In March 2010, the University of California at Berkeley presents an exhibit dedicated to Dutch clandestine literature. In 1976, 198 titles issued by underground printers in the Netherlands were purchased for the U.C. Berkeley Bancroft Library’s rare books collection. Later, the Berkeley collection was extended and, at present, there are some 400 titles. Together with the British Library and the Charles D. McCormick Library at Northwestern University, Illinois, Berkeley holds the biggest collection of Dutch clandestine literature outside the Netherlands. You can read more about the exhibit
here.
Spirit of freedom
While clandestine book publishers also operated in other countries under Nazi rule, the Netherlands is unique due to its exceptionally high number of clandestinely printed book titles. Perhaps even more impressive than the number of titles is the amazing popularity of resistance poetry. People who before the war had shown little or no interest in poetry read the verses that were published in illegal newspapers with a zeal almost equal to that with which they read news about German military defeats. Traditionally, this combative Dutch “spirit of resistance” has been seen as a reaction to the ambitions of the German propaganda; whereas the Germans hoped to find support for the Nazification of the Netherlands and the tightening of links between the “Germanic” Dutch and their German “brothers,” clandestine literature insisted on the incompatibility of Dutchmen and Germans for “spiritual reasons.” The German spirit was depicted as intrinsically subservient, in contrast to the Dutch “spirit of freedom.”
Kader Abdolah
The Berkeley exhibit will focus on the technical difficulties in producing clandestine literature in a country under Nazi occupation. It will present to the public some of its most precious examples of beautifully illustrated books that were produced with minimal resources. The exhibit will illustrate the risks of writing, printing, selling and buying this literature and reflect on its specific content as well as its - sometimes dubious - commitment to the resistance. The exhibit will also pay attention to clandestine literature in other cultures that suffer(ed) under foreign oppression or dictatorship. The official inauguration of the exhibit will take place on April 15th with a lecture by Dutch writer Kader Abdolah, who in his youth was involved in the clandestine press in his native Iran.
Where and when
The exhibit will be on display at the U.C. Berkeley Main Library until June 30th and is organized in collaboration with Berkeley’s Dutch Studies Program.
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