From April 1 to 17, 2020, RTV Oost will be ‘In the footsteps of the liberators’ with a series of mini-documentaries with background articles. It will then be exactly 75 years since Allied troops passed through Overijssel to liberate its inhabitants from German occupation. The mini-documentaries are based on personal stories and tell the story of the Second World War in 17 different ways. The production was created in close cooperation with the Historical Center Overijssel.

A book was also published based on the interviews: The War Never Goes Over. This contains 25 interviews. The mini-documentaries and the stories in the book partially overlap; there are 4 mini-documentaries not included in the book, and 12 stories for which no mini-docs were made.

Interviews with miners for the TV documentary “Limburg coal miners speak” by Erik Pertz (BRTN – 1983)

The Provincial Museum for Industrial Heritage (Hasselt) gives attention to miners a.o. with the travelling suitcase exhibitions “Coal in Limburg” (1983 – updated and renewed in 1987), with the cooperation in Dré Peremans’ radio documentaries on “Het Zwarte Goud” (BRT 1 – 1986) and with the historical input for Erik Pertz’ television documentary “Limburgse koolputters spreken” (BRTN – 1983), broadcasts in which the working group Mijnwerkersgeschiedenis also played a fundamental role.

See also the book: Mijnen. Limburgse koolputters spreken (uitg. Projektgroep Mijnwerkersgeschiedenis). 1981.

Episode 1: ​ Silence is gold

In the first episode, victims recount how the abuse began and the years of physical and mental consequences. Often the abuse was preceded by a major event in their lives, such as the death of a parent. The witnesses describe how clergy exploited the weak and vulnerable position they were in to dominate them, and later abuse them.

They tell of the shame, of not daring to tell, of the sadism and mental and physical abuse, which sometimes lasted for years. Those humiliations were often so painful that they still carry the consequences decades later.

Episode 2: ​ In the name of the father

The second episode focuses not on the victims, but on their parents and relatives. What signals did they pick up? How did they deal with the knowledge that their child was abused by someone they trusted? They talk about guilt, shame and misunderstood signals.

Some of them showed the courage to fight the church hierarchy, from which they often did not emerge without further damage. At the same time, a social evolution is taking place that is irreversible.

Episode 3: Operation Kelk

June 24, 2010. Detectives conduct searches at the Archdiocesan Palace as part of an investigation into possible cover-up of child abuse by priests and fathers. Since a camera crew happens to be nearby, everything is put on film.

The footage goes around the world, in Belgium the bomb bursts. Shortly before, the nephew of a high-ranking Belgian bishop had recorded a conversation with his uncle, who had abused him as a child for 13 years, and Cardinal Danneels. The so-called Danneels tapes proved to be a stick to push the church into swift action.

Episode 4: Forever and ever

Operation Kelk ends with a hiss; a legal consequence in Belgium seems unlikely. In an ultimate effort, some Belgian victims are pinning their hopes on a charge they previously brought against the Pope in Rome.

Despite the legal setbacks, many victims remain combative. It is their fight as the legacy of abuse weighs heavily. As long as perpetrators roam free and risk creating new victims, survivors cannot fully come to terms with their past.

afl. 1: The Mistake of Troelstra

In 1917, things are rumbling across Europe. The Russian Tsar has to step down, in Austria the throne is tottering. Social revolution seems imminent. Things get noisy in the Netherlands too. In starving Amsterdam, the potato riot breaks out. For a while in November 1918, it looked like the wave of revolution would spread to the Netherlands from Russia and Germany. Anxious SDAP leaders think the revolution is imminent and drop their foreman; Orange hysteria does the rest. The revolution fails.

Historical excerpts from and interviews with:

• police commissioner Voordewind, involved in the shooting in A’dam during the hunger riot
• Jan de Ronde, of the soldiers’ councils
• G. van het Reve senior
• journalist Cor Schilp
• former Rotterdam SDAP chairman Arie de Zeeuw
• J. Moor, labourer, then present at the demonstrative SDAP meeting where Troelstra delivered his revolutionary speech
• old Truth editors Koejemans and Barend Lutheran
• Martha Molendijk, former chairwoman of the AJC

AFL. 2: NEVER MORE WAR

This episode is about conscientious objection in the years surrounding World War I and just after, the International Anti-Militarist Association (IAMV), Church and Peace, the anti-Fleet Act demonstration, and the confusion surrounding the Spanish Civil War.

