Had you ever heard of Willem Arondéus? 

Groenteman: “Yes, certainly. I knew he was involved in the attack on the Amsterdam population register. Actually, I mostly knew him from anecdotes. That he was a quiet, withdrawn young man who was in the closet and unhappy. And that he became involved with the resistance group that also included Gerrit van der Veen, Frieda Belinfante, and the Bakker family. That is where Arondéus flourished. As the leader of the group, he divided the tasks. I am now delving further into his story by reading a book and watching a documentary about his life.”

Arondéus was arrested after the attack and shot for his resistance act. What does he leave behind?  

“That you may be afraid, but never cowardly. It is worse to be ashamed of the things you do not do than to be punished for the things you do.”

Have you ever been cowardly? 

“I talk a big game about everything, but what am I actually doing? I live like a queen – in a beautiful house, without financial worries. I have an incredibly nice family. When you look at it that way, it borders on cowardice.”

Do you really think so?

“Well, I am not helping anyone. I have friends and acquaintances who drive aid goods to Ukraine or take people into their homes. I am too old and too cowardly for that. But if I were 50, I wouldn’t have done it either. I donate money, do volunteer work, and have protested on the highway. It’s not that I’m ashamed, but I find it more lazy than brave. My standards are just too high.”

You also experienced the war yourself. At the age of 3, you were placed with a resistance woman while your parents were in hiding. Do you still think back to that time? 

“Quite often, because I am constantly interviewed by school classes who are working on some project about World War II. Even when my grandchildren visit, I involuntarily think back to my own childhood. By now, they know everything; they grew up with my stories. I always embellished them a bit, that I had to hide and so on. I also took the two youngest to the Holocaust monument on Weesperstraat. It was very moving to see how they went through it like a kind of treasure hunt, looking for their own names and children of their own age.”

Did your Jewish background play a role in your upbringing? 

“Not at all. Zero. Before the war, my grandparents were already socialists. My grandfather was a diamond cutter and founded the first labor union. I come from a Labor Party environment, and orthodox Judaism does not mix well with that. I did grow up in a Jewish neighborhood, and my parents had Jewish friends, but it was only during the war that we were made Jewish.”

For War Child, you made the series ‘Let War Not Last for Generations’. In it, you talk about war traumas and how often it was kept silent. Did your family talk about the war? 

“When you experience something like that, it is very difficult to talk about it. My parents would say, ‘Oh, do you remember that one? They didn’t come back either.’ I didn’t know what that meant. I never spoke properly about that whole hiding period.”

Did you need that? 

“I didn’t want to upset my parents. My father lost both parents, my mother her brother, and many cousins and nieces. I felt there was an open nerve there. Over time, a scab has formed over it, but I didn’t want to pick at it. At a later age, I tried it once. Then my mother reacted, ‘Don’t ever start that again!’ I give interview training, and my students always get the assignment to interview their parents with a recording device. Often the parents cooperate when the students tell them it’s a requirement from the teacher of the course. In this way, they can ask everything they never dared to ask, and their parents’ voices are recorded. This way, they get the chance to create something they can always be grateful for.”

The theme of the lecture is ‘freedom’. That is a fairly broad concept. How will you give it meaning? 

“I can hardly do anything but start with my own unfreedom as a child during the war and the unfreedom of my parents in hiding. Although I can dive further back into the past with a distant Jewish ancestor who was persecuted by the inquisition and fled to Amsterdam. The freedom we celebrated after the war is now slowly being lost. We are being confronted with the facts when we look at countries like Congo, China, Russia, or America. Freedom is already at stake there.” 

Do you notice anything of that yourself?

“Those restrictions are gradually increasing. We keep adapting a little, accommodating a little. I don’t feel it yet in my own body, but suppose I wanted an abortion. That might suddenly not be possible anymore. In America, Trump dismisses everyone who displeases him. That doesn’t happen here yet, but who knows.”

Do you think it’s important to keep talking about themes like freedom and to commemorate the war every year? 

“World War II is a source of information that we still have much to learn from. The chaos in America strongly reminds me of what I have heard and learned from the thirties leading up to World War II. The self-proclaimed strong man, the impoverishment of the population yearning for a solution, pointing out a few culprits. Now it’s not just the Jews, but the immigrants, foreigners, and asylum seekers. It’s terrifying what is being said about that in some circles. The housing shortage, the fireworks ban; everything is their fault.”

Does that scare you? 

“I can’t help but think that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. Around me, I see numerous initiatives seeking their own solutions, such as setting up their own care domains, establishing housing corporations, or engaging in environmental activism. They just don’t have such a loud voice, so it doesn’t attract attention. We are now at the bottom of a very nasty pit. We have to get through it, but there will definitely be a counter-movement. I’m not losing sleep over worries. That doesn’t help anyone. Besides, it’s not in my nature.”

Follow the lecture on TV or online

Groenteman will deliver the Arondéus lecture in the Grote or St. Bavokerk in Haarlem. Registration for the Willem Arondéus lecture is unfortunately no longer possible. The maximum number of visitors has been reached.

Fortunately, everyone in North Holland can follow the lecture by Hanneke Groenteman. From 20:00 at NH news Opens an external link, at haarlem105/TV Opens an external link or via the YouTube channel of the province of North Holland Opens an external link. A sign language interpreter will translate the lecture.