The interviews were conducted as part of Dirk Vlasblom’s publication Papua: a history. This book covers five centuries of Papua’s history, focusing on the period from 1945 onwards and with a special focus on the transfer from the Netherlands to Indonesia in 1962. The book focuses on the perspective of Papuans.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1920 – 2004.
They mainly discuss Indonesia and West Papua. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, transfer to Indonesia in 1962, occupation.

The collection has been digitised and stored permanently at an e-depot.

Dirk Vlasblom (1952) studied cultural anthropology in Utrecht. With a brief interruption, he has been a correspondent for NRC Handelsblad in Jakarta since 1990. He previously published Jakarta, Jakarta – Reportages from Indonesia (1993), In a warung on the South Sea – Stories from Indonesia (1998) and Anchors & Chains – A Rotterdam Chronicle (2001).
In a compelling way, the author tells the stories of Papua. For this, he drew on unique sources. Protagonists and eyewitnesses speak for themselves, often for the first time. The archives of mission and mission were systematically researched for this book, also for the first time.
With this magisterial work, the author gives the Papuans their history.

Journalist and author Boi Antoin has built up an extensive collection of Bonairean cultural heritage on Bonaire in recent years. Oral history has been recorded primarily through the program “Herensia” (Heritage). Many of these recordings are online.

Interviews have been conducted in Papiamentu. Dutch interviews were conducted in the collection Makambanan na Boneiru (Dutch on Bonaire). More information about the various collections recorded by Bòi Antoin can be found here.

For his research on the history of South Sulawesi, in particular political-military developments during the Indonesian revolution, Willem IJzereef conducted some 15 interviews with former government officials and former military personnel.
Records of the interviews and research correspondence are also included in the archive.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1905 – 1986.
They mainly discuss Indonesia, South Sulawesi. Themes include World War II, Indonesian revolution, Domestic Administration, government officials, South Celebes affair.

Publications linked to the collection: IJzereef, W. (1984). The South Celebes affair: captain Westerling
and the summary executions. Batavian Lion.

Archive and inventory no: D H 1284. Thirteen cassette tapes have been transferred to the AV collection of the KITLV (D AUD 1085 – 1097)

Interviewees:

• J.M. van Ameijde
• H.A. Das
• S.S.P. de Man

Interviewer: R.L. Schuursma, P. Verhoeven

For more information on the interviews and interviewees, see: Film and Science Foundation (SFW) working edition no. 8 (1995), pp. 1, 10, 32.

A historiography of the Netherlands from 1938 to 1948 based on interviews with mostly ordinary people about the crisis years, the brief revival from 1938, WWII and the decolonisation of Indonesia interspersed with archive material including feature film and sound clips.

From the 1970s, there had been a shift in perspective on WWII. It was no longer good to beat oneself up and only point the accusing finger at the collaborator, the Nazi or the criminal.

This change was reflected in the 1974 VPRO documentary. It focused on the failure of the authorities and the mental kinship of collaborators and ‘ordinary’ citizens. The story is an ‘anti-epic’ of confusion, self-interest, doubt, helplessness and absurdity.

The interviews were made for the VPRO production Vastberaden, maar soepel en met mate. Memories of the Netherlands 1938-1948, by H.J.A. Hofland, Hans Keller and Hans Verhagen. Television broadcast took place on 15 October 1974 (2 hours 55 mins). An edited version was broadcast on 29 June 1977 and repeated on 27 August 1989.
The interviewees recount their memories of the last pre-war years, the Second World War and the first post-war period from the different positions they held at the time. Sometimes they are authorities such as the politicians Burger and Schermerhorn, the historian Bouman, the communist resistance fighter Gortzak and also the press chief of Reichskommissar Seyss-Inquart, Willi Janke. In addition, however, several ‘ordinary people’ are featured, on whose history in and around the war the producers were particularly keen to emphasise. Examples include the Amsterdam-based Ms de Bruin and her friend, the resistance fighter De Graaf, the NSB member J.B. and the German soldiers stationed in the Netherlands during the occupation. Rasterhof, Van der Schaaf, Scheps and Slui give their views on the so-called Schokking affair. Mr F.M.A. Schokking was mayor of Hazerswoude during wartime and played a role in the arrest of the Jewish family Pino. After the war, he became mayor of The Hague until the affair was raised and forced him to resign. At Slui’s house, the Pino’s had spent some time in hiding during the war.
Most of the interviews were conducted by Hans Verhagen. Sytze van der Zee also participated in the interview with Willi Janke. The interview with Van Walsum – ultimately not included in the documentary – was conducted by Henk Hofland.

