Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience
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The Children
Carolyne Van Der Meer
The poems and short stories in this section treat Dutch wartime and Nazi occupation as seen through the eyes of children. Based on interviews with Dutch-Canadians, these pieces work to capture premature loss of innocence and the scars inflicted by war.
Carolyne Van Der Meer
Carolyne Van Der Meer is a journalist, public relations professional and university lecturer who has published articles, essays, short stories and poems internationally. Her first book, Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience, was published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in 2014, and her second book, a collection of poetry entitled Journeywoman, was published in 2017. A third book, for which she translated her own poems into French, Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bourgeoys in 30 Poems | Du coeur à l'âme : La vie de Marguerite Bourgeoys en 30 poèmes, was published by Guernica in 2020. Sensorial is her third full-length poetry collection. Carolyne lives in Montreal, Quebec.
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Motherlode - Carolyne Van Der Meer
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Preface
This collection of poems, short stories, and essays was initially inspired by stories I’d heard as a young girl about my mother’s childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland. But the book you now hold, Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience, grew into much more as I wrote it, and now examines the Dutch experience during the occupation from myriad perspectives, thanks to the generous collaboration of several other individuals.
I began with the goal of preserving my mother’s family legacy—a legacy of helping Jews, including by hiding them from their persecutors, and of resistance work that helped to undermine German rule. But what I discovered during my research was the everyday hardship of war, and the emotions that went with it—the hopelessness and the hope, the terror and the joy, the inner wealth and the outer poverty. This collection is not so much about history as about feeling.
It all began with my mother’s letters. Late one night, I made a long-distance call to her home in Belleville, Ontario, and asked her to write down everything she could remember about growing up in Holland during the war. Born in De Krim, Overijssel, about five kilometres from the German border, she was two years old when Holland surrendered, and says of the war, It was all I knew.
This was our starting point. It was hard for her. Her brothers had already asked her to tell these stories in detail, but she had refused. Then when I told her about my plan to write a book, she agreed to help me, and I am forever indebted to her for that. Her willingness took our relationship down a new road.
When I visited her childhood village in the summer of 2010, I had no difficulty locating her old house along the canal—a house whose image has long been etched into my memory thanks to faded, dog-eared photos. And good fortune was with me that day: the owners were home and one of them, Canadian-born Gordon van Wezel, spoke fluent English. As I stood in the backyard, I was finally able to imagine—really imagine—what it might have been like for my mother to run in mad fright during an air raid when she should have dropped to the ground and stayed still. During my tour of the house, I studied the ceiling, looking for the false floor between the first and second storeys where Jewish families were once hidden.
And so the first section of this volume is dedicated to my mother and her past, as well as to the journey we made together as we reflected on this time in her life. The essay The Complexity of Belonging
examines the questions of heritage, legacy, and belonging that I faced along the way.
When I realized that my mother’s memories were too limited for me to complete an entire manuscript, I began to consider other avenues. This led to the writing of three further sections: The Children,
The Survivors,
and The Fighters.
But this was the result of several steps. First, I contacted University of Calgary professor Dr. Herman Ganzevoort, who has written articles and books about post–World War II Dutch emigration to Canada. At Dr. Ganzevoort’s suggestion, I contacted the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Netherlandic Studies, where my efforts were rewarded. The president of the Montreal chapter at the time, Peter Lowensteyn, emailed my request for information about those years to his entire membership. For several weeks, responses came in steadily from Dutch immigrants of my mother’s generation who were willing to talk about their experiences. Interviews with Libby Boelen Emond, Carla Stapensea, and Kees Vanderheyden have added another dimension to this collection. Their stories have inspired poems and short stories that help illustrate the Dutch experience from various perspectives.
My 2010 trip to the Netherlands yielded more material. I spent hours at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation and the Jewish Historical Museum, both of which had excellent librarians who helped me discover onderduik,* the hiding period, from the Dutch perspective. These institutions gave me a sense of what it was like for families to put their lives at risk for those who were being persecuted. In addition, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation had a breadth of material on the Dutch resistance movement. Between this and further research at the Dutch Resistance Museum, I began to feel comfortable with this project. I am indebted to all of these institutions and their well-qualified staff.
My mother’s childhood home (second from left), seen from the other side of the canal in 2010. Located on the village of De Krim’s Hoofdweg, or Main Street,
it stands among other homes that have, like my mother’s home, undergone significant gentrification since 1943, when the cover photo was taken.
This collection is a mix of fact and fiction. I wanted to capture the voices of the time. And if I couldn’t capture that immediacy, I wanted to harness the power of memory in all its rawness. For this reason, I have, in many places, used the very words of various subjects, closely adhering to the style of Charles Reznikoff’s found poems.
And in some cases, I have taken a single nugget of truth and built an entire narrative around it. The pieces in this volume are fictional reconstructions of real events that attempt to validate and legitimize elements of the Dutch experience in an occupied nation, and beyond. My mother provided the framework, but it became a collaborative effort involving many people and their stories.
There are wonderful things that come out of undertaking a project of this nature. First, it has connected me with my roots. Second, it preserves and honours my mother’s past, as well as the experiences of so many people who generously gave their time, including Libby, Carla, and Kees. Amsterdam shopkeeper Anna Massee provided information about her Dutch-resistance-worker grandparents, Charlotte Schouten Escher and Jan Willem Schouten. The stories of Canadian Jewish soldiers David Kucer and Ralph Rogow are also explored here, and their perspective on the liberation of Holland adds a crucial dimension to this collection. Dutch Jewish war refugee Nico Hamme, who escaped to Belgium during the occupation, told me his story, and Dutch-born Irish resident Pier Kuipers contributed a letter that his grandparents wrote during the liberation. I was fortunate enough to connect with all these individuals or, in some cases, their children. As a result of this project, I have become closer to my mother than I have ever been.
Prologue
10 January 2011
The letter shakes between my fingers. I set it down on the counter and drop a tea bag into the cup as the kettle begins its impatient whistle. A brief flavouring of sugar and I pour the steaming water. The pages continue to beckon. It’s from my mother, and hopefully it explores another chapter of her childhood during the war.
For months now, I’ve been asking her questions about her early years in Nazi-occupied Holland, mostly in letters containing long lists of queries, posted with impatience. And even when it’s too soon to expect a response, I still check the mailbox daily. It’s been an exercise that has drawn us much closer—my interest in her past has revalued those experiences for her. Indeed, I heard many versions of her stories as a child, but I didn’t understand their importance as my legacy. I never really grasped their claim on me, or mine on them. Only now can I appreciate their significance and allow myself to be held by their power—yes, only now do I have the life experience I need to transform them into stories.
After creating a warmish tea with far too much milk, I take the letter in one hand, the cup in the other, and move towards the living-room sofa. Her letter is short, only two pages, but I hope to find something here—more magic, more evidence