Liberation dress from 1945, rejected because of the Soviet flag, now a showpiece in the Resistance Museum

NOS News•today, 10:54

It is a photo that immediately appeals: five children in a row, in colorful colorful clothing, taken in 1945 for the liberation celebrations in the Amsterdam Pijp. The photo shows Janny Schaperkotter-Leegwater and her sister, nephew and nieces, in their special handmade liberation dresses. Almost eighty years later, those special dresses now hang in the Resistance Museum.

“Hundreds of party dresses must have been made in the city at that time, but most of them were immediately repaired,” Filip Bloem, collection manager of the Resistance Museum, told city channel AT5. “The fact that they have been preserved is already special, but also that they come from one family,” says Bloem.

In the capital, a competition was organized for the most beautiful party dress for the liberation celebrations. Schaperkotter-Leegwater says that her niece Dieuwertje should actually have won, but the Cold War cast its shadow. “My aunt had sewn a Soviet flag on the back of her dress, which was why the dress was rejected.”

The then 9-year-old Janny walked away with the top prize. Her dress showed the Swedish flag and a text with a thank you to the Swedish Red Cross, which had arranged food aid for the Netherlands.

The dress with the Soviet flag:

Anyone who looks at the photo of Janny with her family members during the liberation celebrations sees a cheerful photo. “At first glance you look at happy children in a photo and this is a very cheerful story,” says Bloem, “but if you look at the history of the family, there is a really spicy war story behind it.”

Janny’s father Cor and her (Jewish) mother Beb were communist resistance members. In May 1944 they were arrested during a home raid in Amsterdam South. “We liked it for a long time that it was a party, only later do you realize all the bad things about the war,” said Janny Schaperkotter-Leegwater at the opening of the exhibition.

Janny’s niece Jessy Meijer-Costa kept the dresses and gave them to her niece when she turned 80, writes the regional channel NH. Only the distribution voucher package of Wim, the only boy, was lost. Together they donated the dresses to the Resistance Museum earlier this year.

The four party dresses can be seen in the Resistance Museum until the end of May.