Interviews with striking Gelderlanders

Mien van der Meulen-Nulle
(The Hague, 17 March 1884 – Winterswijk, 8 January 1982)

Louisa Wilhelmina (Mien) van der Meulen-Nulle was a Dutch teacher of lace technology and director of the Royal Dutch Lace School in The Hague.

Nulle studied useful handicrafts at the Industrieschool voor Meisjes in The Hague. She came into contact with lace through books. She received additional lessons from Elisabeth Manhave, a former pupil of the lace school in Sluis. In 1903, she taught at the Lace School, then based in Apeldoorn. At the age of 22, she became headmistress of the lace school in 1906 when it moved to The Hague. She was given access to an attached studio. She designed the cradle cover for Princess Juliana in 1909. On the occasion of a parade in Leiden depicting the entry of Frederik Hendrik in 1629, she designed several 17th-century lace based on paintings in 1910. It earned several awards.

Louis Frequin
(Arnhem, 29 July 1914 – Berg en Dal, 13 October 1998)

Interview on 11 August 1976 (tape 1 missing – interview 28 April 1976)

Louis Hendrik Antonius (Louis) Frequin was a Dutch journalist, author and resistance fighter. Louis Frequin was married and had eight children, the oldest of whom, Willibrord Frequin, is the best known.

Louis Frequin was Roman Catholic and had worked in journalism since 1930. Former editor-in-chief of the Gelderlander and the Nieuwe Krant.

Herman Martinus Oldenhof
(Apeldoorn, 17 September 1899 – Ede, 11 April 1985)

Interviewer J.P. Gansenbrink, 21 July 1977

Oldenhof was a Dutch mayor. He was a member of the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP). Oldenhof was mayor of the municipalities of Lopik, Jaarsveld and Willige Langerak from 1929 to 1936. He then served as mayor of Kampen from 1936 to 1942 and from 1945 to 1952.

Oldenhof left for the municipality of Ede, where he was mayor until 1962. Under his administration, the municipality grew from 47,656 to 60,162 inhabitants and much was invested in new education and infrastructure. In 1962, he became deputy of the province of Gelderland. He continued to live in Ede, though. Here he died in 1985 at the age of 85 in retirement home De Klinkenberg.

Jan Taminiau
(1 April 1903 – 17 July 1993)

Interviewer G. J. Mentink, 16 October 1975

Taminiau was director of the Gelderland fruit processing company Taminiau Elst Overbetuwe (TEO)

Jan Hendrik de Groot
(Alkmaar 13 March 1901 – Zeist 1 December 1990)

Jan H. de Groot was a poet, journalist in Arnhem.

In 1948, he became editor of Het Vrije Volk in Arnhem and from 1950 until his retirement in 1966, he was press chief of the AKU in Arnhem. From 1950 to 1962, he was secretary and treasurer of the Dutch branch of the international authors’ association PEN.

In spring 2015, STUK celebrated. For 37.5 years, the Leuven arts centre has been at the artistic forefront. A book (STUK, a history 1977-2015; Hannibal Publishing House) and an exhibition (Was it now ‘t Stuc, STUC or STUK?; STUK Expozaal) underlined this contrarian anniversary. At the same time, the historical retrospection served to pause for a moment and look back, only to choose a new future as the House for Dance, Sound and Vision. Yet such a radical change of direction is by no means unique in historical perspective. Reinventing itself is in the DNA of the organisation, as a logical consequence of the constant search for artistic renewal.

In this smoothly written book, cultural historian Marleen Brock (KU Leuven) tells the story of 37.5 years of STUK – not a nicely rounded anniversary, but as contrary as the arts centre itself. Amusing anecdotes and quotes from interviews with key figures, photos, posters and documents bring the rich history to life.

Meijer interviewed some 40, mostly very old, Jordanians/Jordanians about the past of their famous neighbourhood. You get the impression of an idyllic community full of happy and grumpy people. The street theatre was dominated by Perlée family barrel organs, children’s circus Elleboog, convivial drunks like De Schele and De Suikermop, the equally convivial cops Zwik-Zwak and Sisk de Bromneus, and stalls like that of The Apostles where you could buy hot pears. The only dissonance was the youth gang De Rooie Heuvels, but oh well, those boys actually belonged there too. In the memories of almost all interviewees, there is no trace of the former misery and grimness.

In The Jordan’s Living Past, the young generation also gets to speak. Sociologically, the gain is enormous. In this “autobiography of a renewing city district”, in addition to the realistic picture of a fiercely turbulent past, we find the unmistakable dynamics of our own time, which is also the dynamics of the entire city of Amsterdam. One finds in this book the lines, along which both will develop: the Jordaan’s own life and Amsterdam’s own life. What one also finds in it – and that almost on every page – is the love for one’s own city district and its residents with their completely unique character, the closed pattern of narrow streets and the intact silent canals, and the touch-me-not of the true Jordanian lifestyle.

Around 1985, Mieke Krijger made audio and film recordings about people whose lives are not well known. These are recordings of elderly people from Amsterdam’s working-class neighbourhoods, particularly the Jordaan, who were born and grew up around 1900. They grew up with a generation born around 1875 and even before that.

Special in the stories recorded are the subjects from everyday life, about living conditions and living conditions.

The events during the potato riot , a riot in which women played an important role, are also discussed.

President of the Jordaan Museum, Mieke Krijger, made a montage of one of the interviewees: Tante Riek Volkers (1897-1993) tells.

