The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands during the Second World War
Identifieur interne : 000372 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000371; suivant : 000373The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands during the Second World War
Auteurs : Piet BuijnstersSource :
- Quaerendo [ 0014-9527 ] ; 2006.
English descriptors
- Teeft :
- Adriaan, Amsterdam, Amsterdam university library, Antiquaar, Antiquariaat, Antiquarian, Antiquarian book business, Antiquarian book trade, Antiquarian books, Antiquarian bookseller, Antiquarian booksellers, Antiquarian bookshop, Antiquarian bookshops, Antiquarian business, Antiquarian department, Antiquarian trade, Anton, April, Arnhem, Auction, Auction house, August, Beijers, Berkelouw, Bibliophile, Bibliotheek, Bkvb, Boek, Boekenwereld, Boekhandel, Book collectors, Book trade, Bookseller, Bookshop, Buijnsters, Buisman, Burgersdijk niermans, Clear picture, December, Dekker, Delft, Domis, Dutch antiquarians, Elte, Emblem books, Emigr, Emmering, Erasmus, February, Fontaine, Fontaine verwey, Frederik, Frederik muller, Frits, Frits lugt, General bookshop, Gijsbers, Gooische boekhuis, Gumbert, Haarlem, Hague, Hans ludwig gumbert, Hanselaar, Hertzberger, Hilde, Hilde rosenthal, Hilversum, Horodisch, Internationaal, Internationaal antiquariaat, January, Jewish antiquarians, Jewish emigr, July, Karl anton steiner, Keizersgracht, Koninklijke, Koninklijke bibliotheek, Kuyper, Leiden, Liebstaedter, Lugt, Many years, Martinus nijho, Memoriam, Menno, Menno hertzberger, Menso, Mercurius, Meyer elte, Minerva, Natural history, Nederland, Nederlandsche, Nederlandsche vereeniging, Nederlandse, Netherlands, Nico, Nieuwe, Nieuwe spiegelstraat, Nieuwsblad, Nieuwsblad voor, Nijho, Nijmegen, November, Nvva, October, Oral information, Otto liebstaedter, Oude, Pampiere wereld, Piet, Popular prose, Publishing house, Quaerendo, Rosenthal, Rotterdam, Same time, Scheepers, Schierenberg, Second world, September, Simon emmering, Steiner, Swets, Swets zeitlinger, Tweede wereldoorlog, Utrecht, Venema, Verwey, Voor, Vossiek, Vries, Wilhelm junk, Witsen, Wouter nijho, Wouters, Zeitlinger.
Url:
DOI: 10.1163/157006906779165740
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:24983E5461B50530CBDC6DEF39E94693CD75D4D4Le document en format XML
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<p>© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Quærendo 36⁄4 Also available online – www.brill.nl/qua * The present article is the updated and translated version of my Het Nederlandse antiquariaat tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog (Zesde Bert van Selm-lezing; Amsterdam, De Buitenkant, 1997 ). Many people have provided me with information on which I have drawn for this article; their names will be found here in the notes. I am particularly grateful to Nico Kool of the bkvb (Amsterdam University Library), Fred Vooren of the former riod (Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, now niod , Netherlands Institute for War Documentation), and Ton Croiset van Uchelen, Chief Curator (retd.) of Amsterdam University Library. Others spurred me on through their deliberate attempts at obstruction; their contribution too is gratefully acknowledged here. 1 See Anton Gerits, Op dubbelspoor en Pilatusbaan. Boeken als middel van bestaan (Zutphen: Walburg Pers 2000 ); adapted as: Books, Friends, and Bibliophiles; reminiscences of an antiquarian bookseller (New Castle (Delaware): Oak Knoll Press 2004 ). P iet J. B uijnsters The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands during the Second World War * history without historiography Start looking into the history of the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands during the Second World War and you immediately come up against a number of obstacles. Right from the start, however you approach it, it is always going to be about individuals and it is always going to involve moral judgements about those individuals. It is, accordingly, a sensitive subject. The eyewitnesses are now almost all dead, and those still living are reluctant to talk about the wartime past. Some fear painful revelations of an inquisitorial nature. There are also those who believe that after the fl ood of books and articles about the occupation the last word on the subject has already been said. However, this is far from being the case when it comes to the history of the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands during the Second World War. It is a page in history that is neither black nor highlighted with gold: it is quite simply almost completely blank. So how do we fi ll it in with the truth? This brings me to an obstacle that is closely tied in with the particular char- acter of the group concerned. Dutch antiquarian booksellers (leaving aside noto- rious exceptions such as Anton Gerits) 1 turn out to be remarkably reticent when it comes to their own dealings. Books of memoirs by members of the trade – so common in Britain, Germany and America – are here counted amongst the real rarities. Max Elte ( 1909 - 84 ) of The Hague, for example, was always full of anecdotes, but he preferred to leave letter-writing to his assistant, and when towards the end of his turbulent career Menno Hertzberger ( 1897 - 1982 ) set about writing his Flashbacks the result was no more than a super fi cial rhapsody of ‘jokes’. However, not only do our home-grown antiquarians shun the pen, they also pay remarkably little attention to keeping proper archives of their busi- nesses, as Bubb Kuyper, somewhat to his embarrassment, was forced to observe in the book commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Dutch Antiquarian Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 251</p>
<p>252 P iet J. B uijnsters 2 For example, shortly after the war Bernhard Mensing, one of van Frederik Muller’s succes- sors at Frederik Muller & Co., destroyed almost the whole of the company’s archives. 3 A. Gerits, ‘In memoriam Bob Israël’, and Maarten Jan Israël, ‘Over mijn vader’, in: De Antiquaar , II/ 1 ( 1971 ), pp. 1 - 3 . Booksellers’ Association (NVvA). 2 In consequence, the archives of the NVvA provide only minimal information about the history of the antiquarian book trade in this country before and during the Second World War – and even then it is con fi ned to the uppermost echelons. If one wishes to describe the bigger picture of the trade as a whole, one is forced largely to rely on information straight from the horse’s mouth: the antiquarian book trade as oral history. Several antiquarians were prepared to help me, others sadly clamped their jaws fi rmly shut as soon as the subject of the occupation was mentioned. And there was much that was said strictly o ff the record. So it is, then, that my story can be no more than an interim report with all the lacunae and unex- pressed thoughts that that entails. I said earlier that Dutch antiquarians are not writers. Whence comes this evi- dent reluctance to commit their own experiences and thoughts to paper? The answer, I believe, lies partly in the status, or rather, perhaps, the lack of sta- tus, of the Dutch antiquarian in the years before the war. First, then, it is essen- tial to say something about this before we can turn to the vicissitudes of the trade during the German occupation. the dutch antiquarian book trade in the thirties Antiquarians (like book collectors) tend to be born and bred individualists, often colourful, idiosyncratic types of the kind you have to know how to handle. To the outside world the kind of business they do is what can only be described as a closed book, witness what happens when large publishing houses like Elsevier and Kluwer try to get in on the act. Conversely, antiquarians will generally have little truck with anything that even hints of bureaucracy or government intervention – though few will allow this aversion become so manifest as the Arnhem antiquarian Bob Israël (brother of Nico and Max), who refused to keep any accounts and consequently received a constant stream of tax demands, some of which he paid. One day he rang the tax o ffi ce and spoke to the Inspector of Taxes himself. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Israël?’ ‘Nothing at all. I am merely calling to inform you that I hereby terminate any connection I have with the revenue.’ As a young student in the fi fties I often called in on Bob Israël ( 1904 - 70 ) and his shop on the Bakkerstraat in Arnhem. He was one of the small group of Jewish antiquarians who had survived the war, though in his recalcitrant behav- iour (as I realized later) he daily exhibited the scars it had left. 3 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 252</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 253 4 J.F. Heijbroek & Jan Storm van Leeuwen, ‘Het antiquariaat Meijer Elte, 1899 - 1984 ’, in: De Boekenwereld , 1 ( 1984 ), pp. 3 - 9 ; fi les in bkvb , where the fi rm’s still uninventoried archive resides. 5 Cat. No. 47 of Messrs. Berkelouw, Antiquarian Bookdealers, Sydney (Australia), ‘Issued to commemorate the one hundred and fi ftieth anniversary of the fi rm Messrs. Berkelouw 1812 - 1962 . With an illustrated brief history of the fi rm’ [ 1962 ]. 6 Nieuwsblad voor de boekhandel , 26 April 1951 ; Leids Dagblad , 1 May 1963 ; Nieuwe Leidse Courant , 7 September 1966 (sta ff fi le in bkvb ). 7 P.A.M. Boele van Hensbroek, ‘Iets over den Haagschen Boekhandel in de 19 de eeuw’, in: Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van Die Haghe , 1905 , pp. 292 - 6 ; H.E. Kern, ‘Herinneringen I-III’, in: De Antiquaar , 1 ( 1969 - 70 ); J.F. Heijbroek, ‘Bij de nieuwe voorplaat’, in: De Boekenwereld , 10 ( 1993 ), pp. 23 - 8 . Meyer Elte became Joseph Blok’s son-in-law through his marriage to Leentje Blok. 8 F.J. Dubiez, Barend Boekman van de Oudemanhuispoort (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger 1955 ); Jurjen Vis, De Poort. De Oudemanhuispoort en haar gebruikers 1602 - 2002 (Amsterdam 2002 ). As it happens the Israëls do not appear in the list of members of the NVvA until 1947 , a fact which is in itself a warning to us not to equate the history of the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands with the history of the Dutch Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association – just as there is a world of di ff erence between the antiquarian book dealer of the nineteen-thirties and his modern counterpart with his ‘by appointment only’ opening hours. The antiquarian bookseller of today is (or ought to be) a skilled and trained specialist; then, with a few exceptions, he was somebody who bought up old books by the yard, a market trader or, as for many years the Dutch vernacular would have it, ‘boeken- jood’ – a ‘book-Jew’. Whenever the history of the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands comes up, everyone always points straight to Frederik Muller. But he was an exceptional fi gure, German in origin and mentality, as learned as an old-fashioned professor and as such in no way representative of his Dutch confrères. Meyer Elte ( 1877 - 1937 ), father of Max, started o ff selling second-hand books in markets in The Hague and Delft, a past which the fi rm proudly held aloft in its book-barrow device. 4 The story is similar for the Berkelouws of Rotterdam, the Calvinist de Kler family of Leiden, and the Hague bookselling family of the Bloks, later linked to the Eltes by marriage. When at the begin- ning of the last century Hartog Carel Berkelouw exchanged his bookstall on the Nieuwe Markt, where two generations of Berkelouws had stood, for a small shop in the Schoolstraat, it was a considerable step up the social ladder for the whole family. 5 Alongside cauli fl ower and lettuce Bartholomeus de Kler sold ancient theology in his shop in the Groenesteeg. One day a week until 1906 his son J. de Kler had a stall in the market in Leiden. 6 For their part, David ( 1823 - 1904 ) and Jozef ( 1832 - 1905 ) Blok both had fi xed pitches on the Grote Markt in The Hague. 7 In about 1880 David moved to Amsterdam, where for many years he had a stall in the covered passage of the Oudemanhuispoort, between those of Barend Boekman 8 and Judah, alias Joep, Emmering ( 1880 - 1934 ), father of the later antiquarian Simon Emmering. There too, from 1924 , stood the fl amboyant H.D. Pfann senior ( 1889 - 1957 ), progenitor of a family of antiquarians of no lesser renown. Before that he had spent fi ve years running a bookstall on Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 253</p>