Historical excerpts from and interviews with:

• Wim Wessels, active in the anarchist youth movement and IAMV, conscientious objector
• Ge Nabrink, member Jongelingen Geheelontoudersbond and IAMV, also wrote brochure on the Scheveningen penal prison,where two conscientious objectors died in 1929
• Joke Roos, member from the founding of Church and Peace, rejects any form of violence on the basis of the gospel.
• Wim Jong, active anti-militarist, on the Fleet Act and actions against it
• Mrs Sirks: speech in 1926 to the Utrechts Dienstweigeringscongres (spoken after by Kiki Amsberg)
• Nico Busscher, AJC member, on his imprisonment in Scheveningen and the reprisals against his family
• Bas Roschar, active in IAMV, among other things about canvassing
• Widow Motz on the conscription of her husband, Rotterdam man Wim Motz
• Wim Jong and Wim Wessels on the issue of the Spanish Civil War: to fight or not to fight?

AFL. 3: THE RETURN OF THE RADIO

The rise of the radio marked a breakthrough in mass entertainment. In 1919, Ir. A. a Steringa Idzerda was the first to experiment with the new medium, providing some trial broadcasts from Utrecht (later The Hague). In 1923, the Hilversumsche Draadloze Omroep took over that task and broadcast on airtime leased by the Nederlandsche Seintoestellen Fabriek on its transmitter in Hilversum.
In this way, the NSF wanted a regular programme to sell more radio sets. The AVRO emerged from the HDO in 1928. By then, it had been joined by the NCRV (1924), KRO and VARA (1925) and the V.P.R.O. (1926). in 1930, government broadcasting time was divided proportionally between the four major broadcasters (minus V.P.R.O.). About these early days of radio and the competition between them, Mr Jaap den Daas (AVRO), Herman Felderhof (AVRO) and Ger Bakker (VARA) tell.
As for the content of the programmes, the main focus is on entertainment, which was seen as the main task of the new medium. Jaap den Daas invented the successful AVRO revue programme ‘De Bonte Dinsdagavondtrein’.

Interviews with:

• Ir. H. a Steringa Idzerda (HA 17216), broadcasting pioneer in 1919
• J. Loeber (HA 15004), provided the first broadcast of the HDO in 1923 with his Larens Strijkkwartet.
• Mr Jaap den Daas, employed by the AVRO from 1928, programme director from 1930, invented the Bonte dinsdagavondtrein.
• Herman Felderhof, employed by the AVRO from 1929, first on the Radiobode editorial staff, later as a reporter;
• Ger Bakker, from 1930 assistant editor, later editor-in-chief of the VARA Radiogids;

Music and radio play excerpts from: Bob Scholte, Louis Davids, Johan Buziau, Snip&Snap, Jack Hilton Orkest, Kees Puris, Ome Keesje (Willem van Cappellen), Huib Wouters (= Martin Beversluis, not authentic), Concertgebouw Orchestra olv Willem Mengelberg.

AFL. 4: THE COUNTRY WORKERS’ STOP OF 1929

Low wages and arrogant bosses on one side. Increasing awareness among workers on the other. They created a long line of fierce industrial disputes across the country. One of them was the 1929 farm workers’ strike in East Groningen. Together with Jaap Meulenkamp, Kees Slager went back to northeastern Groningen.
Meulenkamp was the son of one of the strike leaders in Finsterwolde, and experienced the strike himself as a small boy. He wrote the booklet: ‘Wie willen boas blieven’, about that strike, the longest agricultural workers’ strike in the national history.
Also interviews with Ms P. Dorenkamp and Mr E. Kolk, who reminisce about the life of farm workers in those days and the strike.

AFL. 5: Wise Parenthood

The New Malthusian League opposed in word and deed the propaganda, especially from denominational quarters, for the big family, which often also resulted in great impoverishment.

Interviews with:

• Mrs Kuyt, childhood memories of the lack of and taboo on sex education.
• Ge Nabrink, on lectures for the NMB, on the sale of contraceptives, and on whether the NMB should continue to deal with family planning or also engage in sexual reform.
• Kees Rijken on how he tried to do family planning himself.
• Mrs Kuyt, drug depot keeper, on selling drugs and fitting pessaries.
• Mrs Bierman, also active in the NMB
• Mrs Roschar, NMB board member

AFL. 6: THE SOUTHERN SEA WORKS

Despite crisis, strikes, monetary devaluation and austerity, in 1932 the Netherlands completed something the whole world looked at with admiration: the Afsluitdijk
‘A nation that lives, builds its future,’ was chiselled into the monument. And who cares about a few protesting fishermen?”
On the completion of the Afsluitdijk (in 1932) and what preceded it.

