Five Brothers and a War

National Homecoming

One of the interesting things about the shaming of women who had relationships with German occupiers is the double-standard that was shown. Dutch slaves/forced laborers in Germany, such as Wim van Rossum, were pretty much tasked with impregnating women, and were not subject to the same scorn. Certainly it is true that what happened in Germany was done under the prying eyes of angry Dutch citizens, but it also speaks to a culture where women are supposed to be more in control than their Neanderthal male counterparts. It likely also speaks to a hatred of the occupying soldiers, whose misdeeds were so despised, even if they were following the orders of their superiors. The presumed idea could be that Dutch society found it more despicable for someone to be attracted to a horrible soldier than for a man kept in Germany against his will to be attracted to a young German female. In any event, the Dutch had five years of pent-up anger, and even the Canadian army could not keep it all in check, despite their efforts and edicts to do so. There was yet another unfortunate effect of the end of the war. The Dutch who were enslaved by the Germans returned home to what was at best a lukewarm reception, but was often markedly hostile. This was due to the inability of many to know, or to discern, the distinction between those Dutch who volunteered to help the Germans and the German war effort, and those who were forced to do so. There was also a sense that those returning from Germany had avoided the Hongerwinter and deserved to be ostracized as a result. Most strange was the feeling that the hundreds of thousands of onderduikers (“the hiders”) suffered more than those people who were actually captured in razzias or by other means. Yet it must also be remembered that the Holland before the war and the Holland afterward were vastly different. Aside from the fact that hundreds of thousands of relatives, friends, acquaintances and others were dead or missing, millions of people were homeless due to the ravages of war, and vast numbers were malnourished, injured, or suffered from what would decades later come to be known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After five years of life-and-death struggles, life would not return to normal for many years. There was no particular governance, there was no real economy, there was no open housing and there was no job market. The nation had to be set up from scratch, and patience was in short supply.

holland

Five Brothers and a War

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