<p>254 P iet J. B uijnsters 9 F.J. Dubiez, preface to the auction catalogue of the collection of H.D. Pfann Sr. ( 1889 - 1957 ) and Jr. ( 1911 - 74 ), Amsterdam, A.L. van Gendt, 20 September 1977 . 10 Martinus Nijho ff (the poet), ‘Het Huis Nijho ff ’, in: Het Boek , 31 ( 1952 - 4 ), pp. 137 - 49 , where incidentally there is no discussion of the antiquarian bookselling business; H.E. Kern, ‘Herinneringen I-III’, in: De Antiquaar , 1 ( 1969 - 70 ). ‘A collection of catalogues stretching thirty metres along with two boxes of slips containing tens of thousands of titles was transferred from the antiquarian shop to the K.B. [Royal Library]; these cover the period 1853 - 1978 ’ (translated from a letter of 31 December 1996 from former deputy director G.J. de Kievit, The Hague, who provided me with extensive information). 11 In 1901 Adriaan Swets (b. 8 May 1868 , d. Naarden 24 February 1950 ) went into business with Heinrich Zeitlinger, whom he had met while apprenticed to Parker’s Bookshop in Oxford, and established his academic bookshop, publishing house and antiquarian bookshop, fi rst on the corner of Vijzelgracht and Prinsengracht and later at Keizersgracht 471 . After four years Zeitlinger returned to Parker’s, but Swets retained the old company name. He was regarded as a scholarly bookseller, somewhat shy yet good at business, strongly oriented on South Africa. Until 1920 both bookshop and publishing house were highly local in character, but between 1928 and 1940 Swets’s eldest son Willem Adriaan (‘Wim’), a trained lawyer, developed fruitful contacts in the United States in the fi eld of academic and scienti fi c periodicals. The antiquarian book business was wound up in 1952 when a fi re at the Keizersgracht warehouse destroyed the company’s entire stock of old and rare books. At the beginning of the sixties the general bookshop too closed its doors for the last time ‘because we have decided to devote all our attention to the periodicals trade’. Shortly after Adriaan Swets jr.’s retirement in 1950 the family fi rm of Swets & Zeitlinger was sold to a number of investment companies. Its headquarters are now in Lisse, where its main emphasis is on the international market in electronic magazines and journals. See Nieuwsblad voor de(n) boekhan- del , 4 ( 1938 ), pp. 285 - 6 and ibid. ( 1950 ), pp. 166 - 7 . I am particularly grateful to Mr A. Swets jr. of Hilversum, grandson of the founder, who sent me further details of the family and the history of the fi rm in a long letter of 2 March 1997 . 12 At least, not according to oral information provided by Ger Gijsbers, a sometime antiquarian the Amstelveld. 9 Before the war the Israëls in Arnhem and Nijmegen had also lived partly from market trading. In sharp contrast to these ‘book-Jews’ with their street-market past were the two or three elite antiquarian bookshops where bibliophiles and scholars found all their needs met. Among them none so respectable as Martinus Nijho ff n . v . on the Lange Voorhout in The Hague, headed since 1928 by Wouter Nijho ff Pzn ( 1895 - 1957 ) and with the legendary Herman Egbert Kern ( 1879 - 1960 ) 10 as head of the antiquarian department. In the Netherlands the Nijho ff com-pany was unique in its international orientation, as a result of which it scarcely needed the domestic market for its old and rare books: indeed, it positively avoided contacts with other antiquarian booksellers and was not even a member of the NVvA. Its only competitor in Holland was Swets & Zeitlinger in Amsterdam, 11 but fortunately they were beginning to concentrate more on the periodicals busi- ness. In addition to these there were also a number of respectable auction houses, some of which tended to specialize in books for bibliophiles while others con- centrated on more academic fodder. In the Bakkerstraat in Arnhem, for example, there was Gouda Quint (where the ‘book-Jew Bob Israël’ wasn’t even allowed in), 12 in Utrecht there was the fi rm of A.J. van Hu ff el, run by a gentleman Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 254</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 255 bookseller in the same city, on 13 May 1980 . Steven Gouda Quint died in Arnhem on 4 July 1943 at the age of 70 ( Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel , 1943 , pp. 271 - 2 ). 13 [G.A. Evers & Dr P.H. Ritter Jr], Honderd jaar Van Hu ff el’s antiquariaat in Utrecht 1849 - 1949 ([Utrecht 1949 ]). F.W.G. Théonville ( 1888 - 1969 ) was successively a journalist with the Nieuwe Leidsche Courant , compositor at the Plantijn printing shop owned by his uncle in Leiden, unsalaried clerk at Van Hu ff el ( 1906 - 8 ), employee under Kerling at Van Stockum’s Antiquariaat in The Hague (until 1923 ), before fi nally returning as owner to Van Hu ff el, which ceased to exist on his death. See Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel ( 27 May 1949 ), pp. 356 - 7 ; and the interview with Théonville by Hans Wieringa in Trouw , 3 August 1968 . 14 E.J. van der Linden, In Memoriam G.W. Schultz ([Amsterdam 1945 ]). 15 Carla van der Poel, Burgersdijk & Niermans, een Leids veilinghuis en antiquariaat (Leiden 1988 ). 16 Willem F.J. Mörzer Bruyns, ‘Frederik Muller & Co and Anton Mensing. The fi rst interna- tional art auction house in Amsterdam, and its director’, in: Quœrendo , 34 ( 2004 ), pp. 211 - 39 . 17 Liquidation sale of books by Internationaal Antiquariaat (Menno Hertzberger) and Bernard Houthakker on 24 - 29 March 1934 in the fi rm’s premises at Singel 146 , Amsterdam. The last pro- prietor was Dr A.G.C. de Vries ( 1873 - 1936 ), son of R.W.P. See J.F. Heijbroek, ‘R.W.P. de Vries, veilinghouder en antiquaar’, in: Waardevol oud papier. Feestbundel bij het tienjarig bestaan van Bubb Kuyper Veilingen Boeken en Gra fi ek 1986 - 1996 , ed. Nop Maas (Haarlem 1996 ), pp. 131 - 8 . 18 O ff eren aan Mercurius en Minerva. Nederlandsche Vereeniging van Antiquaren 1935 - 1995 , ed. Nop Maas & F.W. Kuyper (Amsterdam 1995 )., pp. 128 - 9 . See also: ‘Nico Israël ( 1919 - 2002 )’, De Boekenwereld , 18 ( 2002 ), pp. 268 - 73 . named Théonville 13 who always put so many ‘castles’ in his sales, to the growing annoyance of his local competitors J.L. Beijers N.V., at this time managed by the solid J.C. Schultz. 14 Under J.B.J. Kerling, Van Stockum in The Hague main- tained its good reputation as an auction house, but for classical and oriental philology you still had to go to Burgersdijk & Niermans in Leiden. 15 Older than any of these was G. Theod. Bom of Amsterdam, founded in 1756 ; Bom spe- cialized in works of lesser quality and bulk goods Finally the famous Amsterdam fi rm of Frederik Muller & Co., with Anton W.M. Mensing ( 1866 - 1936 ) 16 at the helm, and later his successor B.F.M. Mensing ( 1902 - 72 ), came increasingly to concentrate on fi ne arts. The great stock exchange crash of 1929 and the worldwide economic crisis that resulted from it ushered in a di ffi cult period for the entire antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands. In 1934 even the bookshop-cum-auction-house of R.W.P. de Vriese in Amsterdam, which had already gone into a decline, had to be liquidated, 17 and in March 1938 Bom had great di ffi culty in arranging a moratorium on payments. There were books in abundance, in every fi eld, but no buyers – and prices had fallen through the fl oor. Nico Israël recalls how in about 1932 , when he was a boy of thirteen or so, he helped unload complete castle libraries from Silesia, tons at a time: ‘If you could have come through the war with all that, you’d have been a world-class antiquarian. They had everything: all the atlases, all the great books in the fi eld of natural history, books of plates, as much Dutch topography as you could wish for – not because it was a special hobby, but because they had been bought and you couldn’t sell them. It was as simple as that.’ 18 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 255</p>
<p>256 P iet J. B uijnsters 19 One who was still buying to his heart’s content during the crisis years was the fabulously rich Rotterdam timber merchant Henderikus Bos (another lawyer), but these transactions were often conducted in secret and on commission. See Willem Heijting, ‘Mr. H. Bos Kzn ( 1881 - 1970 ). Dynamisch collectioneur en gentleman-dealer’, in: Jaarboek van het Nederlands Genootschap van Biblio fi elen , 3 : 1995 (Amsterdam 1996 ), pp. 93 - 117 . 20 ‘The taboo of the antiquarian as a dealer was broken by Professor Herman de la Fontaine Verwey, librarian to the University of Amsterdam. He regarded me as an equal player. Up to then, the librarian had been seen as a gentleman and the antiquarian book dealer as – what shall we say? – a scrap merchant?’ (interview by Koosje Sierman, NRC/Handelsblad , 26 May 1989 ). The overwhelming impression of the thirties is of a deep malaise. It looked almost as if the great book collectors of the preceding generation – the Rotterdam ship broker W.A. Engelbrecht, the businessman Ernst Crone, the art connoisseur Frits Lugt, the ‘hermit of De Hoorneboeg’ Pibo Pijnappel, the re fi ned bibliophile Paul Menso and his fellow townsman F.C. Koch, all three of them lawyers – were doomed never to be succeeded by a new generation. 19 And because the books themselves were now worthless, so too the social status of these dealers in unsaleable piles of waste paper plummeted. Despite this, half-way through the thirties the best people in the trade were doing their utmost to rid themselves of this junkshop image. It was as part of this e ff ort that on 3 September 1935 a number of antiquarian booksellers and and auctioneers, led by Menno Hertzberger, established the NVvA to turn the evil tide. ‘We must make ourselves collectively more visible’, said Hertzberger in his opening address, ‘so that we can kindle people’s enthusiasm for old books and old prints [. . .] and at the same time the reaction will be more respect for antiquarians.’ The aim is clear: increased status for the antiquarian book trade and the people in it. How deep the frustration lay is clear from a late interview with Nico Israël on 26 May 1989 , during which he described the pre-war relationship between librarian and antiquarian as that between a gentleman and a scrap merchant. 20 A man like L. Brummel, for example, who was appointed as director of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague in 1937 , was still capable of forbidding his subordinates to have any contact with antiquarians. And it is true that the vast majority of dealers in second-hand or antiquarian books were indeed ham- pered by what might today be termed de fi cient schooling. In circumstances like those, to many of his fellow antiquarians the doctor’s son and ex-grammar school boy Menno Hertzberger must have seemed not far short of a marvel of learning. So how many antiquarian booksellers were there in the Netherlands before the war, under or beyond the umbrella of the NVvA? The question is a di ffi cult one to answer because few booksellers in the Netherlands con fi ned themselves exclusively to selling or auctioning antiquarian books. Sijtho ff ’s Adresboek voor den Nederlandschen Boekhandel en aanverwante vakken for the year 1935 lists a total of 95 ‘dealers in old books’ in the entire country (see appendix i ). However, these did Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 256</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 257 21 Fritz H. Landsho ff , Amsterdam, Keizersgracht 333 . Querido Verlag. Erinnerungen eines Verlegers (Berlin/Weimar 1991 ); K. Schoor, Verlagsarbeit im Exil. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Abteilung des Amsterdamer Allert de Lange Verlages 1933 - 1940 (Amsterdam/Atlanta 1992 ). 22 Dan Michman, ‘De joodse emigratie en de Nederlandse reactie daarop tussen 1933 en 1940 ’, in: Nederland en het Duitse Exil 1933 - 1940 , ed. Kathinka Dittrich & Hans Würzner (Amsterdam 1982 ), pp. 93 - 109 , esp. p. 105 . 23 Jan Schilt, Hier wordt echter het beklang van het boek geschaad . . . Het Nederlandse boekenvak 1933 - 1948 (Amsterdam [ 1995 ]), p. 49 . In The Hague, Junk was refused membership for the same reason. include quite a number of businesses that even by the standards of the day could hardly really be regarded as antiquarian bookshops. I shall therefore con fi ne myself in what follows to those whose principal occupation was the trade in antiquarian books, prints and manuscripts. In any event, they included the thirty-odd members of the NVvA, founded in that same year 1935 ( appendix ii ). However, adding these two lists together still does not give us a complete picture of the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands just before the Second World War. For that we must also look at the Jewish emigrés who had been coming to this country from Nazi Germany ever since March 1933 . The fl ood of refugees swelled particularly after the Nuremberg race laws came into force in September 1935 , making Jews virtual outlaws in their own country. In Germany many of them had been employed in journalism, the book trade or publishing, and when they arrived here they naturally tried to pick up the thread in their former professions. As early as 1933 this led to the establishment of two Exilverlage (literally, exile publishing houses) in Amsterdam as departments of Querido and Allert de Lange. 21 These emigrés did not receive a particularly rapturous welcome from their colleagues already established here with their respective trade associations. After all, their activities could only mean one thing: what business there was would now be spread even more thinly. 22 And because the general book trade was well protected against non-members, this policy of discouragement was quite successful. Thus the bibliophile printer and publisher Abraham Horodisch, who had set up camp on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam in 1933 as one of the fi rst emigrés, was consistently rebu ff ed when he applied for his newly established Erasmus Antiquariaat en Boekhandel to be a member of the Nederlandsche Boekverkoopersbond. 23 Things were somewhat easier in the antiquarian trade, which had always been a haven for free spirits. There Horodisch with his specialism of German bibliophily was able to gain a place for himself thanks to the extensive German banking colony in what the Nazis were calling the ‘seriously Judaized’ Amsterdam. But Horodisch was only the fi rst of a whole succession of Jewish and non- Jewish emigré antiquarians (see appendix iii ), among them famous names such as Gottschalk, Junk, Liebstaedter, Rosenthal and Marcus. Some, like Gumbert and Loose, did not become antiquarians until after they arrived in the Netherlands; others found themselves obliged by circumstances to say farewell to the antiquarian trade. Every one of them, however, experienced his own Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 257</p>
