As a person of Dutch ancestry, and one who lived in the Netherlands and its Antilles for many years, I was naturally shocked to read and hear about the tragic events in the Dutch town of Apeldoorn yesterday.
As we all know now, a black Suzuki sped toward an open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and several members of her family, narrowly missing the bus, and crashing into a monument—but not before killing five people and injuring more than a dozen others.
Initial reports indicate that this was a deliberate attack on the royal family. Dutch officials say that, while they were freeing the driver from the wrecked car, he admitted that he had deliberately aimed his car at the bus carrying the royal family.
The driver of the car, a 38-year-old Dutchman, Karst T., died in the hospital. This morning, a member of the Royal “Marechaussee” (Dutch military police), died of injuries received during the attack.
The people of the Netherlands were celebrating “Koninginnedag,” or Queen’s Day, a national holiday celebrating the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. A day that is supposed to be an occasion for celebrating not only the Queen’s birthday, but also national unity and “saamhorigheid,” or togetherness—a tradition that started on August 31, 1885, on the birthday of then-Princess Wilhelmina.
From my young years in the Netherlands, I remember the holiday as a joyous occasion with fairs, street markets, musical performances, dances, parties throughout the country, and the color orange everywhere, for the royal House of Oranje-Nassau. The Queen and her family would attend many festivities, participate in parades and were extremely accessible to the Dutch people.
I also remember the tolerance, friendliness, pragmatism, self-reliance, individualism, and above all the respect for the rule of law and for the rights of others exhibited by the Dutch people.
When I was young, violent crime was virtually unheard of in the Netherlands. A murder anywhere in the country would make the national news on both national TV channels and appear as a front page headline in all national newspapers.
It was perhaps because of these “memories” that the news of the Apeldoorn carnage caught me by such surprise, even though I realize that things have changed in the Netherlands, as they have all over the world, during the past 50 years.
However, I hoped that one thing had not changed: the love, respect and admiration the Dutch people had for the Queen, 50 years ago.
I have not yet read all the “analyses” and soul-searching that are sure to come from Dutch officials, pundits and, most important, the Dutch people.
I know that there have been several violent attacks on Dutch public figures in recent years, including one on filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was killed on a Dutch street.
I know that there are political and social extremist groups and movements in the Netherlands, but I hope that the attack was in no way connected to those groups or movements.
I hope that it was an “isolated incident,” that does not reflect a sea change in Dutch culture, society or politics.
I hope that this tragedy does not mean, in a way, the loss of innocence for the Netherlands and its people.
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Dorian
I too grew up in the Netherlands, when the fabulous and gracious Juliana was queen. The royal family was loved as well as liked by pretty much all of us. When i heard of the carnage that took place in Apeldoorn, a beautiful sleepy little burgh, I had a tough time renonciling that with my childhood memories.
You're right, Holland has changed drastically from the place we knew. No T.V. you listened to Hilversum 1 the KRO or VARA on the radio. Imagination was a wide open space you could explore at your own pace. Non one really travelled too far. If you could reach it on your bicycle that was far enough. I've been back several times since immigrating to Canada. I still love the place, every town has its own central market square, surrounded by churches, restaurants and bars (gezellig!) but i sure couldn't see myself living there anymore. There's a part of me that feels Canadian in the Netherlands, and I've drifted even farther away from Holland since hearing of the violence in Apeldoorn.
John:
Enjoyed reading your memories of Holland many years ago.
From your comments on "No T.V. you listened to Hilversum 1 the KRO or VARA on the radio.," you must have lived here even before me.
I do remember every evening watching and playing with/adjusting the "test pattern" on the one or two TV channel(s) for probaly 30 minutes or so, before watching the evening news, which in those days (as I mentioned in my article) hardly ever included murders, rapes, etc. Ahh the goede, oude dagen.
Dank U wel
Dorian
They were really nice people to be around.
I hope the driver suffered.
Dorian, I hope this doesn't make you "Gray".
We had been through a time of total loss of innocence because we were so small we had declared the country to be nuetral and the shock of being bombed (harbour, train lines,bridges even) caught us unprepared. Hitler paid no mind to the polite and law-abiding, even tempered "nuetral" nation and occupied the Netherlands in a matter of weeks.
Today that little nation is bigger (economically as well as famously larger geographically-the new land taken from the huge wetlands north of Amsterdam (formerly Zuider Zee) and wetlands of now bountiful agricultural areas formed by monstrously large locks and dikes created southwest of Rotterdam.
The Netherlands used money lent by the U.S. Marshal plan to begin a host of improvements and soon began to thrive again, only redoubling efforts to fight subsequent temporary flooding. I hasten to add that the Netherlands was the first European country to pay back is Marshal Plan debt after the war.
Yes, with very few exceptions, we Dutch and formerly Dutch survivors of such very bad times unite to fly flags and sport red-white-blue boutonieres on the present Queen's (Beatrix, my age)
birthday and those of her mother, Juliana and grandmother, Wilhelmina. After all, "the House of Orange" represents a very long-standing royal family which led by example during all the wars and is even mentioned in the national anthem which specifially mentions Prince Wiliam of Nassau(William of Orange,)
and, no, he didn't go to Princeton but there is a connection; you could Google it.
