Feelings of another generation

We wanted to get a better picture of what those who lived in the Jewish neighborhood thought and to get a better contrast of the differences between now and then. So we traveled to Voorburg where we met Richard Dessaur who was born in the Jewish neighborhood in 1947. He informed us of the struggle that many Jewish families had to endure when they returned to The Hague after the war between the years of 1945 and 1948. The Dutch Government was not helpful to these people and shortly after the War some aspects of the government remained tainted with antisemitism. Many of these Jewish families including the Dessaur family had to fight to get back in to their own houses, which had been occupied with squatters and often even collaborators with the Germans (NSB) whilst they were in hiding abroad. Given such hardships after the War, we felt that Mr. Dessaur might not be comfortable with the disappearance of the neighborhood  or the conversion of the synagogue, but in fact just like most of the people we later interviewed, Mr. Dessaur was happy with the conversion as it meant that the building could still be used as a house of prayer. Similarly he was able to recognize the benefits of the highly multicultural Chinatown.

To illustrate how The War effected its victims, Mr. Dessaur told us that if somebody happened to lose their partner, they’d often remarry someone else who had experienced the same thing. He stated that this was not out of love, but through understanding of one another, which highlights not only the physical effects but also the deep psychological changes that have been created as a consequence of the war. But this also feeds in to a sense of community, something which was particularly strong in the Jewish neighborhood. Mr. Dessaur told us that everyone seemed to know everyone, and this strongly contrasts with our interview with Hanneke Gelderblom, who lived outside of the Jewish neighborhood  and had very little interaction with it. As a consequence she did not have that sense of community until much later in life. Mr. Dessaur told us that even today the Jewish community, though significantly smaller than before, is still very tightly knit.

When we asked him how he felt of a better understood Jewish neighborhood  he didn't care too much for the idea. Mr. Dessaur understandably felt that there shouldn't necessarily be a better representation of the Jewish neighborhood  but rather of those Jewish residents of The Hague that had their lives taken from them. However, he felt that this may have been because he was not actually alive during the holocaust and therefore only has second hand experience of it, and didn't experience the changes to the Jewish community. He stated that if we were to ask his mother whether or not she thinks something should be done to better remember the neighborhood  she would strongly support the idea as she experienced the war for what it really was. According to a sociological study by H. Schuman et al, there are deep psychological differences between experiencing a war first hand and being educated about it through books or parents. A surface level memory from a young age is significantly stronger than the deepest historical understanding of a war. Mr. Dessaur felt that dying without a name for people to remember is the worst thing that can happen, and something should at least be done in this regard. He then suggested that perhaps a building with the names of those who died should be constructed, so they can all be remembered on an individual level. Perhaps something similar to the war memorials in Ypres and Amsterdam. He also felt that the use of the internet to list these names could potentially be even more beneficial as this seems to be something that people might be more liable to see.

Further reading:
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.leidenuniv.nl:2048/stable/pdfplus/2095611.pdf?acceptTC=true&