Queen Juliana's Family at Soestdijk

[Marengo]

The last one for now, and totally different. Irene receiving a cake from the KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) for her 17th birthday:

[Squidgy]

What great pictures Marengo!! Thank you! I have never seen that picture of the girls at the beach in Canada! Most of the outdoor pictures I've seen of them while they were here are of them playing in mounds of snow! This is a nice change!:)

[Squidgy]

Speaking of playing in the snow ... here are one of Trix & Irene in Ottawa. If you look in the photo album of many Canadians, I think you will find similar childhood pictures - making "snow angels" and igloos!

Photos: From the book "When Canada was Home"

[Her_Majesty]

ohhh nice!
Thanks for posting, Squidgy!
They were just too cute! :)

[Maxie]

Thanks for those, Squidgy! They're so adorable, especially the one of the ice skating behind the chairs. So typically Dutch! :)

[Marengo]

Free of copyrights, from het geheugen van nederland:

Juliana, Bernhard and their two eldest daughters in the snow





Bernhard, Beatrix and Irene in one of the wings of Soestdijk Palace

[princess olga]

Wonderful pictures, thanks! :)

[Marengo]

Your welcome Olga. Funny to see how much alike Juliana and Beatrix were in the first picture, it is the first time I see such a resemblance.

[Marengo]

Here a picture of Queen Juliana, Prince Benrhard and the Soestdijk quartet

[lucien]

Absolutely wonderfull thread Marengo!It's almost nostalgia to go through the posts,well,almost,it IS nostalgia,seems like yesterday.

[Marengo]

A clip from a photosession at Palace Soestdijk in the 50-ties:

NOS - Koningshuis - Video - Fotograaf maakt portret van Juliana, Bernhard en dochters op Soestdijk

[Marengo]

A clip of Queen Wilhelmina, Princess Juliana, Prince Bernhard, Princesses Beatrix, Irene and Margriet on holiday in Cape Cod in 1944:

http://www.youtube.com/user/koninkli...22/0CadW-yM1QY

[YankeeWife]

Does anyone know who the little girl in the second picture is in the polkadot dress? I know my deceased mother in law attended these parties. She was a friend of Renee Roell. This girl looks a lot like her. She was the daughter of Jan Silver who was a geologist with Dutch Shell. I believe her uncle Pieter Silver was a member of the Dutch Secret Service. I was told he was knighted by the queen for his assistance in getting the princesses out of the Netherlands when Germany invaded.

[Marengo]

According to historian Bart Wallet, Jewish school children were moved from the class of Princesses Irene and Margriet in the Nieuwe Baarsche school in 1951 (only six years after the shoah!). The children were placed in a parallel class of the same school.

According to Wallet the move was initiated by 'a certain circle of inhabitants of Baarn' and not by the court or queen Juliana and prince Bernhard. The people around the children approached the prominent notary Eduard Spier, chairman of the Dutch-Israelite church community. The organisation approached the court at the time. The court told them that the queen was not antisemetic. The court knew about the move but wanted to stay out of it. The thing was hushed up.

The Dutch Jewish community traditionally was very pro-Orange. Even today during the sjoel service prayers are said for the well being of the royal family.

Persbericht: Joodse leerlingen in 1951 verwijderd uit klassen van prinsessen | Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad

'Joodse leerlingen gescheiden van prinsessen'|Binnenland| Telegraaf.nl

The school refused to comment on the article.

[eya]

The Queen was not antisemetic but not jewish children at the same class with her children. Interested part of history.

[HereditaryPrincess]

Just six years after the Holocaust the Jews were still being treated this way… I hope there can be a time when all the Jews can experience no discrimination.
I understand that the royal court didn't move the children themselves, but if Queen Juliana wasn't antisemitic, couldn't she have spoken up about the moving of her daughter's classmates? If she wasn't antisemitic she also wouldn't have minded her daughters sharing their classroom with Jewish children and probably would have made a request for them to stay. She was the queen at the time, after all.

Has there been anything else about this in the Dutch media? I find it interesting that the school has refused to comment on the issue, I wonder if that suggests that one of the teachers was responsible for the moving of the children.

Originally Posted by Marengo

The Dutch Jewish community traditionally was very pro-Orange. Even today during the sjoel service prayers are said for the well being of the royal family.

