Jan Blom was a handsome man. Jan Blom excelled in science subjects, studied physics in Leiden and became an assistant at the world-famous Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory. On the eve of the Second World War, Jan Blom was a proud reserve officer in the army, and later took a convinced part in the resistance. Before that, until 1934, Jan Blom was the first of his ten-member family to join the NSB – his father, mother, three brothers and four sisters would follow.
Some ninety years later, the latter facts in particular seem difficult to reconcile with the former. Son Hans (who would become director of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation from 1996 to 2007) never received an explanation for this strange turn of events: the war was hardly discussed at home. Later, for Hans’ own children, the painful war history of their grandfather and his family would remain just out of reach – partly known, but always elusive. Until now: in Under the spell of right and wrong (BNNVARA), writer Onno Blom delves into their family’s past together with his father Hans.
While Hans viewed the family history in the first episode of this candid series with the professional distance of a historian, Onno was astonished at the choices made by his grandfather and his family. How could even his grandfather, who would later become known as a resistance fighter, have been attracted to the NSB? How was it possible that Jan’s family had proudly continued to support the party?
The beginning of an answer to that first question was carefully formulated on Tuesday evening. Jan grew up in a nationalist family and came of age at a time when things were unfavorable in the Netherlands, partly due to the stock market crash of 1929. “I know that my father wrote something in an anniversary magazine of his fraternity about the world circumstances that gave rise to to great pessimism,” said Hans. “He was concerned: a strong approach was needed. And who knows, maybe this new movement, which has manifested itself so powerfully, could make a difference.” In front of him on a desk was a membership list of the NSB, drawn up in 1931 – with his father’s name in it. Onno found that discovery more shocking than Hans. “It’s more the historical sensation than the fact that I’m shocked that my father is standing there,” the latter said. “Maybe that is a psychological blockage on my side.”
Better look ahead
Such a psychological block did not seem like a far-fetched option. Certainly not after watching the second episode of War is hereditary (EO), in which presenter Natascha van Weezel spoke with documentary maker Sahar Meradji and Holocaust survivor Bert Woudstra. Meradji, who was four when war broke out in Iran and subsequently fled to the Netherlands with her mother, explained how it was only now, some 45 years later, that she began to make connections from the war to her mother to herself. “I never asked the question: Mom, what did you gain from the war?” Meradji said. “Or me?” For a long time, the rule at home was: better to look ahead.
Even at Woudstra’s home, if possible, they did not look back. As a child he lost much of what he loved to the Holocaust. Also his father. “The past is over,” Woudstra’s mother said after the war. The silence continued for a long time. Years later he went to therapy to finally get rid of his egg. To be able to look back. “Was that perhaps the real liberation?” asked Van Weezel. And Woudstra nodded. “Absolute.”
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