Interviews with:

• Jouke Volgers, a fisherman in Enkhuizen, about fishing on the Zuiderzee, about the fishermen’s resistance to the Afsluitdijk, about their fear for the future, about the discovery that eel can also live very well in fresh water and about the Zuiderzee Support Act.
• Peter Verbiest, dike worker, about the circumstances that led him and others to become dike workers, about life on a working island, about working on the dike, about fights, boozing and women.
• Jan Nauta, also a dike worker, on his unemployment after completion of the dike and on the establishment of the National Crisis Committee.

AFL. 7: CRISIS AND Riot

In 1929, panic breaks out at the New York Stock Exchange, which will lead to a global crisis. The effects are also felt in the Netherlands. In the 1930s, the Netherlands has an average of about half a million unemployed, many of whom receive no government support. Conditions in many families are harrowing. This programme covers the misery in working-class families, government control of welfare recipients, attempts to limit spending somewhat (shutting down gas meters, proletarian shopping), the flare-up of resistance to Colijn’s punitive rule, and eventually the bursting of the bomb in Amsterdam’s Jordaan and Rotterdam’s Crooswijk, riots spreading to other parts of the country. The quelling of the uprisings and the effects of resistance.

Interviews with and historical footage of:

• Jan Weggelaar, worker’s son, on conditions in the Spaarndammerbuurt and on the riots.
• Jan van Leyden, lived with dad, mum and 11 siblings in a cramped house in Crooswijk: about how things were at home and about the riots in Crooswijk.
• Radio appeal to Princess Juliana for support for the National Crisis Committee.
• Kees Rijken, unemployed flower merchant in Rotterdam, on the generosity of the NCC, on shutting down gas meters and proletarian shopping, and on the fear of many to resist the authoritarianism of home visitors.
• Henk Gortzak, carpenter, on the effects of the crisis, on the riot which he said was a reaction to the provocations of government, police and army, and on his role (important activist) during the Jordan riot.

AFL. 8: MUSSERT OF MOSKOU

About the political confusion after World War I, the rise of communism and the rise of fascism that put order in a number of countries (Salazar in Portugal, Mussolini in Italy, Primo de Rivera and Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany). The somewhat difficult formation of the NSB, with leader Anton Mussert. The anti-fascist movements Antifa (communist), Antifo (socialist) and Freedom, Labour, Bread (social democrats). On the tussles between NSB members and anti-fascists. About the somewhat more moderate opposition to fascism by ‘Unity through Democracy’. On the NSB’s dwindling following and the growing threat of war. On sabotage actions in the Rotterdam port.

Interviews with and historical material from:

• Mussert, van Geelkerken, an NSB member
• Kees Rijken, Rotterdammer, communist anti-fascist.
• Peter Brijnen van Houten, mapped the entire NSB
• Bertus Schmidt, active in the Antifa and the Marxist Workers’ School.

The War and Information Centre Drenthe (OICD) has captured the stories surrounding the war memorials in Drenthe in six documentaries. The OICD wants to keep the memory of the Second World War alive in Drenthe.
With the oral history project Mien Oorlog, oeze naogedachtis, the OICD recorded stories about war monuments in each of the former 34 municipalities of Drenthe.
Longer versions were made. Unclear whether these are still available anywhere.

The six documentaries, each lasting 10 minutes, were made based on Oral History: the testimony of those involved and memories of people who lived through the war and can still report on it. The starting point is the war memorials of the former municipalities of Drenthe. There are special stories behind each monument. These are the stories below:

Roeli Roelfsema
Surgeon and gynaecologist Johan Roelfsema from Meppel was a victim of the Silbertane murder and was shot dead near Ruinen on 29 September 1943. His wife was just pregnant at the time. It is a son, Roeli. A son Johan Roelfsema will never know.

Johannes Post
Johannes Post, Drenthe resistance hero. He distributed illegal literature. Collected distribution vouchers, forged identity cards, sheltered Jews and resistance fighters and offered armed resistance. His children recount their experiences during the war.

Coba van der Helm
Jan and Annechien van der Helm’s farm in Nieuwlande housed three Jewish people in hiding for many years; the Lelie family and the lawyer Maurits Levie. Coba’s sister would later marry their Dutch absconder Andries van Grondelle.

Bouke de Jonge
Three Drenthe boys from Eeserveen are killed by exploded German ammunition in the woods of Odoorn after the liberation. Bouke de Jonge and another friend survive the disaster.