The makers of the documentary published a book containing (some of) the texts from the television film: Determined but Supple and Moderate. Herinneringen aan Nederland 1938-1948, Amsterdam: Contact, 1976. Keller and Hofland provided the book with introductory articles, chronicling the general principles of and practical preparations for production. The book is available at SFW.
Chris Vos analysed the documentary in his article ‘An indifferent history? The significance of the VPRO documentary Vastberaden, maar soepel en met mate for Dutch audiovisual historiography’, in: Jaarboek Mediageschiedenis 5, Amsterdam: Stichting Mediageschiedenis/Stichting beheer IISG, 1993, pp. 227-260. He did the same in his dissertation Television and Occupation. Een onderzoek naar de documentaire verbeelding van de tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederland, Hilversum: Verloren, 1995, pp. 128-153.
In 1989, the documentary was repeated as part of the VPRO series TVTOEN. or: How Dutch television writes history. There, the makers talked about the making of the film, their underlying ideas, the Schokking affair and (former prime minister) de Quay refusing an interview.

Interviewee(s): Henriette de Beaufort, H. Blok, Ms de Bruin and Ms Anchelon, Prof P.J. Bouman, Mr J.A.W. Burger, Henk Gortzak, Willi Janke, J.B. (initials only), Cas de Graaf, Mr P.J. and Ms Kruger[s], B.J.
Kouw, Gerrit Kouwenaar, J. Osten, L. Rasterhof, S.J. van der Schaaf, prof. W. Schermerhorn, Daan Slui, G.E. van Walsum, Lex van Weren, mr. J.C. de Wit, J.H. Scheps, mr. Kwiet, 2 (anonymous) German soldiers, 5 ‘border residents’

The interviews were made for the three-hour documentary film History of a Place, which Hans Verhagen made together with Armando in 1978 for VPRO television about the concentration camp Amersfoort (municipality of Leusden). They approach their subject as the history of the (‘guilty’) site. Discussed are: the origins of the camp in 1939 as an army site for mobilised Dutch soldiers, its function as the German occupier’s concentration camp during World War II, its use as a repatriation camp the first months after liberation and as an internment camp for Dutch SS and NSB members immediately afterwards, its demolition in the late 1960s in favour of the new building for the De Boskamp Police Training Centre. The focus, however, is on the period when the camp served as a concentration camp for the German occupiers. The film was broadcast as the final episode of the series Het gat van Nederland, on 14 May 1978. Many of the interviews are partly conducted walking, including a film camera, through the area around the camp.
As ex-prisoners, Van Dam, Kleinveld, Molenaar, Zoetmulder, Wolders, Van den Burg, Van den Berg, Robeer, chaplain Slots and Schols recount their experiences in the camp. They had mostly ended up there because of resistance activities. They talk about the camp executioners Berg and Kotälla, among others. Also
The following are also interviewed: the contractor who built the barracks in 1939 (Herzinger); the caretaker of the cemetery near the camp, who buried the dead from the camp but also smuggled the living from the site (Jansen); a municipal worker from Leusden who helped prisoners escape whenever possible,
sending letters etcetera (Schut); the son of the owner of Hotel Oud-Leusden, which had been requisitioned by the Germans during the occupation period and was located right next to the camp (Jets); the house painter who painted the barracks both in 1939 and in 1945, shortly after liberation (Van Hoven); the camp’s Amersfoort vegetable supplier (Van Zomeren); the demolisher of the last barracks in the late 1960s (Van Essen); the German Engbrocks, who had been living in the Netherlands for some time before the war, and who was trained as a punishment to become an SS camp guard in Amersfoort in 1941, and was called the “good German” by many prisoners because he tried to help them the employee of the Dutch Red Cross Van Overheem, who, especially in the last year of the war, tried to get as many food parcels into the camp as possible and who was called the ‘white angel of Amersfoort’ by the prisoners (she also played an important role in the camp in the few months it served as a repatriation centre for Dutch people returning from Germany); the camp commander after the liberation (Van Zwol); the director of the Police Training School De Boskamp, whose institute was established on the site in the late 1960s (Steenlaar); some unnamed students and a sports teacher from the police training school on the past of the site in short interviews.

