interviews and 500 written memories.

The aim of the project: to unlock, collect and permanently preserve the written, audio and/or video recordings of (un)known stories from or about the flood disaster.

See in particular the oral history project in the 1990s by Selma Leydesdorff

“HET WATER EN DE HERINNERING”

The stories of and after February 1, 1953, by victims, relief workers and others directly involved in the flood disaster that left so many scars on Texel, in Zeeland, North Brabant and South Holland.

The Nederlands Volksbuurtmuseum has a collection of 250 interviews.

A small selection of the interviews can be seen at their website

Interviews cover a wide range of topics: history of the Zuiderzee fishery, the Jewish work village in Wieringermeer, the arrival of residents in the IJsselmeer polders, politics and administration, history of government services in the IJsselmeer polders, history of urban planning and design, agriculture, nature conservation, health care, etc. Erfgoedpark Batavialand also manages interviews conducted by Landschapsbeheer Flevoland with residents of Noordoostpolder and Zeewolde regarding the landscape of the IJsselmeerpolders.

On the Ongekend Bijzonder website, you will find the life stories of refugees who have come to the Netherlands in the last 40 years. The oral history project Ongekend Bijzonder recorded 248 life stories as part of contemporary history.

ongekendbijzonder.nl