<p>258 P iet J. B uijnsters 24 Mercurius en Minerva op. cit. (n. 16 ), p. 151 . 25 Fritz Homeyer, Deutsche Juden als Bibliophilen und Antiquare (Tübingen 1963 ). 26 N. Japikse, Persoonlijkheden in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in woord en beeld (Amsterdam 1938 ), pp. 1717 - 18 ; [Bob de Graaf], ‘Menno Hertzberger zestig jaar’, in: Het Nederlandse Antiquariaat , 9 / 18 ( 1957 ), pp. 1 - 4 ; id., ‘Portret van Menno Hertzberger’, in: De Antiquaar , 1 ( 1969 / 70 ), pp. 113 - 17 ; H. de la Fontaine Verwey, ‘Menno Hertzberger’, in: Quaerendo , 12 ( 1982 ), pp. 326 - 8 ; Bob de Graaf, in: Voor Anton Gerits, ter gelegenheid van zijn 60 ste verjaardag en zijn 40 -jarig jubileum als antiquaar (Amsterdam 1990 ), pp. 40 - 5 ; Jenny Hertzberger-Gold, De familie Hertzberger in Nederland. Een familiekroniek (Baarn 1996 ) – with thanks to Menno’s son Dr Donald Hertzberger, Nijmegen. 27 From a deed of 16 November 1934 executed by notary Arnold van den Bergh at Amsterdam, it seems that Emanuel, known as Menno, Hertzberger had a partner in the person of the Amsterdam bookseller Jan Zovele (Annex to Nederlandsche Staatscourant , Monday 18 Februari 1935 , no. 340 ). di ffi culties in becoming acclimatized. Not unnaturally, they turned fi rst to Jewish antiquarians who were already established here, most of whom were in Amsterdam. This contact caused something of a minor culture shock. Bringing German and Dutch Jews together was often like trying to mix fi re and water: it tended not to work. ‘Before the war [said Max Schuhmacher] 24 the antiquarian trade – apart from the occasional exception such as de Slegte and Nijho ff – had always been a Jewish fi eld.’ It might be going too far to say that Jews dominated the trade in the Netherlands, but what is certain is that they had always stood out as the most energetic and active dealers, once again with Hertzberger as a prominent case in point. Doing business was in their blood, and nowhere were books so popular as in orthodox Judaism. 25 In fact most Dutch antiquarians had already long since severed their con- nections with Jewish orthodoxy. Bernard Israël, patriarch of the Arnhem- Amsterdam dynasty of antiquarians, fi rst studied to become a rabbi but then came into contact with socialism, which for him meant a break with his Jewish family. In about 1900 Simon Emmering’s father Judah, too, had come under the thrall of incipient socialism and here too it led to a letting go of Jewish orthodoxy, even if Judaica remained a speciality of Antiquariaat Emmering until the end. Hertzberger, for his part, always had a great many irons in the fi re, and his biography provides enough material for an entertaining picaresque novel. 26 I shall con fi ne myself here to some of the main points. Having started his careeer as an unsalaried clerk with R.W.P. de Vries, Nijho ff and again with de Vries, in 1920 , aged twenty-three, Hertzberger opened his own Internationaal Antiquariaat en Moderne Boekhandel at Singel 364 , imme- diately opposite his former employer’s premises. In 1935 he moved the business to the imposing canalside town house of Keizersgracht 610 . It was a general bookshop, antiquarian bookshop, auction house and publishing house all rolled into one. 27 The name chosen instantly identi fi ed its proprietor as an entrepre- neur with international aspirations, which at the time was unusual in a Dutch antiquarian. There now followed a rapid succession of auctions, including, in Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 258</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 259 28 Nieuwsblad voor den Boekhandel , 1930 , pp. 716 - 17 ; also in Het Boek , 1930 , where we read: ‘Gentlemen dealers they are called, those who act in the eyes of the outside world as investigators, col- lectors, amateurs etc., while all the time, though not openly, engaged in business.’ 29 P.J. Buijnsters, ‘Het Nederlandsch Verbond van Boekenvrienden’, in: De Boekenwereld , 5 (February 1989 ), pp. 106 - 12 . 3 0 Interview with Hilde Rosenthal-Wolf on 22 June 1987 ; see also E.J. L[abarre], ‘History of the fi rm’, in: Catalogue 204 , issued to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Ludwig Rosenthal’s Antiquariaat, Hilversum – Netherlands 1859 - 1959 . The fi rst post-war catalogue to appear after the business in The 1930 , the much trumpeted sale of M.J.A. Schretlen’s collection of incunabula. This brought a reprimand from the old potentate Wouter Nijho ff : this was not a collection at all, he said, but a hotch-potch belonging to a ‘gentleman dealer’. 28 Among Hertzberger’s publishing activities were De Joodsche Gids , a ‘fortnightly paper for the more mature Jewish young person’, launched in 1928 , and his own house magazine De Boekanier , the fi rst issue of which appeared in May 1935 . While on the one hand this was a business publication with a high self-advertising content, it also aimed ‘to o ff er the reader some relaxation with articles about writers and books’. It was not a particularly substantial publication, for Hertzberger was more a man of brilliant ideas than a patient builder of temples. Thus he was closely involved in the foundation in 1925 of the Nederlandsch Verbond van Boekenvrienden, 29 but within the committee he conducted his own guerilla campaign because it was all far too academic for his liking. When his suggestion of holding informal discussion meetings in the homes of individual collectors was rejected he had a blazing row with his fellow committee members and resigned from the club at the end of 1937 . Short in stature (‘but even a small bible has the whole text’, he said), Hertzberger could also be described as physically the archetype of the Jewish trader, even if it was more a matter of his quick-as-water busyness than of any manifest attachment to the traditions of the Jewish faith. That was certainly not the striking di ff erence between him and the general-Jewish immigrants of the nineteen-thirties, which was seated, rather, in their academic attitude and cul- tural standing, and the sense of superiority that sometimes accompanies them. Some examples may help to elucidate this. When Fritz Rosenthal and his wife Hilde, née Wolf, travelled to Holland from Munich in 1935 to see if they could settle here, they were kindly received and helped by Meyer Elte in The Hague. However, that did not alter the fact that they found him at bottom a person of little re fi nement. Ludwig Rosenthal’s Antiquariat in Munich was a fi rm of international renown and high academic stature, specializing in incunabula and sixteenth-century printing. Hilde herself had studied art history and German literature. In her eyes even Max Elte, Meyer’s son, was an antiquarian who knew the commercial value of certain books only from practical experience. ‘He liked fi ne bindings and that was it’, she was later to observe. 30 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 259</p>
<p>260 P iet J. B uijnsters Hague was closed by the Gestapo was number 190 , which gave the address as Eemnesserweg 290 , Hilversum. 31 Dr Otto Liebstaedter (b. Nuremberg 1900 , d. 1969 ) had been managing director of book- sellers A. Asher & Co. in Berlin since 1927 . In 1933 he emigrated to The Hague, where until 1940 he ran Asher’s export department. In 1935 he and Dr R. Schierenberg bought Wilhelm Junk’s antiquarian business, but even before the end of 1940 he was forced by the Germans to transfer the whole business to his partner. In 1947 he and Karl Anton Steiner established a new natural history antiquarian business as A. Asher & Co. See K.A. Steiner, ‘Zum Gedenken an Dr. Otto Liebstaedter’, in: Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel , 39 ( 16 May 1969 ), p. 1056 ; and the Personalia- Junk folder in the kvb . In the article ‘ 75 jaar Antiquariaat Junk’ ( Nieuwsblad voor de Boekhandel , 28 November 1974 ) there is no mention of Liebstaedter, and the same applies to the 1974 history of the Junk fi rm 1974 (see next note). 32 Cat. 187 (October 1974 ) of Antiquariaat Junk (Dr R. Schierenberg & Sons), then established at Lochem, contains a brief ‘History of the Firm’. Some additional information has been provided by Julius Steiner, Dieter Schierenberg and the wife of Allard Schierenberg. 33 He was assisted in this venture by his son-in-law Med. Dr. Walter W. Weisbach ( 1890 - 1962 ), who came to the Netherlands as a Jewish emigré 1933 and in 1937 became co-owner of the pub- lishing business. After Junk’s death, Weisbach continued the business on his own with an interval from 1941 to 1945 , during which time he was in a German concentration camp. 34 See his autobiographical ‘In het licht van de Verlichting’, in: Levensgeschiedenissen van Duitse Joden in Nederland . Vert. Carlien Brouwer & Annegret Böttner (Amsterdam [ 1988 ]), pp. 57 - 9 . Also P.J. Buijnsters, interviews 13 August 1981 and 3 August 1993 ; Andriessen-Canoy; P.J. Buijnsters, ‘In memoriam dr. Hans Ludwig Gumbert ( 1903 - 1994 )’, in: De Boekenwereld , 11 ( 1994 ), pp. 50 - 5 ; Peter Gumbert, ‘Nachruf’, in: Lichtenberg-Jahrbuch , 6 (Saarbrücken 1994 ). In 1934 , by which time he was already getting on in years, Wilhelm Junk ( 1866 - 1942 ) found himself forced to transfer his world-famous antiquarian book- shop and publishing business from Berlin to The Hague. Being largely depen- dent on the export trade, in Germany he had experienced increasing currency di ffi culties. He was an authority in the fi eld of the history of biology and pos- sessed two honororary doctorates bestowed on him by the universities of Frankfurt am Main and Innsbruck. Although by his own account he was warmly received in his new homeland, as early as 1935 he sold the bookshop to another Jewish immigrant, Dr Otto Liebstaedter, 31 and the non-Jewish German emigré Dr Rudolph Schierenberg 32 in order to concentrate entirely on his publishing busi- ness. 33 It was also in these pre-war years 1937 - 8 that he wrote his postumously published book 50 Jahre Antiquar , without a doubt the most informative textbook for the academic antiquarian bookseller – not that it was intended as such, since as Junk saw it the antiquarian book business that he had known no longer had a future. There can surely be no greater contrast than that between these excru- ciatingly painstakingly written and thoroughly pessimistic memoirs and Menno Hertzberger’s super fi cial but lively Flashbacks . On the pre-war list of members of the NVvA the names Junk and Rosenthal are entirely absent. It was also not until after the war that Hans Ludwig Gumbert ( 1903 - 94 ) – my third example of a Jewish emigré who was sharply di ff erent from the average Dutch antiquarian bookseller – came to the fore as managing direc- tor of the Utrecht antiquarian bookshop and auction house J.L. Beijers. 34 In contrast to Junk and the Rosenthals he was originally not an antiquarian at all Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 260</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 261 35 Frits Knuf, ‘Een sterk verhaal’, in: Waardevol oud papier , op. cit. (n. 15 ), pp. 155 - 9 . but a lawyer with an interest in literature and philosophy. And unlike most Jewish immigrants to the Netherlands, huddling together in Amsterdam, he set- tled in 1935 in Nijmegen, where on 15 November at Van Welderenstraat 78 he opened an antique shop cum antiquarian bookshop called Het Oude Boek [The Old Book], based on his own small private library. The shop’s interior, includ- ing the bookcases, was all his own work. The street was already home to Antiquariaat Gerretsen, and not long afterwards Gumbert found himself with a new neighbour across the road in the form of Bob Israël. Their relationship remained cool, for Gumbert was an Einzelgänger who had very little need of social contacts. I believe that of his later colleagues only Hilde Rosenthal ever addressed him by his fi rst name. Max Elte, himself full of bonhomie, described him long after the war as ‘a true German’, referring to Gumbert’s authoritar- ian manner. What is important here, however, is that Gumbert also displayed a truly Teutonic Gründlichkeit and scholarly exactitude which placed this con- spicuously small man head and shoulders above the majority of Dutch anti- quarians. As a scholarly antiquarian, after the war he was in on the ground fl oor of the renewed interest in emblem books. In 1987 his Lichtenberg studies brought him an honorary doctorate from a foreign university, an honour which the University of Amsterdam had bestowed upon the no less erudite Abraham Horodisch in 1985 . But this takes us a long way past the nineteen-thirties, when Horodisch, Junk, Rosenthal and Gumbert all still had to fi nd their footing in their new home- land. Nor were all emigrés of Jewish origin. One particular case was that of the highly gifted Erik von Scherling ( 1907 - 56 ), a Swedish homosexual who moved to Leiden in 1927 to escape persecution in his own country. In Leiden he opened a highly specialized private bookshop concentrating on old manuscripts. Later the shop was moved to Oegstgeest. His catalogues and magazine Rotulus, a Bulletin for Manuscript-Collectors ( 1931 - 54 , 7 vols.) are still a marvel of erudition today. 35 Among his circle of friends was the young Johan Polak (later on to become well-known as erudite bibliophile, collector and publisher), who claimed to have been taught cuneiform script by von Scherling. Alongside all these famous names, however, there was also a varying succes- sion of minor fi gures, poor immigrants whose only memorial is the occasional catalogue. There was M. Basch and his Amsterdam antiquarian bookshop De Boekenkamer [The Book Room], for example, or Stock with his little shop De Boekenbron [The Source of Books] in the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat, or Dr Kurt Freyer, who worked for Hemerijck, or Philipssohn and E. Samosch, about whom I still know absolutely nothing. One can only guess at the human drama that doubtless lies behind these forgotten minor antiquarians with their lists of cheap o ff ers. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 261</p>