Interviewees: Frans van de Berg, Jan van den Burg, N. van Dam, Willy Engbrocks, R. van Essen, H. Hertzinger, A. van Hoven, Evert Jansen, Martin Jets, Gerrit Kleinveld, Rev. O. Molenaar, mrs. van Overheem, Henk Robeer, Joep Schols, Arie Schut, Jean Slots, M. van Steenlaar, Hans Wolders, S.H.A.M. Zoetmulder, A. van Zomeren, C. van Zwol, some anonymous persons.

The interviews were made on behalf of Verhoeven’s film Portret van Anton Adriaan Mussert (1968, 16mm, 55′), in the composition of which Hans Keller and Leo Kool also collaborated.
It was broadcast by VPRO television on 16 April 1970 and repeated on 20 August 1989 as part of the series TVTOEN. or: How Dutch television writes history, which also covered the problems surrounding the first broadcast. These are also described when discussing the film in Chris Vos, Television and Occupation. A study of the documentary portrayal of World War II in the Netherlands, Hilversum: Verloren, 1995, pp.126-127.
Film and the interviews outline the life course of Mussert (1894-1946): his HBS days; studying civil engineering at the Technical High School in Delft; his work at the Provincial Water Authority in Utrecht, since 1921 as engineer and later as chief engineer director until his resignation in 1934; the importance of his activities as secretary of the committee against the 1925 Belgo-Dutch Treaty for his further political ambitions; the establishment of the NSB in 1931; his role within the NSB and that during the German occupation; his arrest in May 1945; his internment in the penal prison at Scheveningen; the trial in November 1945; his execution on 7 May 1946.

Dibbits was a colleague of Mussert’s at Rijkswaterstaat.
As chief inspector after the war, Van Dien was in charge of supervising Mussert during his internment.
Hartman was an admirer of Mussert and fought on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Kleijn was a classmate of Mussert’s.
Knigge, De Lange and Lemoin[e] had joined the Dutch SS, founded by Mussert, during the occupation. Knigge and Lemoin[e] also fought on the Eastern Front.
Koren was a colleague of Mussert’s at Rijkswaterstaat. Among other things, he talks about the relationship between Mussert and Van Geelkerken, with whom Mussert founded the NSB in 1931 and who also worked at
Rijkswaterstaat.
Krabbendam was the commander of the arrest teams of the Internal Armed Forces (BS), which arrested Mussert on 7 May 1945.
Van der Laan was a teacher of Mussert at the HBS in Gorkum.
Roskam was the peasant leader of the NSB.
F. Rost van Tonningen had been a member of the NSB since 1936 as youth leader and, since 1941, the wife of Mussert’s rival the NSB leader Meinoud Rost van Tonningen. She talks about Mussert’s motives and the relationship between him and her husband.
Schermerhorn studied at the TH in Delft at about the same time as Mussert; both graduated in 1918, albeit in different fields of study. In the interview, Schermerhorn talks about the student and engineer Mussert and about the letters the latter wrote him from captivity concerning their personal relationship. Schermerhorn was prime minister of the first post-war national cabinet at the time of Mussert’s execution.
Smit recounts Mussert’s execution.
Van der Vaart Smit was a leader of a Christian circle and secretly a member of the NSB. However, he opposed the German occupier’s equalisation of education and the persecution of Jews and eventually dropped out. Incidentally, he talks about the relationship between Mussert and Rauter.
Mr Zaayer had already met Mussert in the 1920s in connection with the organisation of the protests against the Belgium-Netherlands treaty of 1925 (cf. also the interview with Zaayer in: SFW work issue no. 8, p.53). After World War II, he was one of Mussert’s accusers as procurator fiscal of the Special Court in The Hague.

