Tie manufacturer Jan Warner van Dam (1893 – 1977) made iconic images of the fighting in the streets of Groningen during the liberation. Fragments of his film can be seen on Omroep Max on Sunday. How did his film come about?
April 14, 1945. The camera follows Canadian soldiers running across a bridge as clouds of smoke drift over the city. The liberation of the city of Groningen, which lasted from April 13 to 16, has begun. The soldiers take cover in gardens and porches. Some city residents don’t seem very concerned. They stroll calmly across the street as if it were an ordinary day.
Jan Warner van Dam films these images from his bedroom window of his home on Prinsesseweg. The co-owner of ‘Van Dam & Spoelma, men’s fashion and tie factory Grono’ in Haddingestraat is a gifted amateur filmmaker in his spare time.
Grandpa’s assembly table from the 1930s is still there
His grandfather’s old equipment is on the dining table in the living room of Jan van Dam (1958) from Roden. He points to a narrow plank with a wonderful construction on it that testifies to a fine example of his grandfather’s home craftsmanship. “This is his editing table that he made sometime in the 1930s. He tore that shelf out of a dresser.”
On this he edited the hundreds of hours of film he made during his life, including the diary with which he recorded daily life during wartime. The first recording is of the visit that Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart made to Groningen in June 1940. Other recordings show, among other things, the confiscation of radios, the robbery of church bells that are melted down into ammunition and the persecution of the Jews.
His videos of the liberation are particularly well known, such as the shelling of the water tower at the Herman Collenius Bridge. A generous jet of water spouts from the tower. The storming of the Herebrug, the shaving of women who had a relationship with German soldiers and the imprisonment of NSB members are also discussed.
Watch the fragment in which women are shaved here. The text continues below the video.
Color film with the Dutch flag flying is moving
“Van Dam has also saved a piece of color film on which the Dutch tricolor is flying,” says program compiler Erik Willems of Omroep Max. “Very moving. But he also has a video in which a Groningen resident writes a message with chalk on an armored vehicle to the Dutch who have yet to be liberated by the Canadians: ‘Greetings from Groningen’.”
Watch the fragment here in which a boy writes ‘Greetings from Groningen’ on an armored vehicle. The text continues below the video.
Jan van Dam and his cousin, former RTV-Noord presenter Rob van Dam (1954), digitized the films a long time ago and the originals were recently handed over to the Groninger Archives. But they still have the original tins with the handwritten labels in which their grandfather kept his war films. They are in a neat pile on the table. “Four films of fifteen minutes,” says Rob van Dam. “Most were made in the first years of the war.”
This is not entirely without risk, because during war it is forbidden to film military objects. It is also not allowed to take cameras on public transport.
The cousins show some videos on a laptop. They select one titled “Family Scenes.” Summer 1941′. A grainy image shows a sunny day. Adults and children go down a slide one by one and then slide back up the slide backwards a little later. “A nice thing from grandpa, I think,” Rob suspects. “He installed it that way.” He nods to the editing table avant la lettre that is on the table in front of him. “So to that.”
‘I never saw grandpa without a tie’
A moment later the image changes. “Look, now they are busy building a vegetable garden,” says Jan. “Then they had some extra food. And there you have grandpa.” Jan Warner van Dam, dressed in a three-piece suit, uses some garden tools. The others are also all neatly dressed. “That was of course because of the film, but I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen grandpa without a tie,” Rob also notes. “That was of course because of their company. They were the best advertisement themselves.”
Their grandfather was an enthusiastic filmmaker back in the 1930s. “Among other things, he made a kind of documentary about the company,” says Rob. The laptop turns on again. A little later, Jan Warner van Dam walks through his company in a long, white coat and tie. Women sink their scissors into long pieces of silk. A horse and cart stops in front of the door and large wooden crates are loaded. “They made, among other things, the Martinidas,” says Jan. “We often played there as children, but I no longer remember what it looked like. We no longer have a single tie from the company. Well, that’s how it goes.” He points to the editing table. “But we are not getting rid of it, it will remain in the family for a while.”
The video has ended. The screen will display: ‘Thank you for your attention.’
Please.
FOOTNOTE: The special of Netherlands on film with amateur films about the last year of the war and the liberation of the Netherlands can be seen on Sunday, May 5 at 10:05 PM on Omroep Max on NPO2.
Groningen Small Filmers
Jan Warner van Dam was affiliated with the Amateur Film Club De Groninger Smalfilmers (GSF), which was founded in 1933. The association has twenty members in its first year. Every month a film made by one of the members is shown. Meetings are also organized where members are trained in, among other things, the use of lenses and creating titles. The association was dissolved in 2017.
Who shot the water tower?
One of the most famous videos by Jan Warner van Dam is of the water tower at the Herman Collenius Bridge, which was punctured during the liberation of Groningen. “Soldier John Calderwood shot with anti-tank guns at a sniper who was in the water tower,” says WWII expert and guide Joël Stoppels of Battlefield Tours from Groningen.
Watch below how the water flows from the water tower.
Calderwood died in 2008. “His daughter visited Groningen in 2009 and handed over some coins, a symbolic compensation for the damage her father had caused.”