<p>262 P iet J. B uijnsters 36 H. de la Fontaine Verwey, preface to sale catalogue ‘De verzameling van Mr. F.W.D.C.A. van Hattum’, Antiquariaat Meijer Elte Den Haag, May 1980 . 37 H. de la Fontaine Verwey, preface to: Bibliotheca Auerbachiana. Vulgairgriekse en religieuze drukken ( 1551 - 1799 ) uit het bezit van Paul Auerbach . [Catalogue, Amsterdam University Library] (Amsterdam 1973 ; A. Horodisch, ‘Fünfzig Jahre Buchhändler in Amsterdam’, in: De Arte et Libris. Festschrift Erasmus 1934 - 1984 (Amsterdam 1984 ) p. 467 . 38 H. de la Fontaine Verwey, ‘In memoriam E.J. van der Linden’, in: Het Boek , 25 ( 1961 - 2 ), pp. 225 - 9 . 39 P.J. Buijnsters, ‘The hunt for popular prose; the correspondence between J.F.M. Scheepers and M. Buisman, from 1929 until 1942 ’, in: Quaerendo , 19 ( 1988 ), pp. 104 - 33 , esp. pp. 125 - 8 . 40 Adriaan Venema, Kunsthandel in Nederland 1940 - 1945 (Amsterdam 1986 ), ch. 2 . Yet to conclude from the foregoing that the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands before the war was acquainted exclusively with misery and wretched- ness is to forget one important aspect: contact with the customer. Contemporaries testify almost without exception to the lively, comfortably congenial atmosphere that prevailed in auction room and bookshop alike. Sales at Bom’s in Amsterdam were as noisy as they were entertaining. Antiquarian bookshops still acted in many ways as a species of literary café, a meeting place for bibliophiles and book collectors. One such was the shop of Salomo (‘Saal’) Israël, eldest brother of Bob, Max and Nico, who opened his own premises at Leidsestraat 62 in Amsterdam in 1938 . Among his regulars, alongside the young librarian Herman de la Fontaine Verwey, were the print collector Bas Kist ( 1899 - 1976 ), then a public prosecutor, the now forgotten poet J.J. van Geuns ( 1893 - 1959 ), lawyer and collector of cookery books George Tielens, and advocate ‘Freke’ van Hattum ( 1900 - 79 ) with his preference for Dutch topography and songbooks. 36 Another visitor was of course the singular Jewish Bohemian and gentleman of leisure Paul Auerbach ( 1897 - 1944 ), who in his pursuit of Greek editions daily cycled round all the Amsterdam antiquarian bookshops and in April 1937 had become Horodisch’s silent partner. 37 The Amsterdam doctor and collector Bob Luza ( 1894 - 1980 ) and his friend at Amsterdam University Library, Ernst van der Linden ( 1885 - 1961 ), 38 also met weekly in Utrecht at the home of Beijers man- aging director Schultz. And fi nally there was an unusual pair in the furniture- maker J.F.M. Scheepers ( 1893 - 1942 ) and the schoolteacher M. Buisman J.Fzn. ( 1891 - 1986 ), who were engaged in friendly competition to hunt down seventeenth- and eighteenth-century popular prose, in the pursuit of which they combed through the antiquarian bookshops of Rotterdam every week. 39 Doubtless these were not the only places where there may have been more talk than trade, but where the greyness of the thirties at least took on a little bibliophile colour. In May 1940 even that pleasure seemed to have vanished. Had it? antiquarians and book collectors during the occupation We know that immediately after 10 May 1940 German Nazi agents such as Hans Posse and Alois Miedl swooped down on the Dutch art trade like vultures. 40 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 262</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 263 41 See e.g. Christian M. Nebehay, Die goldenen Sessel meines Vaters. Gustav Nebehay ( 1881 - 1935 ) Antiquar und Kunsthändler in Leipzig, Wien und Berlin (Wien 1983 ), pp. 219 - 20 and passim ; Albert J. Elen, ‘Missing Old Drawings from the Franz Koenigs Collection’, Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst (Den Haag 1989 ); Lucette ter Borg, ‘Het leven van verzamelaar Franz Wilhelm Koenigs [ 1881 - 1941 ]’, in: NRC/Handelsblad , 16 November 1990 ; Albert J. Elen, German Master Drawings from the Koenigs Collection. Return of a Lost Treasure (Rotterdam 2004 ). 42 Cf. e.g. Origine , 1996 , no. 5 , p. 59 ; De Volkskrant , 1 March 1997 . There is no mention of the a ff air in Venema, op. cit. (n. 38 ). 43 John Landwehr, ‘Flitsen van weleer’, in: Waardevol oud papier , op. cit. (n. 15 ), pp. 175 - 7 . 44 Buisman-Scheepers correspondence in the collection of the author. Whether it was a matter of letting things go for a song because of the exigen- cies of the situation or simply theft is a moot point, but what is certain is that both for the planned Führermuseum in Linz and for the private collection of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering some of the most precious old masters, both paintings and drawings, were carried o ff to Germany. One telling example of such a transaction was the famous Koenigs collection. 41 More shocking, however, was the case of Friedrich and Louise Gutmann, a Jewish emigré couple, who, having been forced to ‘sell’ their art collection, were promised safe conduct and in 1943 allowed to leave for Italy, but on the way were taken o ff the train in Berlin and murdered. 42 Initially, excesses of this kind did not occur in connection with books. Though both Hitler and Goering were unquestionably able to read, they left old books undisturbed. Books, after all, are a good deal less attractive than paintings when it comes to showing o ff trophies. Besides, at the end of the thirties their market value had fallen to an absolute nadir – and anyway there was no shortage of incunabula and medieval manuscripts at home in Germany. Reading the minutes of the NVvA in the years of the occupation one has absolutely no sense that anything untoward is going on. The principal com- plaints are of the paper shortage, which got in the way of producing good fat catalogues. Meanwhile in the days following the invasion in May 1940 virtually the whole of Rotterdam’s antiquarian book trade (among other things) had been wiped out: the shop run by ‘Brammetje’ van Witsen senior on the Oppert, the auction rooms of brothers Karel and Isidore Berkelouw on the Pompenburgsingel, the stockroom of Jan de Slegte I on the Blaak. 43 By a miraculous piece of good fortune the collector John Scheepers, who had not let his gigantic library out of his sight for a moment, survived the bombing together with all his books. His next letter to Buisman was addressed from: ‘Remains of Rotterdam, 17 / 6 1940 ’. 44 Jewish antiquarians naturally felt far from at ease. In Nijmegen Gumbert was immediately apprehended on suspicion of espionage and was put in the same cell with Bob Israël in Arnhem, though Gumbert at least was released after a few weeks. At the time, it still looked like a genuine mistake rather than a warn- ing of impending doom. The doom was not long in coming, though, but it a ff ected mainly those who were Jewish, not other antiquarians – certainly not Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 263</p>
<p>264 P iet J. B uijnsters 45 ‘Pierre Berès ou le commerce des Livres’, in: Le Monde , 2 August 1996 (with thanks to Dr Otto Lankhorst who drew my attention to this). 46 Joop H. Bartman, ‘De boekverkoper in oorlogstijd’, in: De Vlam , 1 / 13 ( 12 September 1945 ). 47 ‘In 1943 these boxes were to play a remarkable role. Nijho ff ’s premises were sandwiched between the Wehrmacht headquarters and the German military post o ffi ce. One day in 1943 we were told that the authorities had urgent need of our buildings, and that an inspection was to take place on the following day. Everyone rallied round and a number of boxes were placed in the corridors with labels addressing them to universities etc. in Germany. The ruse was success- ful. The o ffi cers in their high peaked caps appreciated that supplies to German academics needed to be maintained’ (letter from G.J. de Kievit, 31 December 1996 ). 48 I hope to return at greater length to the virtually unknown but highly active collector and Flemish nationalist Jan Borms in my book Geschiedenis van het Nederlands antiquariaat . 49 ‘During the war my father [W.A. Swets] carried on paying the subscriptions to German periodicals for his American clients, putting each issue into storage. In 1945 he was one of the fi rst people from Holland to go to America to renew ties with his American clients, who were delighted to hear that their German subscriptions, including many medical journals, had contin- the (Dutch) antiquarian book trade as such. In business terms, most antiquarian booksellers could hardly have been worse of than they already were before May 1940 . After several months in the doldrums, trade in old books picked up a little towards autumn and in 1941 suddenly became very lively, not just here but also in occupied Paris, for example, where Pierre Berès in his newly opened shop on the Avenue de Friedland did brisk business with Ernst Jünger and other German o ffi cers. 45 Not for years had antiquarian and second-hand books been such sought-after items as now in these days of occupation. Indeed, there was suddenly something of an embarrassment of riches. In the words of the presi- dent of the NVvA at the annual meeting of 20 April 1943 (Hitler’s birthday!): ‘Prices of antiquarian books have in some cases risen so fast that any kind of logic has disappeared.’ With Nazi censorship and paper rationing meaning that fewer and fewer new books were being published, demand for reading matter could be satis fi ed by the second-hand market. At the same time, old books were suddenly back in the frame as an investment – and if you had a complete Hooft or Vondel in your bookcase you could even imagine that you were sending a covert signal of patriotic zeal. So it was that many dealers were now able to get shot of much of their slower-moving stock. 46 Only for Martinus Nijho ff N.V. did the outbreak of the Second World War mean a sudden and near-calamitous drop in business. Things became even worse after December 1941 when the United States entered the war. Of the eighty- fi ve people employed, forty were obliged to leave. Many books destined for American customers were stored away in boxes, complete with invoices and ready for shipment pending the conclusion of hostilities. 47 Fortunately Wouter Nijho ff found a kind of secret agent in the Flemish wine merchant and art col- lector Jan Borms ( 1888 - 1956 ), who was able to arrange payments with book- sellers in Paris. 48 Swets & Zeitlinger too were temporarily thrown back on their local activities, but – luckily for them – after the war they entered the electronic world faster than their great competitor Nijho ff . 49 But that is another story. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 264</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 265 ued for all those years. With the subscription money he was then paid, Swets & Zeitlinger was able to pick up its activities again, particularly in the US where he had earned so much good- will. In 1955 I joined the company myself after taking a degree in electrical engineering. Between 1954 and 1967 , when my father retired, the subscriptions department was greatly expanded and we started opening o ffi ces abroad. In 1954 [ sic ] one of my uncles brought in Swets’s fi rst com- puter. That initiative marked the start of a new period and enabled us to o ff er our customers an increasingly extensive service’ (letter from A. Swets jr., 2 March 1997 ). 50 This was a problem to which, on 1 December 1942 , Dirk Spanjaard, head of the legal a ff airs department of the dvk , devoted a long memorandum to Dr W. Zwikker of the Nederlandsche Kultuurraad , a body established by the Germans with the principal aim of ridding the Dutch lan- guage of English contamination (Venema, op. cit. (n. 38 ), pp. 431 - 2 and n. 581 ). 51 Schilt, op. cit. (n. 25 ), pp. 158 - 62 , with photocopies of the documents concerned. Meanwhile the Germans were beginning to tighten their grip on the Dutch book trade. One problem was that no one in authority really knew exactly what an antiquarian (‘antiquaar’) was. Was he an ordinary bookseller or an art dealer? 50 In any event, to be on the safe side, on 30 December 1940 the committee of the Vereeniging ter Bevordering van de Belangen des Boekhandels (the Netherlands book trade association) were summoned by letter to provide a list of fi rms that were ‘not under Aryan ownership’, giving name of company, address, year of estab- lishment, nature of business, owner before and after 10 May 1940 , and, in the case of an ‘Aryan’ fi rm, whether any ‘non-Aryans’ held any fi nancial stake in it. 51 The committee acquitted itself all too zealously of this task by sending its members a questionnaire – even, on its own initiative, adding a further ques- tion 6 b: ‘Is it possible for Jews in some other way to exercise in fl uence in your company? If so, how?’ On 8 March 1941 the total harvest of ‘Questionnaires returned by Jewish or Jewish-in fl uenced fi rms’ was sent to the Referat Schrifttum. It included forty-seven ‘sellers of mainly antiquarian books’. Before the end of 1941 all Jewish antiquarian booksellers were given the choice of either winding up their own businesses or transferring them to an administrator nominated by the Germans, which commonly amounted to the same thing. Shop owners would already have had to deposit any bank balances and other funds with the Nazi fi ed Lippmann Rosenthal bank, from which at best they were allowed to withdraw 250 guilders a month to stay alive. They were no longer allowed to have anything to do with the running of their own businesses. Eventually such owners were even banned from entering their own shops. Thanks to the administrative precision of the Abteilung Feindvermögen [Enemy Assets Department] and Wirtschaftsprüfstelle [Economic Inspectorate] of the Generalreferat [Department of General A ff airs], we have an accurate picture not only of which fi rms were a ff ected by measures like these but also of their fi nancial position, their annual turnover and their payrolls, and who acted as administrator. For example, with e ff ect from 4 July 1941 E.M. Schoonhoven of Castricum was appointed administrator of Emmering’s Universiteitsboekhandel en Antiquariaat and on 20 August of the same year he was appointed administrator of the fi rm Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 265</p>
