Nights at the Museum, Winter 2025 lineup

 

In a way, all that the weaponry rolling over the border was unexpected. The Dutch had spent the First World War out of the fray, neutral and largely unaffected. The neighbors’ little mustachioed pepper pot had claimed the night before the invasion that their neighbors, the Dutch, need not be anxious about German aggression . .. they lied.

On 10 May 1940, the German invasion of the Netherlands was begun. The meager Dutch army was no match for the German blitzkrieg, and thus the aggression ended by May 14, just four days later,

And so began the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, four long years of interminable suffering that began with the burning of Rotterdam and ended with Allied troops, mostly U.S and Canadian, ringing in jubilant liberation.

That four-years have to be considered one of the most difficult periods in modern Dutch history. One hundred thousand Dutch Jews were slsin, only 49 thousand remained.

Three books concerning the war years in the Netherlands, the years of the Nazi occupation, will be featured this season in the Books at the Museum program. One of those books is considered one of the world’s artistic treasures—The Diary of Anne Frank, a memoir/diary read and loved by millions. The program begins on January 21.

The second book may well be just as familiar, locally, Things We Couldn’t Say (1985}, the war story of Diet Eman, who, with her fiancé, worked in the Dutch underground trying to save Dutch Jews Hitler wanted exterminated. Things has a local audience because the Eman story was written by DAHM board member Jim Schaap, who has many tales of the book’s origins in his work with Diet (pronounced Deet) Eman. The February discussion of Things We Couldn’t Say, will be held February 18.

The March selection, also a diary. is less well-known—Etty Hillersum, whose war-time experience is unlike Anne Frank’s or Diet Eman’s. Hillersum’s diary An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941–1943, traces her growing appreciation of the life-changing vslue of selflessness. The March discussion will be March 18.

 Discussions will led by retired lit professors Dr. Keith Fynaardt (NW) and Dr. James Schaap (Dordt), and will begin in the museum at 7:30. Registration is $50 for three months of engaging book club meetings. This fee also covers beverages and light snacks.

To sign up, simply email the museum, dutchamericanheritagemuseum@gmail.com We look forward to seeing you there!