Some information (in Dutch) on Jan Terlouw can be found here: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Terlouw.
Winter in Wartime is a bestselling novel set in World War II written by Jan Terlouw and translated in 2018 by Laura Watkinson. The British and the Dutch share the history of the Second World War. Although it is a shared history, it is experienced from different angles, making it worthwhile and interesting to read each other’s novels set in this period in history.
Guilt and Adventure
Gillian Lathey has researched the differences and the similarities between autobiographic children’s literature set in the Second World War, written in Germany and in the UK. She noticed a significant difference between German and British narratives. The German novels breathed childhood trauma and guilt, and although British children have suffered significantly during the war, there is more focus on the excitement and adventure of war in the British stories (182). Even though Lathey’s research was focused on autobiographies, her observations certainly apply to ‘Winter in Wartime’ by Jan Terlouw, which is fiction based on a fusion of actual events. The Dutch have experienced the war from a different perspective than the British and the Germans. Yet, the emotions and experiences Lathey described can also be recognized in Dutch children’s literature. In historical novels about occupied Holland, we can distinguish emotions like anticipation turning into guilt (from Dutch collaborating with the Germans), fear and rootlessness (the Jews and others who needed to go in hiding), excitement and longing for adventure (participants in the resistance) and flexibility and cautiousness (those who tried to remain neutral). In Terlouw’s novel, we make our acquaintance with 14-year-old Michiel, who accidentally gets involved in the resistance. He takes care of a wounded British pilot in a hide-out in the woods. Michiel suspects someone in the village is a traitor and collaborator. After the war, he finds out this man’s pro-German behaviour was a cover-up since he was hiding Jewish people in his house. Someone he did trust and saw as a family friend, eventually turns out to be the actual traitor. These different positions Dutch people took during the war, enable the implied (non-Dutch) reader to relate to the various angles and emotions which are highlighted in the novel.
Memories and History Writing
Novels like Winter in Wartime, show us factual historical events and memories from eyewitnesses, shaped into a gripping story. Scholars Butler and O’Donovan mention how history and memory are ‘two elements [which] act in tension… even where they do not contradict each other, approach the past with different priorities, aims and methodologies’(149). Both solid research and strong memories determined Terlouw’s writing. Terlouw was 13 years old when the war ended. In his novel, the protagonist's father is shot by the occupiers as a punishment for the whole community after the corpse of a German soldier has been found. Terlouw explained in an interview how he feared that his own father, being the local vicar, would risk being chosen in case of retaliation. The occupiers usually chose the notables from a community for their reprisals. Terlouw’s father has in fact been arrested twice but returned home safely. Terlouw also described in the same interview how two Germans were billeted in his home. One of them was very unpleasant and it was not difficult to see him as the enemy. But the other one was friendly, making jokes and handing out candy. Terlouw simply could not hate him, although he felt he should. This feeling of being torn in-between what he felt and what he was supposed to feel is visible in the novel when a German soldier rescues the protagonist’s little brother (136-137). The experience Terlouw had as a young boy found its way to the narrative, thus displaying more about the complex situation in the Netherlands during the war.
Lost Childhood
Lathey addresses how children in the war are deprived of their childhood because they ‘need to take on the responsibility of an adult in absorbing their parents’ anxiety or accepting the loss of family life and emotional comfort’ (145). In Winter in Wartime Michiel’s mother reflect on how her son is losing his childhood. When she makes a remark after he broke a bottle of milk. she immediately regrets it. ‘He’s doing a man’s work, she thought. Going out in the pitch darkness all on his own to fetch milk, which I’d be too scared to do. And all I’m doing is shouting at him’(13). Although the circumstances under which children had to grow up sooner is different for German, British, and Dutch children, there is also a lot of resemblance in the experience itself. This confirms once more the value of this narrative to non-Dutch readers.
Discussion in the classroom:
- Would you dare to do what Michiel did in the war?
- Why was it so difficult to know who you can trust or not?
Movie trailer Winter in Wartime:
Recommended cheese:
https://erf1.nl/shop/onze-kaas/kamper-terp-kaas/
This cheese originates from Kampen, close to where Winter in Wartime is set.
Bibliography
Butler, Catherine, and Hallie O'Donovan. Reading History in Children's Books. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost- com.roe.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=475312&site=ehost-liv
“Interview Met Jan Terlouw, Reis Van De Razzia.” Getuigenverhalen, getuigenverhalen.nl/interview/interview-met-jan-terlouw.
Megens, Niek. Meesterverteller ‘Jan Terlouw: De oorlog heeft mij gemaakt tot wie ik ben. www.ad.nl/binnenland/meesterverteller-jan-terlouw-de-oorlog-heeft-mij-gemaakt-tot-wie-ik-ben~a1c5243f/
Terlouw, Jan. Winter in Wartime. Puskin Press 2018
“The Resistance Museum Junior.” Verzetsmuseum, www.verzetsmuseum.org/en/the-resistance-museum-junior.