Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 131, Issue 4, 2018

Abstract Black Pete, a blackface character: a century of blackface amusement in the Netherlands In 1847 the Ethiopian Serenaders successfully introduced American blackface minstrelsy to a Dutch public. A few years later the publication of the Dutch translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) and the subsequent ‘Tom-play’ led white Dutch actors to perform in blackface. Blackface performances functi Read More

Abstract Queen of Peace. Emperor Wilhelm II, Queen Wilhelmina, and the End of the First 
World War A hundred years ago, on 10 November 1918, Emperor Wilhelm II fled occupied Belgium, in the face of a revolution and impending civil war in Germany. The Dutch government has always claimed a complete lack of pre-knowledge, and surprise at the Emperor’s arrival in the Netherlands. On the basis of newly found docum Read More

Abstract Murder in the Wadden Sea. The 1717 Christmas Flood and vulnerability to storm surges On Christmas Eve 1717 the Wadden Sea was hit by the most deadly storm surge in the history of the North Sea area, claiming between 11,000 and 14,000 victims. In 1570, 1634, and 1686 the same region had also suffered exceptionally high numbers of casualties during storm surges, in striking contrast with other parts of the North Read More

Abstract Oral history and history education. Current status and new possibilities Oral accounts have become increasingly popular in the heritage field and in popular culture. The relative lack of engagement with oral history in history education in the Netherlands is therefore surprising. Unlike in surrounding countries, as well as in the Anglo-Saxon world, hardly any attention is given to oral history in history teacher training curri Read More

Abstract Contesting the colonial past. Trauma, collective memory, and the Dutch ‘Imperial History Wars’ This review article discusses three recent books on Dutch colonialism. In De brandende kampongs van generaal Spoor, Rémy Limpach demonstrates how systemic mass violence was part of the Dutch effort against Indonesian decolonization 1945-1949, and thereby questions words like ‘exces’ that are still commonly used to Read More

Abstract Hermeneutical confrontations. The scientific edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte The reissue by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich/Berlin) of Mein Kampf caused a short but heated international debate. This new confrontation with Adolf Hitler’s text was a hermeneutical challenge for the publishers, a work in which so many historical layers of meaning, such as the original context Read More