<p>266 P iet J. B uijnsters 52 Letters of appointment in niod , inv. no. 102 (Departement van Volksvoorlichting en Kunsten, afd. Boekwezen), dossier 167 (unnumbered correspondence). 53 Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel , 1941 , p. 678 . 54 Cf. also Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel , 15 January 1942 , p. 25 . 55 Horodisch, art. cit. (n. 35 ), p. 467 . 56 Born Bielefeld, Germany, 25 March 1888 , lived in The Hague for many years; occupation unknown. On 28 July 1943 Vossiek (also recorded as Vossieck) moved from The Hague to the nearby prosperous village of Wassenaar, in whose register of residents he is recorded as having moved away to an unknown destination on 5 February 1946 (information kindly provided by the local authorities of The Hague and Wassenaar). 57 Letter of 6 October 1996 . Westerbork concentration camp was the main transit camp used by the Germans for sending prisoners on to Auschwitz and other camps in Germany and Poland. of P.A. Hemeryck in Amsterdam. 52 The administrator for Academia in Delft (proprietor: Martin Cohen) was M.K. Remmers of Enschede. 53 Abraham van Witsen’s newly rebuilt shop in Rotterdam came under the administration of Jonkheer P. Beelaerts van Blokland, who in October 1942 disposed of the sta- tionery business despite its being a pro fi table enterprise; the rest was liquidated by the art historian Dr Friedrich Huebner. 54 J.G. van Ditmarsch, managing director of the Westland national socialist publishing house, became adminis- trator of N.V. Boekhandel en Antiquariaat B.M. Israël in Nijmegen. Erasmus’s Horodisch, to his surprise, saw an old customer in the person of H. Vossiek of The Hague step into his shop as its new administrator: ‘I had su ffi cient presence of mind to receive him warmly. This proved to be the right tactic: Vossiek contented himself with turning up for ten minutes at the beginning of every month and pocketing an emolument the amount of which he had himself determined. Otherwise he kept out of the way, thereby doing Erasmus the greatest service he could have in the circumstances.’ 55 Vossiek, a Reichsdeutscher by birth, 56 made something of a speciality of sinecures like this. He also had himself appointed administrator of Israël’s shops in Arnhem and Amsterdam, Rosenthal and Meyer Elte in The Hague and Hertzberger’s Internationaal Antiquariaat – and in 1942 , without there being any particular protest, he was admitted as a member to the NVvA. A wolf in the sheepfold of the Dutch antiquarian book trade? In the light of Horodisch’s words, per- haps he was no more than a harmless pro fi teer. Indeed, ‘Doos’ Haverkamp Begeman, Menno Hertzberger’s second wife, remembers Vossiek as a man of a certain willingness ‘who turned up every few months, was himself a collector and occasionally delivered food parcels to Westerbork’. 57 At Hertzberger’s, then, there was some regret in the summer of 1944 when Vossiek, now fi fty-six, was called up for military service. As administrator of the Internationaal Antiquariaat he was succeeded by a member of the Dutch national socialist party who knew nothing about old books, but by this time the war was coming to an end. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 266</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 267 58 In the archives of the Wirtschaftsprüfstelle ( niod 44 ) I found three groups of lists. First there was the list of the Planungssitzung Buchantiquariate ( he 301 ) of 2 September 1941 ( 16 Jewish-owned antiquarian bookshops); second, the list of the Planungssitzung Buchhandlung ( he 1002 ) of 11 and 17 September 1941 (including some of the same businesses), and fi nally the Protokoll of the 12 . Planungssitzung of 3 October 1941 , which recorded the fi nal decisions. I am grateful to Fred Vooren of niod for putting me on the right track. 59 F.W. Kuyper, ‘Simon Emmering, boek- en prenthandelaar’, in: De Boekenwereld , 6 ( 1990 ), pp. 122 - 34 ; interview with Emmering by me on 15 June 1987 ; by A.G. van der Steur in: Mercurius en Minerva , op. cit. (n. 16 ), pp. 72 - 87 ; letters from Emmering to me of 27 September and 7 October 1996 ; F.W. Kuyper, ‘Simon Emmering 1914 - 1999 ’, in: De Boekenwereld , 16 ( 2000 ), pp. 164 - 5 ; J.F. Heijbroek, ‘De verzameling van Simon Emmering’, in: De Boekenwereld , 21 ( 2005 ), pp. 125 - 43 . 60 On him: ‘In memoriam Max Israël ( 1916 - 2001 )’, in: De Boekenwereld , 18 ( 2002 ), pp. 146 - 8 . The lists compiled by the Wirtschaftsprüfstelle 58 also give us for the fi rst time a clear picture of how large the largest fi rms were (apart from Nijho ff , of course). At the top were Internationaal Antiquariaat Menno Hertzberger with working capital of D fl 70 , 000 followed by Junk (D fl 42 , 267 . 15 ), Ludwig Rosenthal (D fl 22 , 262 . 94 ), Horodisch’s Erasmus (D fl 20 , 290 . 91 ) and the three Israëls shops, each recorded at exactly D fl 15 , 000 . That the Nazis did not forget the smaller fi rms is clear from the D fl 400 that they expected to pick up from Simon van Kollem at the Oudemanhuispoort in Amsterdam. But it could be even less: the Amsterdam ‘antiquarian’ E. Wittenburg proved to have no more than D fl 250 in the till, while Rotterdam market trader A.D. Pronkhorst put his assets at a paltry D fl 120 . If it did so anywhere, it was surely here that the di ff erence between one antiquarian bookseller and another became clear. It is also easy to see what little chance the ‘little market Jews’ had of saving their businesses. They could think themselves lucky they weren’t immediately sent to the camps as unemployed. When the yellow star became compulsory and the Jewish section of the pop- ulation started to become more obviously isolated in April 1942 , some anti- quarian booksellers attempted to fl ee the country or evade imminent deportation by going underground. Both these courses of action were fraught with danger, but some did manage to survive this way. Max Elte went into hiding, but his brother ‘John’ was picked up and did not survive the war. Fritz and Hilde Rosenthal also went underground and came through the war that way, while their brother Paul Rosenthal was betrayed and died in an extermination camp. Simon Emmering, having been evicted from his own business, continued to work for a while for Beijers under Schultz (himself, incidentally, married to a Jewish woman). After a major round-up in 1942 he sought refuge at various safe houses, where he was known as Henk Bakker. Ever since, the very sound of the fore- name Henk has made him jump. 59 Max Israël, too, managed to go under- ground, 60 but his eldest brother Salomo was stopped in Brussels on his way to Switzerland and did not return. His mother, the widow Sibylla Israël, and her two daughters was already in Westerbork in May 1943 . There Herman de la Fontaine Verwey tried to have them released ‘on the grounds of the qualities Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:22 PM Page 267</p>
<p>268 P iet J. B uijnsters 61 Letter of 6 May 1943 to a senior Dutch academic (‘hooggeleerde Heer’), whom I have been unable to identify, in the archives of H. de la Fontaine Verwey in Amsterdam University Library. This was Sybilla Bachrach, widow of B.M. Israël, who had died in 1939 , with her daughters Mina Helena and Geertruida. Verwey petitioned for them to transferred to De Scha ff elaar, a country house at Barneveld where Jews meeting certain criteria lived as internees, protected from deportation in recognition of e.g. past services to Germany. 62 Letter from Isidoor Berkelouw ( 1913 - 88 ) of 26 January 1987 to me from Los Angeles. He was also the author of the company history referred to in n. 5 . 63 Friedländer and Bloch are also referred to as exceptional cases in Venema, Kunsthandel , pp. 69 - 71 . of their son and brother Salomo’. 61 Max’s younger brother Nico, by contrast, succeeded in reaching Switzerland, whither Horodisch and his wife had fl ed at the beginning of June 1942 . Gumbert stayed closer to home: he hid in the rafters above his shop, keeping fi t by exercising with a skipping rope. For the Berkelouw family the war was to become a terrible nightmare. Following the devastation of their business in Rotterdam they reopened in temporary premises on the Stadhoudersweg but the company’s headquarters were moved to Spui 24 in The Hague, until here too an administrator arrived. Karel and his sister Sientje Berkelouw both died in a concentration camp. After the war their brother Isidoor (‘Ies’), the only one of the family to survive, moved Antiquariaat Berkelouw to Sydney. 62 Martin Cohen of Academia in Delft survived the war as did Abraham van Witsen Jr., who after the war continued the business established by his uncle and namesake. Schultz, fi nally, is said to have starved to death because he refused on principle to buy food on the black market. Incidentally not all the antiquarian booksellers arrested by the Germans were Jewish. Also arrested, this time for illegal activities, was Jan Post of Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 59 , Amsterdam, and the ‘young’ Wouter Nijho ff Pzn, who was apprehended on 7 March 1944 and spent the time until 12 September of that year in the camp at Amersfoort and was subsequently incarcerated near Kleve in Germany. One name that has not appeared in this tale of arrests and liquidations is that of Menno Hertzberger. In the fi les of the Wirtschaftsprüfstelle his Internationaal Antiquariaat, there described as ‘überkoninental’, occupied a special place, just as its owner appears to have negotiated some kind of exceptional status for him- self. I must be careful how I express myself here because there is little evidence on paper. Nor is there any reference to the occupation years in Hertzberger’s Flashbacks . When I interviewed Menno Hertzberger on 9 March 1979 he told me that – like the German Jewish art historians Max J. Friedländer ( 1867 - 1958 ) and Vitale Bloch ( 1900 - 75 ) – he had been given a certi fi cate of immunity by the Germans so that although he was Jewish he had been able to stay at liberty. 63 It had been only at the end of the war that he had gone underground for a while, spending some of this time at the home of notary H.A. Warmelink, whose Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 268</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 269 64 Klara Spanjer, born London 18 July 1895 ; married Menno Hertzberger 23 January 1923 ; died Auschwitz 5 October 1942 . See the fi les Personalia-Hertzberger, bkvb ; Jenny Hertzberger- Gold, De familie Hertzberger in Nederland. Een familiekroniek , p. 84 . 65 J. Presser, Ondergang. De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse jodendom , 2 vols. (’s-Gravenhage 1965 ), vol. 2 , pp. 83 - 4 . ‘The fi rst [of the approx. 50 Jews] to whom this proof of favour was extended was a famous German Jewish art historian [Friedländer, P.B.]. They were also exempted from wearing the yellow star.’ 66 Interview at his home, 5 April 1984 . library he was later to auction. His fi rst wife Clarice (Klara) Spanjer 64 and their three children, who had taken refuge elsewhere, were deported by the Germans and met their death in an extermination camp. This, then, is Hertzberger’s own account of what happened. I have been unable to fi nd any trace of a certi fi cate of immunity such as he mentions, but it seems likely that it was one of the so- called ‘blue rider’ stamps devised by the German lawyer Dr Hans Georg Calmeyer. 65 On the other hand Herman de la Fontaine Verwey informed me 66 that he had – at Hertzberger’s request and contrary to his own inclination – drawn up a statement to the e ff ect that Hertzberger was ‘the greatest and best antiquarian in the whole of Europe’. ‘Doos’ Haverkamp Begeman, Hertzberger’s second wife whom he married immediately after the war, and who bore him a further three children (Don, Ron and Frank), proved to be the only eyewitness both able and willing to write down for me her recollections of the vicissitudes of the Internationaal Antiquariaat during the war years: ‘Thanks to the help of a German art historian at the Kulturkammer in The Hague Menno was given (probably as early as 1941 ) an Ausweis von Immunität on the grounds of Kriegswichtigkeit des Betriebs für Verdienst . . . . What it amounted to was that the business, which was a one-man a ff air, was being kept going as a reward for a war veteran after victory [. . .]. On 5 September 1944 this brave German called on us to let us know personally that he was going underground and he advised Menno to do the same. [This is followed by the passage already quoted concerning Vossiek and the administrator who succeeded him.] The business had to continue publishing catalogues and holding auctions. Menno’s secretary was being deported. Menno followed his protector’s advice and on Dolle Dinsdag [ 5 September 1944 , when, following Allied advances in the south, much of the Netherlands went wild with premature rejoicing for its imminent liberation, then still eight months and a winter of starvation away], with the help of [Clemens] Meuleman, he went into hiding at the house of Mies Guijkens on the Amsteldijk, where Meuleman had also been able to place Jack Vecht Sr (eight months of two- handed bridge!). To keep the shop open and prevent looting our faithful book- keeper [Hendrik] Tjomsma and I did publish one more small stencilled catalogue. On Dolle Dinsdag , [ Menno’s] going underground was followed by taking a dozen or so items of value to our friend the antiquarian Hogendijk, who Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 269</p>