On May 5 1945, Holland was a democracy gently "headed" by that royal family whose birthdays its citizens celebrate. The Royal Family as metaphor for the decent, industrious, "together" country all would want to celebrate at the end of the vicious Nazi oppression of torture and death for too many. My family and neighbors from everywhere in Rotterdam poured right into the streets, the flags unearthed from hiding places, candy where mom had hidden it, musical instruments apperaed , singing and dancing broke out for the entire day and night and the children stayed up for the whole time! We screamed and danced and nobody stopped us !These usually sober and controlled Calvinists and daily church attending Catholics joined together for a joyous, unforgettable commitment to a new age.
But every now and then there have been''rotten apples" in the barrel of Holland who can do something as stupid and insane as attack a bus of members of the Royal Family with a car and leave five people dead. (All members of the family survived)
The ongoing flag-flying, orange bunting and decorated bikes slowly came to a stop in order to honour the dead.
It was a true shame, another version of the wake-up-call all countries must guard against, must lose their innocence for, one more time. The Dutch have reportedly grieved one more time, united again in new "togetherness" against this new form of parade "terrorism".
There will continue to be parades, even heartier, even more "together", in the Netherlands. You can't keep those people down!
I am now an unabashed, vervent and patriotic citizen of the United States, vote whenever I can, it's a splendid land. I am also continuously thankful for what those Yankees came to Holland to help do (along with the Canadians) for the Dutch in 1945. My love to all those handsome, strapping boys who are now veterans but who then danced with this little girl they called "Blondie."
What a nice, nostalgic recount of your early life in Holland.
And what a number of common memories.
I also lived in Rotterdam (Schiebroek), but not during the terrible war years as you did. But stories by relatives, my geshiedenis classes and the many ruins still left in Rotterdam, even in the 50's, gave me an idea of the terrible suffering of the Dutch people under tha Nazi boot. (I still remember clearly the symbolic statue in centrum Rotterdam of the man with the heart torn out.)
And then, de Ramp in the early 50's, the monumental Delta Plan (we needed something like that in New Orleans), the reclaiming of the Zuiderzee, and, as you say, how The Netherlands came back through the hard work and dedication of its people to be one of the most prospeorus nations.
You are so right, just as all around the world, there are always some "rotten apples," and so was this man in Apeldoorn. But unlike the saying, this one rotten apple will not spoil the Dutch barrel.
One more thing, while you, as a 6-year old girl were celebrating Holland's liberation, I was a 5-year old boy over half a world away, in my native Ecuador, blissfully unaware of the terrible tragedy all over Europe.
And to the other nice "commentor' on my article (XJS and ME), yes you can call it Holland, and yes I am gray, albeit not Dorian Gray.
Thanks so much for your comment on my comment. I lived in the Blijdorp section of Rotterdam, serene suburb which contains the wonderful zoo and just missed destruction, I mean by just a couple of miles!However, our windows were boarded up and drapes were closed as per instuctions from the Nazis and we children played in the windowless "gang" of the apartment and actually were not surprised by the lack of food during that winter; father was gone so we had no money.
Father was picked up from our house on nov.11,'44, my birthday, and forced by Nazi officers to join a group of his neighbors in a march which was to lead to Germany where they would be slave labor for Germany as it went on to try and run munition and other technical war equipment industries while their men were at war.
Coincidentally, in the Apeldoorn area , my dad pulled out a square fold of rubberized rainwear our seamstress thrust at him at the last minute as he left our Rotterdam apartment and his own beret, asked the guard to be let out of line to give attention to "relieving himself."
Insead he looked everywhere for a woman, spied just one, ran over to her in the darkness of rainy night, stuck his arm in hers and asked "Mag ik eventjes met U lopen?" (May I walk with you for a bit?")and she thought he was a (30) ish, blonde, 5'4" woman (yes!she,too, was fooled for an instant) and off they sauntered until he could disappear in the tall grass at the side of the tracks. He walked form there, by night only , accepting cups of tea and an occasional hard roll from perfect strangers ("seek and ye shall find" my Dutch Reformed dad reminded me) all the way home to Rotterdam finally to his home on Boreelstraat 23B via the Blijdorp tunnel, and actually had heart-in throat moments with Nazis in view who never gave the lithe feminine- acting young man another thought.
Everyone was naturally thin by this time, including his three children, but we survived it all by eating bad bread, bad food, digging up farm food in Overschie at night . My dad ,who could have been shot on sight as a deserter, and the neighbors' teen-age boys went out to search farmers for food.Good people all...
Interestingly enough, my father went on with his bookkeeping career after the war and in 1949 was appointed comtroller of the Holland-America Line (USA office:29 Broadway, New York) at the young age of 39 which meant we all moved to America. I was thrilled, especially with school and public libraries! We lived in Maplewood and ,later, Mt. Lakes, NJ, and returned to Holland for the summer every three years so the Dutch part of me was kept alive while I worked hard to be the most American girl in my New Jersey life.