Riek Volkers recounts the circumstances in which she grew up and events during the potato riot (1917) she witnessed. She narrates with topical urgency and wit, as if talking about yesterday’s day. Although this family did not appeal to the urban poor, they repeatedly lived over the edge of starvation.

For this film, additional archival research was done on the living conditions, disease histories, etc. of the family she grew up in. Contact was also made with people who played a role in her life, such as her family doctor and local residents.

Riek Volkers-Van der Hoek’s grandson was willing to talk about his memories of his grandmother using photos from the family archive.

The film was shown on 30 April 2023 in the Jordaan at a well-attended gathering with many concerned questions.

THE POTATO RIOT

12-06-1984 VARA

Digital carriers: 1x WAV

Analogue carriers: 1x Magnetic tape

Programme, from an idea by Mieke Krijger, on the potato riot of 1917 and the women’s struggle during World War I in Amsterdam, this was the period of struggle of bourgeois women for suffrage and for right to work, and the struggle of working-class women for food and better working conditions. With newspaper reports read aloud and personal recollections by Brecht van den Muijzenberg-Willemse (communist) and the Amsterdam couples Gortzak and Huyben, who lived in the Jordaan and on the Eilanden at the time. Their parents were directly involved in actions.

Small chronicle of three Dutch families

Truska Bast chose oral history to find out what it meant to people, those events in history.

For the farmer’s son Ko it was a true migration of people when in 1919 he took a steam train with cows and hay from South Holland to the Veluwe. The family lived in abject poverty. How different it is on the island of Wieringen, where Pieter, the son of a superintendent of the Department of Public Works, stays around 1920 with the German Crown Prince Wilhelm, who is exiled to the island. Or on Java, where Sien’s Indo-Dutch father father fathered eighteen children with two native women and Sien was placed with her sisters in the Protestant Orphanage.
In En zij die na ons komen we read how Ko, Pieter and Sien are doing in 2010 – and what has become of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Through these three families Truska Bast describes how life in the Netherlands has changed in one hundred years. The result is a compelling and colorful document of the time.

For the podcast The Pool Club, Annegriet Wietsma used oral history

Annegriet, with the memories of protagonist George in her pocket, will explore whether she can check his story (fact-check) with stories of other possible (eye) witnesses, in archives and at locations. In other words, a search for the truth of a hidden past.

George grows up in post-war Amsterdam, in a poor family. He roams the streets a lot. To earn some extra money, he scavenges with interested male passers-by. He is approached by a kind photographer who allows the lad to pose in exchange for money. Naked. The photographer also takes him to a public swimming pool where working-class kids are allowed to swim occasionally for an evening. And then the story takes a bizarre turn.

“Well… and then came the pool club. That you had to swim in the nude. And that there were grown-ups who appreciated that. And then there was always money in your jacket pocket. Five guilders or so.”

In this interview you can read more about Annegriet Wietsma’s motivation to start making this series and the role of oral history.

The Pool Club is a podcast by NTR, created with support from the NPO fund and the Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten and can be listened to via the website and app of NPO Radio 1, the free NPO Luister app and other podcast platforms.

The story is partly based on the book Verboden Photos; an Amsterdam Novel, Helmut van de Berg (pseudonym), Uitg Gigaboek, 2005-2019

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the large-scale transformation of the ‘concrete’ Bijlmer district in Amsterdam. Much of the urban plan has been demolished or renovated. With the demolition, residents and former residents lost memories and their history was erased.

In the project Bijlmer Oral History, Liz Dautzenberg is researching, archiving and presenting this lost social history of the Amsterdam housing estate. The result is a collection of stories with personal memories of the rise and fall of the ‘original’ concrete Bijlmer (1968-1998), told through the eyes of its residents and former residents and presented in a digital environment.

This project is a first attempt to document the more recent and underexposed urban history of the Bijlmer from the inside and to present it in an accessible way. The aim is to promote and increase broader insights arising from the history.

Living with water and drought is not only an issue today but also in the past. What did you do as a farmer if the Slinge flooded? How did estates ensure sufficient water in canals and ponds? How did a copper mill work? What was water management like in the past and today?

Farmers, estate owners, (retired) employees, dike wardens, water board heirs, water millers and stream volunteers told their stories.

Since 2016, volunteers from the Oral History Working Group Gelderland have been recording life stories about historical water management in order to make the work of the water authorities (past and present) visible. All kinds of people have been interviewed: a laundry owner, volunteers who maintain streams and springs, estate owners, farmers, millers, people who experienced dike breaches up close. How did they live with water?

This is a special project because these stories have been recorded province-wide for the first time.
All the stories can be read via a map tour on the website of Landschapsbeheer Gelderland.

With fifty notable Bommelaars fifty years back in time

In the past fifty years Zaltbommel has grown from a sleepy little town on the river Waal into a modern city in the middle of the country. In this book well-known Bommelaars tell how life has changed in Zaltbommel. 

Former general practitioner and writer Paul van Dijk has chronicled the history of half a century of Zaltbommel on the basis of fifty interviews. Notable inhabitants of Zaltbommel tell about the recent history of the church, art, education, the police, the housing market, politics, the multicultural society and about their love for their city. 

On the basis of these stories, discover how a city changes and how we continue to write history together, even today. 

The notable Bommelaars have been portrayed by photographer André Dieterman. The book therefore not only gives you a special picture of the recent past of Zaltbommel, but because of the beautiful photographs it is also a unique reading and viewing book that should not be missing on any reading table.