<p>270 P iet J. B uijnsters 67 Letter of 6 October 1996 ; also oral information provided on 5 November 1995 by antiquarian Constant Vecht of Amsterdam. Cf. also his Het huis aan de Amstel (Amsterdam 1993 ). 68 Letter from antiquarian John A. Vloemans of 25 October 1996 . Cf. also the interview by Hans Maarten van den Brink with ‘Vader en zoon Vloemans’, in: NRC/Handelsblad , 4 March 1983 . put them in his attic or in amongst his own library. He brought them back on 6 May 1945 . On 5 May Menno came out of hiding and the business was reopened.’ 67 But all this information taken together throws up more questions, rather than giving us a clear picture of Menno Hertzberger’s life at this time. In Friedländer’s case we know why the Nazis left him alone: with his certi fi cates he was able to provide proof of the legitimacy of their art purchases. But Hertzberger? ‘That he himself survived the war has unquestionably struck some people as curious’ and it gave rise to some ‘malicious’ rumours, according to a correspondent whose integrity is above all suspicion, but there is nothing to show that Menno Hertzberger or his Internationaal Antiquariaat collaborated with the Germans in any way. And who can blame him if, like so many other survivors, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, he preferred not to be reminded of this terrible period? The only thing that may appear strange is that after his return in 1945 he imme- diately resumed his seat at the committee table of the NVvA and continued with the order of the day: grumbling optimistically as always, apparently quite una ff ected by past events, as if he had just popped out to post a letter. There were antiquarians whose experience of the occupation was more emo- tional and more engaged. Wilhelm Junk decided that he no longer wished to live in these conditions and in 1942 took his own life. The Hague antiquarian Henri Albert Vloemans ( 1909 - 85 ), who had always stood aside from the NVvA or any other association with a group as a matter of principle, ‘was very early in the communist resistance, from 1942 , though he was never a member of the party’, his son John recalls. ‘The shop [at Anna Paulownastraat 7 ] soon served as a meeting place for members of the resistance, during which as a small boy I stood on watch in the shop doorway and had to whistle if there was any dan- ger. Later the solution was found in a secret rear exit. Behind my bed there was a false wall that created a hiding place for many Jews and even more weapons.’ 68 But as a member of the resistance Vloemans was an exception. For most antiquarian booksellers and auctioneers business continued as usual during the war years. It had to – otherwise there was the threat of being conscripted to work in the German industrial machine. This was the reason, for example, why in March or April 1942 Gijsbers and van Loon, both of whom were employed by B.M. Israël in Arnhem but were dismissed by Vossiek, started their own business in the Bakkerstraat under the commercial umbrella of bookseller J.P.T. Westerhuis. It was only after the war that it became Het Nederlandsch Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 270</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 271 69 Interview with G.W. Gijsbers, 11 April 1980 . Max Israël, on the other hand, said of Gijsbers en Van Loon : ‘I myself helped establish it in 1943 ’ ( Mercurius en Minerva , op. cit. (n. 16 ), p. 89 ). 70 Sale catalogues in Amsterdam University Library, shelf mark bkvb Nv. 4542 : 2 . 71 Gerard Groeneveld, Zwaard van de geest. Het bruine boek in Nederland 1921 - 1945 ( Nijmegen 2001 ), pp. 64 - 5 ; supplemented with information provided orally. 72 The fi rst part of his library was sold at auction by Beijers in Utrecht on 10 - 11 October 1961 . Antiquariaat Gijsbers & Van Loon. 69 In 1944 both partners joined the ranks of the NVvA, by then greatly depleted by the departure of its Jewish members. Very few meetings were held in that year, otherwise Gijsbers and van Loon might have encountered administrator Vossiek among the new members. The departure of the Jewish antiquarians in the NVvA proceeded anything but elegantly. Secretary G.T. Bom, a somewhat primitive fi gure, sent them rather a blunt letter for which, after the liberation, he received a severe ticking-o ff from the other members. He was also one of those who during the war auc- tioned o ff the books previously owned by Jews. In 1942 he was the auctioneer of the liquidated stock of the fi rm of P.A. Hemerijk (under the name of A.T. Kleerekoper) and on 6 January 1943 he sold the stock of another Jewish col- league, S. van Maarsen of Boek & Kunst [Book and Art]. 70 In 1946 Bom drew his own conclusions and resigned his membership. One bizarre case was the antiquarian business and shop In dat Boec van Merlijn [In Merlin’s Book], which belonged to the non-Jewish antiquarian and Salvationist H.D. Pfann Sr on the Grimburgwal in Amsterdam and which stood next to his stall, referred to earlier, in ‘de Poort’ (the Oudemanhuispoort). There, before the war, he was assisted by his daughter Truus, who under the pseudo- nym Karin Moen published a number of poems expressing her sympathy for the New Order. Indeed, on 18 October 1939 she married Steven Barends ( 1915 -?), a rabid fascist from Groningen. In that year he had just translated Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Dutch and now regarded himself as having adequate credentials to take over his father-in-law Pfann’s second-hand bookshop. And indeed until 1943 he and his wife ran the shop together, at the same time, amazingly, giving shelter to a Jewish childminder and her non-Jewish husband who helped in the shop. But in 1943 the Barendses divorced. Barends disap- peared to Germany and Truus Pfann subsequently married the Amsterdam anti- quarian F.W. (Frits) van der Wal. 71 A history of the antiquarian book trade cannot con fi ne itself to the role of the dealers, whether individually or as a group. Just as important is their inter- action with their customers. What e ff ect did the occupation have on the rela- tionship of trust between the two? Clearly it brought about – or rather, revealed – a parting of minds amongst collectors. Some revealed themselves as adherents of the New Order, including J.H. van Geuns, to whom reference has already been made, the bibliographer of Swift and teacher of English in Arnhem Dr H. Teerink, and the Tilburg archivist F.H.M. Ouwerling. 72 Others – and once Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 271</p>
<p>272 P iet J. B uijnsters 73 Interview with Mrs Gusta Luza, Amsterdam, 4 November 1996 . She was then aged 94 . again they were mainly Jewish – became the victims of the new terror. At a stroke they lost their precious books and could count themselves lucky if they managed to escape the gas chambers. Yet other collectors such as the lawyer Freke van Hattum and notary Warmelink helped Jewish antiquarians or fellow collectors to save at least part of their collections from the clutches of Alfred Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab Rosenberg . For example, from 1942 to 1945 van Hattum looked after a chest full of books belonging to Emmering from which he would occasionally sell something for him. Between these extremes of collaboration and aid to the victims, there were, as one might expect, a wide range of booksellers and book buyers for whom the occupation, particularly in the fi rst two years, brought undeniable bene fi ts. Even more than in the case of the antiquarians, I shall have to content myself here with just a few notorious cases. And once again it must be stressed that there are gaps in my story because those involved were sometimes unable or unwilling to tell theirs. For Paul Auerbach the German occupation meant a radical turning-point in his hitherto carefree existence. Suddenly it was no longer possible to indulge in the daily hunt for Greek editions, now that he himself had become the prey. After some time in hiding, he and his wife were arrested and taken o ff to Germany. There he died, in the autumn of 1944 , in a concentration camp. Perhaps he would have been able to take some comfort from the notion that at least his unique library might survive the war, having been secreted here and there by friends who included the classicist K. Voortman, the painter Herman Jan Scheltema and the harpsichord player Janny van Wering. Only the mod- ern Greek literature was lost for good, but thanks to the e ff orts of Herman de la Fontaine Verwey the older vulgar Greek and religious editions from the period 1551 - 1799 later ended up in Amsterdam University Library as the Bibliotheca Auerbachiana. Besides being a general practitioner, Bob Luza was an all-round bibliophile whose collecting was broad rather than deep. Antiquarians sometimes com- plained of his ‘interminable haggling’, but because in his day books cost ‘noth- ing’ he still managed to assemble a fi ne selection of emblem books, travelogues and other illustrated books – for the most part in Dutch. Before himself disap- pearing from the street in 1942 , Luza succeeded in bringing his considerable library to safe custody with Ernst van der Linden and other friends. Eighteen months later he and his wife Gusta were betrayed, put on a transport to Westerbork and from there sent on to Belsen. As Allied troops drew close, Belsen camp was evacuated. This was followed by two weeks on a train backwards and forwards through Germany, at the end of which, in April 1945 , those still alive were freed by the Russians. 73 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 272</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 273 74 M.F. Hennus, Maandblad voor beeldende kunsten , 26 ( 1950 ), pp. 76 - 140 ; J.G. van Gelder et al., Frits Lugt, zijn leven en zijn verzamelingen 1949 - 1964 (Publicaties van het rkd , No. 2 ; ’s-Gravenhage 1964 ); Treasures from the collection of Frits Lugt at the Institut Néerlandais, Paris , ed. D. Sutton ([London] 1976 ), as a reprint from Apollo , 104 ( 1976 ); in particular, pp. 46 - 53 : H. de la Fontaine Verwey, ‘Ex libris veteribus F. Lugt’. Supplemented from interviews and correspondence with a number of indi- viduals none of whom wished to be cited here. To my profound regret I have been unable to obtain permission to inspect the relevant papers of Frits Lugt as preserved at the Custodia foun- dation in Paris. 75 Adriaan Louis Domis, born 20 January 1908 in Renkum near Oosterbeek in Gelderland as the son of Abraham Justus Domis and Henriette Provo Kluit; on 1 August 1930 in Roermond he married Maria A.J.G. Schreurs; this marriage was dissolved on 28 August 1950 . He was private secretary to Frits Lugt from 19 ??. Following his internment Domis gave his occupation successively as genealogist, ‘aide de réception’ and manager. Meanwhile in The Hague on 2 July 1952 he remarried, his new wife being Catharina Geertruida Niericker. Domis died in The Hague on 13 July 1979, record card, cbg (Central O ffi ce of Genealogy). Lugt subsequently referred to him only as ‘that scoundrel Domis’. 76 Nijho ff ’s own interleaved copy of this illustrated catalogue of sixty lots was shown to me by Kees Thomassen in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague. 77 [H.L. van der Kamp], ‘H.J. Hanselaar overleden’, in: De Boekenwereld , 1 ( 1984 ), p. 33 ; id., ‘In memoriam H.J. Hanselaar 1904 - 1984 ’, preface to cat. 1 , new series, of Antiquariaat Minerva, Zeestraat 48 , The Hague, by the new owner. Unfortunately Mr van der Kamp was unable or unwilling to give me any further information about his predecessor and his Minerva . 78 L.M.H. Joosten, Katholieken en fascisme in Nederland 1920 - 1940 (Hilversum/Antwerpen 1964 ), pp. 54 - 7 . Incidentally de Rochemont was not Catholic. Luza was one of the few older collectors who still had the inclination and opportunity to continue expanding their collections after the war. He died at the age of eighty-six, after which, on 15 - 16 December 1981 , his library was sold at auction by Van Gendt in Amsterdam at two marathon sessions. I shall never forget a visit in November 1973 to see the still energetic old gentleman in the fl at on the Apollolaan, where I examined his collection of libertine literature while his wife Gusta lay on a sofa chain-smoking and listening to very loud pop music. More topical than ever are the vicissitudes of the Lugt collection of books and drawings, now held by the Custodia foundation in Paris. 74 Frits Lugt ( 1884 - 1964 ) had taken refuge in the United States in 1939 , having his most precious drawings sent on in sixty registered envelopes to Switzerland. Some of his books, prints and drawings, however, were left behind in his home on the Lange Vijverberg in The Hague, looked after by his private secretary Adriaan Louis Domis ( 1908 - 79 ), a member of the Dutch national socialist party nsb . 75 Domis shamefully betrayed this trust in privately selling part of the collection and send- ing other items for auction. Thus we read in Nijho ff ’s catalogue 643 ( 1941 ) of ‘A small collection of rare Dutch illustrated songbooks from the early 17 th c.’, most of which came from Lugt. 76 It seems likely that a dubious role in this a ff air was played by H.J. Hanselaar ( 1904 - 84 ) 77 of the Hague fi rm Minerva, who was likewise a member of the nsb . Biblio fi el Antiquariaat Minerva, Hofweg 1 , The Hague, had been founded in April 1939 by a former public servant Hugues Alexandre Sinclair de Rochemont, 78 himself ‘owner of a magni fi cent private library’, and E.M. Veeneman. De Rochemont, a fascist from the very beginning Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 273</p>
