Settling the bill after liberation

What you see here is a scan of a slide Arie Kampman took of Palmyra in the 1950s. Palmyra, or the City of A Thousand Pillars, is a ancient city in current-day Syria. After the Second World War ended, the people at the NINO combined forces to get back to work again: international contacts were renewed, and traveling to the Near East was possible again. And yet, it didn’t take long for the personal consequences the war had had, or would still have, for many to begin to crystalize: Jewish employees of the NINO that were killed in concentration camps, professors from Leiden that awaited prosecution for collaborating with the Germans. But negative consequences also awaited those who had simply been less than brave. Those like professor Böhl, who was next in line to become rector magnificus at the university of Leiden.

The minute the war was over, Arie Kampman strikes up a true correspondence offensive. He writes dozens, often very long letters to his colleagues both in the Netherlands and abroad. Some of them are detailed reports of how the NINO worked its way through the war, but some of them are, for instance, requests to receive, retroactively, the editions of some journal that had been neglected to be sent to him as a result of the war.

Sebastiaan: I also just love how Kampman writes to a Dutch colleague in New York after the war, like: yeah, can you just send me a few ounces of tabacco.

This is archivist Sebastiaan Berntsen again.

Sebastiaan: Because you can’t get that here. And you know how nice it is to have something to smoke when you’re working. And I can’t offer anything to people visiting now. And he got it, too, I think.

To Henri Frankfort, a Dutch Egyptologist living in England, Kampman wrote a five-page letter right after the war. In it, he gives a rather dry overview of the Jewish employees who survived the war, and the ones that didn’t.

Fortunately, Sir M. David returned safely from Theresienstadt with his wife and three children. He now lives at Roodenburgstraat 20, Leiden. From there, Prof. Cohen also returned with his wife. He now lives at Amstel 155-II.

This professor Cohen is the one who gave a lecture at the NINO at the start of the war, something professor Böhl and Arie Kampman would later have to justify to the SS.

Leo Seeligmann also returned. In Theresienstadt he kept his own library that the Germans stole from him in Amsterdam.

Next are the people who did not make it.

Prof. Palabae died in a gas chamber, most likely Auschwitz; Lucie van den Bergh and Herta Mohr also presumed to have died there. Sir Van Leer died of a stroke in October 1941; his wife and three daughters were transported to Poland. Only the youngest, Nina, returned.

Lastly, it’s the collaborators’ turn:

As for the traitors, the following: G. Snijder is behind bars. He will probably be shot, being an SS-man. Dr. J. de Wit is also locked up, as is Snijder’s pupil, Dr. W. Zwikker. Jan de Vries (traitor) fled to Germany in Sept 1944. Dr. F. C. Bursch also fled to Germany in Sept 1944 and served the SS there. Luckily, there are no other traitors in our field, except that coward De Waele from Nijmegen, who has been suspended.

That the institute didn’t show much leniency toward collaborators is unsurprising. But the fact that there was so little consideration for the circumstances of the victims of the war, comes across was, to put it mildly, quite tactless. Take, for instance, the letter that Kampman wrote to Mr. Slijper, a man who had just survived years of concentration camps, and who had now apparently applied for membership of Ex Oriente Lux again.

Dearest Mr. Slijper. It is with great joy that I learned of your safe return, as per your letter of October 13th. I hereby inform you that I am pleased to have enrolled you as patron of your society again.

But Kampman wouldn’t have been Kampman if he hadn't subtly pointed out that Mr. Slijper still owed the institution some overdue contribution payments. A contribution he had to pay, should he still wish to receive the annual reports published during the war.

To my knowledge, you have not paid any contribution since September 1st, 1942.

And as a true businessman, Kampman did not shy away from concluding the letter with the announcement that the NINO published a journal that members of Ex Oriente Lux could subscribe to at a reduced price.

Someone who could also count on little sympathy, rightfully so or not, was professor Böhl. After the war, he received a visit from three representatives of the senate of the Leiden University, including Rudolph Cleveringa, the professor that had given the famous speech.

Herman: They were sitting in the drawing room at the front of the house. And this was immediately after the liberation, June 1945. And my father, he was on the list, he was next in line to become rector magnificus. They went by seniority. And then they said to him: “Böhl, the senate does not want you to become rector, you’re too German.”

Too German, maybe, but the memory of Professor Böhl’s initial attitude regarding his refusal to resign , was probably still fresh in the minds of these gentlemen as well.

Böhl certainly wasn’t alone or unique in his wavering attitude – as Willem Otterspeer describes, many Leiden-based academics were hesitant rather than decisive.

Completely different, then, was the mentality of Arie Kampman: it seemed that, first and foremost, he deemed it important that the war wouldn’t obstruct his plans, and he continued to look for creative solutions to accomplish his ambitions, in spite of the political situation.

But the most heroic part in this story is reserved for Böhl’s only student: Madelon Verstijnen. Her motto was: ‘the opinions are divided, but mine are not.’ Where others hesitated or simply did nothing, she joined the resistance. The way she endured the atrocities of the concentration camps, and the ensuing escape, attests to a formidable amount of courage, self-sacrifice, and immense willpower. The NINO can be rightfully proud of the fact she has connected such a small institute to such great deeds.