Interviewer: Paul Verhoeven

The interviews were conducted for the purposes of Jos Hoogeveen’s book ‘Even for the record. Heerlen in wartime, 1940-1944

The interviewees are former resistance fighters, who talk about their experiences during World War II in Heerlen until the liberation of that city in 1944.

Interviewees:

• A. Bemelmans
• A. van Brink
• J. Corrips
• J. Crasborn
• A. Damen
• L. Jans
• J. Cologne
• J. Lemmens
• A. Paulen
• Mr Ramackers
• W. van Roest
• O. Schumacher
• T. Spreksel
• P. Stoks
• Br. Winkelmolen

German army raid in Heerlen, 10 May 1940. After the occupation of Heerlen, several former Dutch soldiers became active in the resistance. (Rijckheyt Collection)

The interviews were made for the film Imke Klaver, memories of a Frisian farm worker (16mm, 35′, Hedda van Gennep and
Henk de By, 1975), broadcast by VARA television on April 13, 1975. In the VARA-gids of that week, an article provides context information about the film and the people featured in it; it also contains the results of (another) interview with
Roorda: ‘Gerrit Roorda, do you tell me who Imke Klaver was’, by Marinus Schroevers.

The project was started against the background of the ‘discovery’ of Imke Klaver’s diary by the historian Ger Harmsen, who
also speaks the commentary in the film. The diary has appeared in print: Imke Klaver, Memoirs of a Frisian
farm worker. Some chronicled cases from the youngest past to 1925 (introduced by Ger Harmsen and with notes by
Johan Frieswijk), Nijmegen: SUN, 1974.

The interviews discuss the person of Imke Klaver, the often miserable living and working conditions in the Frisian countryside at the end of the 19th and in the first decades of the 20th century, and the (free) socialist movement in that period. Like Klaver’s diary, the conversations end at the workmen’s strike of 1925. Otje and Jelle Klaver are respectively wife and son of the main character. Talking with Hiltje de Vries-Hogerhuis is exclusively about the infamous “Hogerhuis case,” in which the brothers Wiebren, Marten and Keimpe Hogerhuis were arrested and convicted of burglary with assault in 1895, allegedly unjustly. As supporters of Domela Nieuwenhuis, they would have been hopeless at trial. Mrs. de Vries was a cousin (uncle’s cousin) of the brothers.

Interviewees:

• Mr. and Mrs. Brandsma
• Jelle Klaver
• Otje Klaver-Haanstra
• Mr. van der Laan
• Gerrit Roorda
• Mr. Schoppe
• Mr. Veenstra
• Hiltje de Vries-Hogerhuis
• Douwe de Wit

In 1971 Ger Harmsen came across a thick school notebook in Friesland, which turned out to contain the life memories and musings of Imke Klaver. The latter had died in 1967 at the age of 87. In 1971, these memories were first published in book form, bilingual: Frisian and Dutch, by SUN. Much read and praised at the time. The editions from the 1970s have been out of print for years. Because they were still in high demand, a reprint appeared, with a new afterword by Johan Frieswijk.

Moluccans in the Netherlands

The interview project was conducted as part of the presentation and disclosure of collections. The purpose of the interviews was to capture stories for the renewed permanent exhibition starting in 2008.

The interviews focus on events and experiences in the years 1930 – 2008.
They mainly discuss the Netherlands, Indonesia and the Moluccas. Themes include KNIL, military police, residential areas Zeeland, residential area Elzenpasch, women’s emancipation, Moluccan church, management of residential areas.

Interviewers: Jeanny Vreeswijk-Manusiwa and Nanneke Wigard.