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VI • THE SECRET VOICE: CLANDESTINE FINE PRINTING IN THE NETHERLANDS, – Sigrid Pohl Perry THE long tradition of neutrality maintained by the Netherlands since the time of Napoleon ceased on  May  when Hitler’s invading forces bombed harbors and coastal areas, then dropped incendiary bombs on the city of Rotterdam itself several days later. On  May the Netherlands capitulated after Queen Wilhelmina and members of the royal family had escaped across the English Channel. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian lawyer who collaborated with Hitler to annex Austria into the Third Reich, was appointed rijkscommissar of the occupation administration on  May. The Germans used the rural telephone system and the network of roads, railways, and canals to deploy troops throughout the countryside. Dutch civilians had few weapons and had made no preparations for underground or resistance activities. Initially the people cooperated with the Nazi government to keep casualties low. But as freedom for Jewish Dutch citizens and protesters was curtailed, demonstrations and strikes by the population escalated, resulting in arrests, deportations to camps, and executions. A new patriotic Dutch political party, Nederlandse Unie, was formed to counter the Dutch Nazi Party (NationaalSocialistische Beweging or NSB). The Unie pledged loyalty to the House of Orange , called for economic cooperation in Europe, and enrolled , members by February , only to be banned the following December.1 The first mass protest was organized in Amsterdam on  February , with nearly half of the city participating. Two hundred strikers were arrested and locked into the Scheveningen prison which became known as the Orange Hotel because it housed so many members of the resistance. On  March eighteen men, who would become a symbol of the resistance, were executed by firing squad on the dunes near Scheveningen. Freedom of expression was strictly controlled by the Nazi government. Professors were fired, students were banned from campuses unless they signed a loyalty oath, and newspapers expressing views loyal to the legitimate Dutch government were forced into underground operations. All artists faced censorship in November  when the Kultuurkamer was organized for anyone who intended to perform , exhibit, or publish in the Netherlands. A letter of protest was signed by , artists, and many of the perceived instigators of the petition were arrested and deported to concentration camps. During the following year, the Dutch underground press began to flourish as the need grew for an alternative to literature produced by collaborating writers whose works were boycotted by readers and sellers alike. This essay will survey several of the major clandestine presses which published literature in the Netherlands between  and . It will be apparent that the Dutch were certainly not “devoid of all literary taste,” a Nazi accusation attributing to them a culture based on inferior “Anglo-Saxon society novels and books by Jewish authors.”2 A total of nearly a thousand items published during the occupation testifies to a strong Dutch literary tradition which participated in the international community of authors and readers. The earliest works produced by clandestine publishers generally served to strengthen the spirit and morale of the Dutch people. Publishers chose poems that inspired patriotism by recalling the history of past sufferings and the triumph of freedom, or that eulogized contemporary martyrs. The first publication by a clandestine press in December  was a broadside poem by Dutch writer Martinus Nijhoff, Het jaar  [The year ], which praised the Dutch seamen, or watergeuzen (sea beggars) who fought against Spain. Nijhoff had written it in  for Princess Juliana’s twenty-fifth birthday, and as the members of the resistance were also called geuzen, it seemed especially appropriate as a symbol of encouragement. Reformed minister F. R. A. Henkels, teacher Adriana Buning, and chemist A. J. Zuithoff formed De Blauwe Schuit (The Blue Ship) to produce the Nijhoff poem as a New Year’s gift to comfort their friends. The name recalled Erasmus’s Ship of Fools and Hieronymous Bosch’s painting De blau scute, as well as Jacob van Oostvoorne’s poem which invited membership in the “blue boat guild.”3 Henkels liked the idea of creating a secret guild to counter those organized by the Chamber of Culture, one for daredevils and fools.4 He asked Groningen artist and printer Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman to produce the poem with Jan Wieger’s illustration as a single-sheet rijmprent (broadside). Werkman lived and worked in isolation, rarely leaving Groningen, but his artistic vision soared. It was rooted in the dada movement, and he employed collage techniques similar to those independently developed by Kurt Schwitters...

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