<p>274 P iet J. B uijnsters 79 The two memorial articles mentioned in n. 76 above disagree on this point. In the fi rst it says that Visser became the owner of Minerva in July 1940 and that Hanselaar became general manager in 1949 , to become the owner in 1955 . The preface to the Minerva catalogue, on the other hand, refers to ‘Hanselaar, who founded “Minerva” in 1940 ’. 80 In the bkvb there are three copies of this fl yer, including one with notes of prices and buy- ers by Ernst van der Linden. 81 ‘niet in liefde afgenomen heeft’, letter of 27 September 1996 . 82 Interview, 5 April 1984 . 83 Hennus, p. 135 . It was to M.F. Hennus, with C.P. van Eeghen, that in 1941 the Jewish anti- quarian Bernard Houthakker was able to transfer his art gallery at Rokin 98 , Amsterdam, under the ‘Aryan’ name of N.V. Rembrandt van Rijn, just in time before his administrator Hansel could of the movement, volunteered for the ss in 1940 and departed for the eastern front, where he died on 13 March 1942 in the battle for Leningrad. Before this, in July 1940 , Minerva had already been handed over to Cornelis Visser, whose brother-in-law Hanselaar, who had earlier worked for Van Hu ff el and R.W.P. de Vries, acted as manager. 79 Although a native of Utrecht, Hanselaar had the habits of a real son of The Hague. If you asked him for a particular book, the answer was always ‘sorry, just been put aside for a diplomat’. He was not devoid of taste, but within the antiquarian world he remained a life-long odd man out. Exactly what part he played in the Lugt a ff air remains unclear. In any event, for 7 September 1942 Minerva announced the ‘Sale by auction of a highly interesting collection of books from the library of Meester [he was a lawyer] J.E. [ sic ] P.E. Menso of The Hague, to which have been added a number of topographical drawings from private collections’. 80 But here again at least some of the items were the fi lched property of Frits Lugt. Could Hanselaar have been unaware of this? At this time Menso – about whom more in a moment – was still alive. It was also Hanselaar who in 1941 bought up Simon Emmering’s stock of antiquarian items from his German-appointed administrator, a fact to which Emmering ‘did not take kindly’. 81 Despite this, Hanselaar, admitted to the NVvA in 1941 , was to remain a member until 1973 . After the war Lugt energetically set about recovering his things. Accompanied by a police detective he called on a number of buyers, in some cases even phys- ically removing prints from the wall. Some of these buyers, it must be said, were entirely innocent. For example, Herman de la Fontaine Verwey turned out to have unwittingly bought books belonging to Lugt to the value of D fl 120 . 82 Bona fi de buyers like these were later given a certain amount of compen- sation. Lugt also attempted to obtain restitution of his property through the courts, but 120 precious drawings and many songbooks and emblem books were lost for ever. Domis himself was found guilty and interned, but I am unable to make any further comment on this. However, I do suspect that it is to this that M.F. Hennus refers when in his biography of Lugt he writes of ‘some shock- ing events which did not leave even this [. . .] seemingly so smoothly passed life untouched.’ 83 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 274</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 275 Even shadier is what happened to the May collection. Siegfried Paul May, born 1868 , was the owner of the Jewish banking house Lippman Rosenthal & Co. at Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 6 - 8 in Amsterdam and a well-known book collector. Behind the scenes he was also the fi nancier of the Heuvelpers ( 1927 - 35 ), a press run by S.H. de Roos and Menno Hertzberger. 84 On 15 May 1940 , fi ve days after the German invasion, he and his wife Rosine Fuld committed suicide. The bank then passed to Paul’s younger brother Robert May (b. 1873 ) 85 and May’s brother-in-law Edgar Fuld, who remained in control throughout the occupation. True, at the end of May 1941 they were allotted an administrator in the person of the German banker Alfred Flesche, but he acted consistently as their protector. During the occupation the Lippmann Rosenthal bank on the Sarphatistraat became notorious because it was there that Dutch Jews had to deposit all their fi nancial assets. According to de Jong, however, that bank was entirely separate from that run by May and Fuld. 86 What function the old Lippman Rosenthal bank still performed is unclear to me. Meanwhile, what was happening to the May collection? On 23 October 1940 Paul’s library, the main focus of which was bindings and French illustrated books of the eighteenth century, was valued 87 by Paul Brandt and Menno Hertzberger at D fl 63 , 663 . 50 – at this time a gigantic sum. Then on 14 October and 2 December 1941 the Mays’ art collection was sold at two auctions held by Frederik Muller & Co. in Amsterdam, but this did not include the books. They were not to resurface until a letter of 15 April 1947 from Menno Hertzberger to the Amsterdam antiquarian Jan Post. There Hertzberger writes that he valued ‘the books from the estate of the late Mr Paul May as they were shown to me in the packing room of De Gruyter, Frans van Mierisstraat 90 , Amsterdam’ at D fl 140 , 000 , ‘taking into account that some books are missing, some works have su ff ered water damage and a number of books have returned from Germany in less than “fresh” condition. This last is probably the result of the several packings and unpackings to which the library has been subjected.’ In a letter to Hertzberger dated 6 May 1947 Robert May then con fi rms the receipt of a further thirty books from the library of his deceased brother. These are prob- ably the missing volumes to which Hertzberger referred in his letter to Post, so that the Mays’ book collection had now been recovered more or less intact. con fi scate it. After the war Hennus and van Eeghen returned Houthakker’s business to him. See Venema, op. cit. (n. 38 ), p. 65 ; J.F. Heijbroek & E.L. Wouthuysen, ‘In gesprek met Lodewijk Houthakker’, in: De Boekenwereld , 16 ( 1999 ), pp. 2 - 19 . 84 C. van Dijk, ‘S.H. de Roos en zijn(?) Heuvelpers’, in: Boek, bibliotheek en geesteswetenschappen. Opstellen door vrienden en collega’s van dr. C. Reedijk [. . .] (Hilversum 1986 ), pp. 87 - 94 . 85 N. Japikse, Persoonlijkheden in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in woord en beeld (Amsterdam 1938 ), p. 985 . 86 L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog , 14 vols. (’s-Gravenhage 1969 - 91 ), vol. 5 , pp. 608 - 9 . 87 The valuation report, together with the letters from H. to J. Post and from Robert May to H, to which reference will be made later, are in the Hertzberger personal fi les in the bkvb . Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 275</p>
<p>276 P iet J. B uijnsters 88 Johannes Christiaan Paulus Elisa Menso LLD, b. Haarlem 25 May 1876 as third son of infantry major Hendricus Menso ( 1827 - 78 ) and his wife Maria Christina van der Schooren ( 1842 - 1900 ); lived in The Hague 1 April 1905 – 26 May 1942 , then at Dalfsen; d. Ermelo 6 August 1957 . See A. Haga & R.W.N. Kayser, ‘Genealogie van het geslacht Menso’, in: De Nederlandsche Leeuw , 49 , no. 1 - 2 ( 1931 ), cols. 2 - 10 ; personal fi le kept at the cbg , The Hague; F.W.G. Théonville, ‘Mr. Pauli Menso en zijn unieke collectie’, in: Nieuw Utrechtsch Dagblad , March 1959 ; P.J. Buijnsters, ‘La bibliophilie dans l’ombre: Collectionner des livres aux Pays-Bas’, in: Transactions XXth congress of the International Association of Bibliophily, The Hague 1997 , ed. Jan Storm van Leeuwen (Madrid 2004 ), pp. 15 - 26 . 89 However, this Voltaire failed to reach its reserve and was bought by auctioneer Théonville for himself: ‘But when I die it must be auctioned in England. It cannot be allowed to su ff er such an indignity a third time’, he said in an interview with Hans Wieringa in Trouw , 3 August 1968 . Since 1977 the book has been in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, shelf mark 1754 G 1 . Robert May ended his letter to Hertzberger with a promise that he would discuss Hertzberger’s wish with Mrs van Marx as soon as she arrived the fol- lowing summer. What this wish was is not di ffi cult to guess, but it remained unful fi lled. Paul May’s books were not auctioned by Hertzberger in Amsterdam but by Laube in Zurich in two sessions, the fi rst on 19 October 1949 and the second on 25 September 1956 . The name Menso has already appeared here, albeit brie fl y. Paul Menso (b. Haarlem 1876 , d. Ermelo 1957 ), scion of an old family of o ffi cers and magis- trates, was one of that breed of bibliophiles that was long prominent in France but has always been rare in the Netherlands. 88 His collection, like that of Paul May, was a luxurious library, full of richly bound volumes and illustrated books from the eighteenth century, but selected with even more care and taste. Menso, a wealthy bachelor and man of leisure, lived entirely for his books, which he had collected between 1900 and 1932 but which were shown only to a few inti- mates such as Baron de Vos van Steenwijk and Frans Johan van Lanschot ( 1875 - 1949 ), another lawyer and later in life the burgomaster of The Hague, during their Friday evening gatherings. Outside this small circle the very existence of this collection was virtually unknown for the simple reason that Menso never showed himself at auctions. In May 1942 the Germans forced him to leave his house at Prinsessegracht 32 in The Hague. He spent the rest of his life in the east of the country, where he died on 6 August 1957 . His books were auctioned by van Hu ff el in Utrecht on 12 - 13 May 1958 and 23 - 5 March 1959 . Menso’s library, which with its sophisticatedly eclectic character was already somewhat at odds with the general run of more academic bibliophily, lives on in two lav- ishly illustrated catalogues. The high spot of the collection was a sublime copy of the Oeuvres complètes of Voltaire (cat. ii , no. 341 ) which Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia had been given as a wedding present by her uncle Frederick the Great on her marriage to Stadtholder Willem v in October 1767 . Until 1911 this copy had been in the library of a great house called De Pauw in Wassenaar, just north of The Hague, but was then auctioned and went to Belgium, where at considerable e ff ort Menso tracked it down to bring it back ‘home’. 89 But the Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 276</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 277 90 Hendrik August van Baak (b. Yogyakarta, 4 October 1881 , d. De Rijp, 30 January 1945 ); at Dresden on 31 August 1921 he married Hertha Thekla Anna Camila Ladwig (b. Berlin, 28 April 1892 ), no issue. Lived fi rst at Amstel 165 , Amsterdam, from 4 May 1926 in Bussum, SE of the city. Sources: personal fi le in cbg ; letter from Purmerend council o ffi ces 4 February 1997 ; Verzet verwoord: herinneringen aan oorlog en verzet in Waterland 1940 - 1945 (Purmerend 1990 ), p. 140 . 91 [G. de Wolf ], De belangrijkste gebeurtenissen te Purmerend gedurende den Wereldoorlog 1939 - 1945 ([Purmerend 1945 ]). A photograph of van Baak is on p. 45 . 92 H. de la Fontaine Verwey in an interview of 5 April 1984 . There is no mention of this last remarkable fact in Verwey’s De verdwenen antiquaar en andere herinneringen van een bibliothecaris (Amsterdam 1993 ), p. 41 . point here is that until his death Menso’s collection remained concealed to the book world. So is it likely, one wonders, that a man who shunned all publicity as much as he did would have allowed a comparative newcomer like Hanselaar to sell some of his books openly and under his own name on 7 September 1942 ? But even less probable, surely, is that he wanted to act as cover for a sale of books from the collection of Frits Lugt. However, in the absence of documen- tation we can draw no fi rm conclusions. An inglorious end was the fate of the library of Hendrik August van Baak, 90 pro- prietor of an electrical goods business called Armatura in Bussum to the south- east of Amsterdam. He was the great collector of Netherlandish post-incunabula, which had come very much into the limelight thanks to the bibliographical work of Wouter Nijho ff and Miss Maria Kronenberg. Perhaps that is what inspired van Baak. Be that as it may, it is scarcely possible to conceive of a greater con- trast than that between the rabidly anti-German Kronenberg and the somewhat naive van Baak, whose wife was German but who was otherwise fairly harm- less. Having joined the national socialist nsb earlier on in the occupation, on 7 June 1944 (when he was already sixty-two) he had himself installed as burgo- master of Purmerend, to the north of Amsterdam. 91 Although during his time there he behaved with greater humanity than most of his kind, on 30 January 1945 he was liquidated by the Resistance in the nearby village of De Rijp because it was thought he knew too much. Immediately after the liberation his library, which had remained behind in his villa in Bussum, was taken to Amsterdam University Library by Herman de la Fontaine Verwey in his capac- ity as inspector of art collections for the post-war military administration. At the trial of Mrs van Baak de la Fontaine Verwey argued that the library should be declared forfeit, on the presumption that she had plenty of money anyway. It later emerged that the library had been her only possession. 92 In ful fi lment of the sentence, van Baak’s books were divided among the coun- try’s libraries, the majority going to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague. As a result it is now di ffi cult to gain a clear picture of the original collection, in addition to which part of it relating to Luther and the Reformation was auc- tioned by Beijers as early as 1938 . What is clear, however, is that here was a collection that, unlike those of May and Menso, departed from the beaten track of bibliophily. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 277</p>