Piet Pomp
Piet Pomp still sees it happening, The endless aerial battles in the skies above Nieuw-Dordrecht. On life and death, because all too often planes crashed. Just like that time his house almost burned down.

Floor Aukema
Floor’s father, Evert Aukema, was picked up as a resistance fighter in 1944 and never returned. Died in Neuengamme concentration camp. Floor still has several memories of his father.

Erik Pertz made numerous historical documentaries within the BRT’s science service, focusing mainly on ‘oral history’.

He made reportages for the new series ‘Document’. This started when in ’92 the science and art departments were merged into the culture department. There, Pertz was project manager for the scientific and ‘human interest’ programmes, including Document.

On 5 April 1943, US planes bombed Mortsel. They wanted to destroy the German Erla factory. But only a few of the 600 bombs hit targets. There were 936 dead, almost all civilians. Hundreds of homes and four schools had been wiped off the map by the bombs. More than 200 children were killed in what went down in history as the deadliest bombing in the Benelux region.

In Soldiers of the Great War by Erik Pertz and André Van de Vijver from 1985, witnesses, the last survivors, of World War I recount everyday life during that terrible period. Soldiers who lived through the war and civilians from the occupied country or frontline area as direct witnesses were given the floor rather than politicians or commanders.
A total of three broadcasts were made:

• ‘In de vuurlijn’ (1985) In it, Flemish veterans recount their experiences as soldiers in the Great War. The Flemish veterans recount the early days of the war and the withdrawal behind the Yser, life at the front, gas attacks and self-mutilations, pay, transport and care of the wounded, rats and lice, and friendship and solidarity among fellow-sufferers.
• ‘Achter de linies’ (1985) with stories about wartime events in the immediate vicinity of the Allied front. Soldiers recount life behind the Allied lines in Flanders. They bring the gripping story of the victims of the gas attacks, the coexistence of civilians and soldiers, the distinction between soldiers and officers, the soldiers from ‘foreign countries’ and the children from Flemish-British relations. 
• ‘Unser Vaterland muss grosser sein’ (1988). In it, Flemish eyewitnesses recount life under the German occupation. the story of the German invasion and the resulting panic among the population, the hospitalisation of German soldiers, the fourth German army in Tielt, air battles, working for the German occupiers and the birth of Flemish-German children.

The BRTN made a socio-historical documentary about Flemish seasonal workers in France. Among them were several Koekelarenaars. They went to the French beet fields to earn a living. Not for nothing were these people known to French farmers as “les godverdommes” because they were hard workers. The film dives into the past and puts the seasonal workers at work setting and lifting the beets as it was done then. One sees their living quarters, their ups and downs and hears testimonies. Someone who can always be found among the “Fransmans” is pastor Joris De Jaeger. The film can be viewed at the Fransmans Museum.

From ’79, Eric Pertz was a producer at the science (culture) department of the BRT. Within the science service, he made numerous historical documentaries with a particular focus on ‘oral history’.

This film is entitled “De bietenmannen. Les godverdommes sont là”. The film is a co-production of the BRTN and the municipality of Koekelare. The film shows footage of Koekelare, Tourcoing, the border region and work in the beet fields in the Reims region. It is a socio-historical documentary. Residents of Koekelare testify about this hard work.

“Oral history of Flemish Fishermen” (17/4/1984).

What were working conditions like at the turn of the century in Belgium (and elsewhere)? The melancholy and pride that resounds again and again in the stories always strikes and moves. Not only in fishing but also in many other branches of industry back then, people had to toil hard, they literally earned their little money in the sweat of their brow.

No wonder, then, that most conscious workers of the time went to work to improve their living conditions, that socialism meant so much to them and was seen as a godsend, a relief from worry. Thanks to the struggle of many brave people of the period, a lot has changed and improved over the years, working conditions have become more humane.

The series contains unique period documents that will gain value later on.

After interviews with 50 former camp residents, IKON director Wil van Neerven selected 17 of them for the film “Sudah, never mind!”.The Ikon broadcast its “oral history” of the Japanese internment camps in two parts in 1986. The title Sudah, never mind! was taken from the reaction of a large number of candidate interviewees: “Sudah”, spoke mainly representatives of the older generation, “just let that terrible period rest”.

Wil van Neerven paints both a complete and chronological picture of the 225 internment camps, where some 100,000 people were interned in total.

Van Neerven’s main motive for emphatically not basing the subject on historical data, but sketching it purely on the basis of personal, emotional and perhaps subjective testimonies, is, for the first time, to bring years of hidden suffering properly into the open.