Traces of steel

They have become a rarity: the tough workers who are inseparable from their workplace. In the book “Sporen van Staal”, they get to speak uncensored. This oral history, compiled by the staff of Utrecht’s community theatre group Stut, sheds light on the experiences of workers at the former Demka steelworks in Utrecht. The story told goes beyond the hardships; it also paints the deep sense of dedication these workers cherished for their company.

Little more remains of what was once the “living graveyard”, as the former employees affectionately called their company, than overgrown foundations and a street ending in desolate emptiness. Only the street names in the Lage Weide industrial estate, once the epicentre of Utrecht’s iron and steel industry, still carry the scent of days gone by. With the closure of one of the last steel companies in Utrecht, workers ended up on the scrap heap of the labour market, exhausted and cast aside.

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