Persbericht: Joodse leerlingen in 1951 verwijderd uit klassen van prinsessen | Nieuw Israëlietisch Weekblad

'Joodse leerlingen gescheiden van prinsessen'|Binnenland| Telegraaf.nl

I'm not Jewish but I think it's the same for the Synagogues here in England too. I remember reading that most of the prayers are said in Hebrew, apart for the prayers for "our" RF which are said in English.

[Marengo]

Well, it was 64 years ago so perhaps the present school administration did not know about this and they do not have any files on it? Most people who were teachers or in the board in those days will have died. I can imagine that files would be destroyed or never even existed in writing. So it would be wise for them first to get the facts straight before they comment. I am sure that the school will be forced to comment about it at one point. Apart from journalists, historians and the public, I am sure that parents of children who are at the school now will demand an explanation or apology.

It has been in all the newspaper and I am sure it will be researched further. I don't think any document or anecdote about Wilhelmina, Juliana or even Bernhard is known that is antisemetic.

The larger issue is that after the war Jews who returned were often not welcomed with open arms. Many of those who returned saw their houses being lived in by other people, their belongings were missing, confisquated art went to Dutch museums who only these last years started returning items etc. There was little place for their story for at least a decade. The main task at hand was to restore the country and prosperity. The war became a tale of the good (Dutch) against the bad (Germans). Attention was mainly given to stories of the resistance and of collective suffering like the hunger winter (1944-1945). Historians had the task to use the war as a unifying story of the Netherlands which would create coherance: all of us suffered equally.

Only since the 70-ties more attention was given to the atrocities directed at the Jews in particular. This also happened internationally. If you look at Hollywood for example you would see great movies in the 50-ties and 60-ties of heroic battles, campagns and generals of the Allies against the Germans. The series 'Holocaust' with Meryl Streep was one of the first productions that focussed on the issue; and that was in 1978.

In hindsight the court should have stood up to the school and to the 'certain inhabitants of Baarn' who arranged it. But obviously in 1951 things were not as clear. That they didn't is something that certainly should be researched further. Antisemitism can be a reason for the move by the school/'certain inhabitants' but there are other possibilities too. Likewise the court wishing to 'stay out' of such a quarrel may have multiple motivations too.

****

Added:

More details from Trouw:

- Only a few people knew about it. The school, a few courtiers and the top of the Jewish community. The Dutch-Israelite Curch community decided to drop the issue when it was clear that the court did not take the initiative.

- The historian had access to the archives of the royal house.

- There were individual contacts between Queen Juliana and Jewish Dutchmen after the war. Head rabbi Isaac Herzog was invited to the religious conferences at Castle het Loo for example. She was also very pro-Israel. In 1986 she visited the country, which has been her wish for a long time.

- When it became clear that the princesses were going to the Baarsche school, many parents were trying to make their sure that children were int he same class. The school board made a list of children who social status was considered more suitable to be in the class of the princesses. The court didn't want to get involved in such a wasp nest and stayed out of it. This disappointed the Jewish association.

- The present school board did not know about the issue. They say they can not check it either in their archives as most files from those days have been destroyed.

http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/6700/Weten...insesjes.dhtml

[HereditaryPrincess]

Thank you for the additional details, Marengo. Perhaps the children were moved because they were considered to be "unsuitable" classmates for the Princesses for other reasons (such as their social class) and not because they were Jewish since the additional details you posted mentioned that Queen Juliana was pro-Israel (so therefore wouldn't be antisemitic after all).

I was also unaware about the general opinion of Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands at the time, though I had heard that people who hadn't been in the Holocaust didn't know about the concentration camps and the other awful things that went on at the time (and also that this was only really globally known until the Eichmann trial in the early 1960s).

[Marengo]

The government informations ervice (RVD) says that it could find no files in their own archives or of those of the RF that show that either the Jewish children were kept away from the classes of Irene and Margriet, or that show that either Juliana or Bernhard knew about it.

The royal archives will get in touch with the author of the article to get more clarity about the 'painful suggestion'.

RVD: geen aanwijzingen weghouden Joodse kinderen bij prinsessen | NOS

[HereditaryPrincess]

Thanks for the update Marengo. It will be interesting to see what the final results/conclusion of the issue will be...