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Hidden stories of the Dutch Caribbean

Photo: Rose Mary Allen interviews woman on Curaçao in the 1980s.

Since the 1950s, visionary pioneers such as Paul Brenneker, Elis Juliana, Bòi Antoin and Rose Mary Allen have dedicated themselves to collecting oral history interviews in the Dutch Caribbean. These interviews contain personal stories, traditions, songs, proverbs and language of older generations in that area. Some of this material has been digitised and is accessible to a wide audience, but much of it is still on outdated cassette tapes and VHS Tapes. If this material is not digitised soon, important stories within history risk being lost.

 

In close collaboration with Rose Mary Allen, Sound and Vision, DANS en het National Archive Curaçao, the Hub Sprekende Geschiedenis start digitising, making accessible and presenting the oral history interviews conducted by Rose Mary Allen. This valuable material, recorded between 1980 and 1995, includes interviews with people on the islands, migrant communities and (grand)children of enslaved people. It constitutes important source material for an in-depth and layered historiography of the Caribbean and contributes to the identity formation of current and future generations.

 

The project aims to:

  1. Digitisation and preservation: Digitising and permanently preserving oral history material, starting with the work of Rose Mary Allen.
  2. Searchability: Making the interview material searchable, including translating transcripts from Papiamentu to Dutch and English.
  3. Presentation to the public: Developing (digital) forms of presentation of the material for a wide audience in the Caribbean and the Netherlands, in cooperation with young people, artists and the Nationaal Archief Curaçao.

With the Storianan Skondi di Karibe project, we aim to preserve the stories of the past for the future. By working together, we hope to bridge generations, cultures and communities, bringing the rich heritage of the Caribbean to life for a new generation.

 

Keep following our website and social media channels for more information on the project, its progress and the partners involved.

 

This project is co-sponsored by the Stimuleringsfonds.

 

 

 

 

 

Prominent Gelderlanders

 

Prominent Gelderlanders

5 digitised interviews

Gelderland Heritage

 

Investigating whether and how the collection can be archived and made public

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.

STUK, a history 1977-2015

Stuk, een gechiedenis

Marleen Brock

Publisher Hannibal, 2015

 

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.

Living with water in Gelderland, past and present

Oral history stories about historical water management

Project:
Leven met water

 

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.

Map Tour oral history Living with water:
MapTour

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.

Notable Bommelaars

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.