<p>278 P iet J. B uijnsters 93 Douwe Wouters was born at Bolsward on 4 August 1876 as the son of Freerk Wouters and his wife Trijntje Simons. On 16 April 1903 he married Willemina Brouwer, who bore him a daugh- ter; after her death he married Maria Wilhelmina Henriette Kok on 3 June 1924 . He himself died, virtually forgotten, at Zeist on 8 April 1955 . Details from personal card in cbg . See also P.J. Meertens, ‘In memoriam D. Wouters’, in: Volkskunde , 56 ( 1955 ), p. 62 . 94 D. Wouters, ‘Uit de geschiedenis van het kinderboek’, in: De Schouw , 3 ( 1944 ), pp. 321 - 5 ; E. Tierie-Hogerzeil, Hoe men het ABC begeerde en leerde (Utrecht/Brussel 1946 ). 95 Adriaan Venema, Schrijvers, uitgevers en hun collaboratie. Deel 1 : Het systeem (Amsterdam 1988 ), pp. 205 - 6 . This was even truer in the case of the collection of books and prints owned by Douwe Wouters ( 1876 - 1955 ) of Zeist, a fanatical nsb member who after the war became the subject of a gagging order and thus disappeared from the scene for good. 93 A Frisian by birth, Wouters was brought up a strict Protestant. Until 1922 he was head of a primary school. After that he made a name for himself as a writer on education and author of frequently reprinted textbooks on Dutch literature and history. Thus it was that in about 1925 he more or less auto- matically started collecting children’s books and school textbooks, for which in those days there was little interest in the Netherlands. He was also interested in prints for children. He had a particular penchant for eighteenth- and nine- teenth-century popular ballads, of which he assembled an interesting collection that became the basis of many publications. Together with Dr J. Moorman he edited a two-part anthology Het straatlied (Amsterdam 1933 - 4 , with another vol- ume in 1939 ). During the occupation he published eight volumes of Liederen uit de oude doos ( 1942 - 3 ), the last four of which were brought out by the nsb pub- lishing house De Schouw. In De Schouw , an organ of the Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer, he published a number of essays about early abc books. Evading the gagging order, these reappeared after the war under the name of Mrs E. Tierie-Hogerzeil ( 1872 - 1962 ). 94 Like so many Dutch folklorists, Wouters had abandoned himself to the national socialist ideology of Blood and Soil, thereby at the same time helping to discredit the whole fi eld of folklore for a long time to come. Quite apart from his political stance Wouters seems to have been a di ffi cult man. 95 Meertens speaks of an ‘aggressive personality’. Unfortunately his publi- cations also turn out to be mediocre from the academic point of view on account of their exasperating lack of references. Nevertheless, as a collector Wouters was a pioneer and had more impact than any of the bibliophiles already mentioned – Lugt being the exception. With his pronounced predilection for ‘folkish’ literature he is best compared with collectors of popular prose such as Michiel Buisman, who likewise – though without any ideological ulterior motive – opened up new terrain for students of Dutch life and literature. Yet it was not until long after the war, in 1972 , that his gigantic library was catalogued and auctioned. By contrast, Wouters o ff ered his collection to the Koninklijke Bibliotheek for D fl 25 , 000 as early as May 1944 – perhaps because he feared it might be con fi scated. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 278</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 279 96 P.J. Buijnsters, ‘Mr. C.F. van Veen als verzamelaar van kinderboeken’, in: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis , 4 (Leiden 1997 ), pp. 101 - 18 ; Marieke van Delft et al., Koninklijke Bibliotheek 1798 - 1998 . Verzamelaars en verzamelingen (Zwolle 1998 ), pp. 93 - 4 . 97 P.J. Buijnsters, ‘The hunt for popular prose; the correspondence between J.F.M. Scheepers and M. Buisman, from 1929 until 1942 ’, in: Quaerendo , 19 ( 1988 ), pp. 104 - 33 . 98 Letter from riod (now niod ) to me of 7 November 1986 . Scheepers’s Schützhaft number was 11518 , his camp number in Dachau 36594 (letter from Red Cross to me). 99 Oral information from Scheepers’s friend (and mine) M. Buisman J.Fzn. and from H. de la Fontaine Verwey ( 5 April 1984 ). Scheepers and his wife had no children. In a telephone con- versation their niece Mrs W.M. van Gasteren-Kruidenier told me that the reason for her uncle’s arrest was that he had been hiding Jewish books in his attic. 100 Letter from Rotterdam police to me dated 1 March 1987 . In the end, most of his collection of some 2 , 200 children’s books was bought in 1946 by C.F. van Veen, then the rising star in this fi eld; the songbooks and popular ballads were bought en bloc by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. 96 How dubious the labelling of collectors during the occupation as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can be is illustrated, fi nally, by the case of ‘John’ Scheepers. 97 He was a Rotterdam cabinetmaker and amateur racing cyclist, a man full of the joys of life and one of comparatively little education, but despite all that he was a complete bibliomaniac and spent every moment he could in the saleroom. To satisfy his hunger for books he was constantly doing deals behind the scenes, buying and selling spare copies. So it was that between 1925 and 1942 he amassed an enormous library at his house at Diergaardesingel 83 , most of it Dutch lit- erature from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, with the accent on light prose. Although as far as I know Scheepers never himself published a single line, he nevertheless had a stimulating e ff ect on the life’s work of his friend Buisman: Populaire prozaschrijvers van 1600 tot 1815 (Amsterdam 1960 ). It is entirely accurate, then, that in his preface to that bibliography Herman de la Fontaine Verwey refers to the ‘gifted collector’ Scheepers, who met his end in Dachau concentration camp on 29 September 1942 , aged forty-eight. 98 What de la Fontaine Verwey fails to mention is how Scheepers came to be there. In a sense, Scheepers too was a victim of the race laws, for it was on account of the fact that the prostitute with whom he had had a fl ing was Jewish that his wife Wil Kruidenier ( 1898 - 1971 ) reported him to the Sicherheitsdienst . 99 On 28 April 1942 Scheepers was arrested by the Rotterdam police 100 and handed over to the Gestapo. By way of the camps at Amersfoort and Neuengamme he eventually arrived in Dachau. As the Germans saw it, his wife had done nothing wrong. That probably explains why Scheepers’s books were never con fi scated by the Germans as additional punishment. Instead, they were scattered to the four winds at two auctions held by Beijers in Utrecht on 6 - 7 January 1947 and 13 - 14 December 1949 . Proceeds, so soon after the war: virtually nil. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 279</p>
<p>280 P iet J. B uijnsters epilogue When life fi nally began to return to normal after the liberation, those Jewish antiquarians who had survived the war – Elte, Emmering, Horodisch, the Israëls, the Berkelouws, Fritz and Hilde Rosenthal – found their businesses had been plundered. Only Hertzberger had lost comparatively few books. They all, with boundless energy, rebuilt their businesses and pro fi ted from the boom of the nineteen- fi fties. In the meantime the whole world of antiquarian books had changed, and the forced isolation of the period 1940 - 5 now made way for truly international activities. French and German as working languages were exchanged for English. The new antiquarian appreciated that a thorough knowledge of the subject was now essential if he was to pursue such an occupation with any success. The in fl uence of the New Bibliography of the English-speaking coun- tries with their ‘points’ and collational formulas penetrated into even the small- est catalogues, some of which thereby acquired the character of academic reference works. At auctions, sound commercial principles increasingly prevailed over the old clubby atmosphere. But the biggest change was surely that the antiquarian had evolved from a kind of waste-paper merchant into a specialist in books that were worth something. And the prototype of such a scholarly new- style antiquarian was Bob de Graaf, Menno Hertzberger’s old employee. With a little exaggeration one might divide the evolution of the antiquarian book business in the Netherlands in the period described here, 1930 - 46 and the years that followed, into three phases: market trader, shopkeeper, and from there (from the seventies onwards) to stall-holder at book fairs, otherwise only receiv- ing customers at home and by appointment. This, it seems, has brought things full circle. But that is another story. archive sources Archive of the Nederlandsche Vereeniging van Antiquaren (NV v A), in the library of the Royal Netherlands Book Trade Association (Bibliotheek Koninklijke Vereniging van het Boekenvak, bkvb ) in Amsterdam University Library ( uba ); in particular: annual reports (inv.nr. 5 ), minutes of general meetings (inv.no. 12 ) and cash books showing subscriptions received (inv.no. 108 ). Library of the kvb (in uba ); in particular, the personal fi les held on the various bookshops and antiquarian businesses. Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie ( niod , formerly riod ), Amsterdam: inv.no. 43 Abteilung Feindvermögen, 1940 - 5 inv.no. 44 Wirtschaftsprüfstelle, 1940 - 5 inv.no. 93 a Einsatzstab Rosenberg, 1942 - 3 inv.no. 102 Departement van Volksvoorlichting en Kunsten, afdeling Boekwezen, 1940 - 5 inv.no. 104 Nederlandsche Kultuurkamer, 1941 - 5 Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie ( cbg ), The Hague: various personal fi les. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 280</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 281 literature Aalders, Gerard, Nazi looting. The plunder of Dutch Jewry during the Second World War (Oxford/Berg 2004 ). Andriessen-Canoy, Marianne, ‘Thucydides’, in: Beschreven Bladen [published by the Haarlem society Het Beschreven Blad], 4 - 5 ( 1994 - 5 ). Bartman, Joop H., ‘De boekverkoper in oorlogstijd’, in De Vlam , 1 / 13 ( 12 September 1945 ). Groeneveld, Gerard, Zwaard van de geest. Het bruine boek in Nederland 1921 - 1945 (Nijmegen 2001 ). Hertzberger, Menno, Flashbacks . ( s.l.e.a. [ 1981 ]); printed by Los Printing O ffi ce in Naarden in 60 copies; no trade edition. Horodisch, Abraham, ‘Fünfzig Jahre Buchhändler in Amsterdam’, in: De Arte et Libris. Festschrift Erasmus 1934 - 1984 (Amsterdam 1984 ), pp. 465 - 9 . Jong, L. de, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede wereldoorlog , 14 vols. (’s-Gravenhage 1969 - 91 ). Junk, W., 50 Jahre Antiquar. Ein nachgelassenes Manuskript , ed. A.C. Klooster & W. Weisbach (’s-Gravenhage 1949 ). L[abarre], E.J., ‘History of the fi rm’, in: Catalogue 204 , issued to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Ludwig Rosenthal’s Antiquariaat, Hilversum – Netherlands 1859 - 1959 . La Fontaine Verwey, H. de, ‘Ex libris veteribus F. Lugt’, in: Apollo , 104 ( 1976 ), pp. 46 - 53 ; also in: Treasures from the collection of Frits Lugt at the Institut Néerlandais, Paris , ed. D. Sutton ([London] 1976 ). idem, ‘De Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana tijdens de bezetting’, in: Studia Rosenthaliana , 14 ( 1980 ), pp. 121 - 7 idem, De verdwenen antiquaar en andere herinneringen van een bibliothecaris (Amsterdam 1993 ). Landwehr, John, ‘Flitsen van weleer’, in: Waardevol oud papier , pp. 175 - 7 . Mercurius en Minerva = O ff eren aan Mercurius en Minerva. Nederlandsche Vereeniging van Antiquaaren 1935 - 1995 , ed. Nop Maas & F.W. Kuyper (Amsterdam 1995 ). Mulder, Hans, Kunst in crisis en bezetting. Een onderzoek naar de houding van Nederlandse kunstenaars in de periode 1930 - 1945 (Utrecht/Antwerpen 1978 ). Muller, Eelke, & Helen Schretlen, Betwist bezit. De Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit en de teruggave van roofkunst na 1945 (Zwolle 2002 ). Nederland en het Duitse Exil 1933 - 1940 , ed. Kathinka Dittrich & Hans Würzner (Amsterdam 1982 ). Nieuwsblad voor de(n) boekhandel , 1930 - 50 . Poel, Carla van der, Burgersdijk & Niermans, een Leids veilinghuis en antiquariaat (Leiden 1988 ). Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 281</p>
<p>282 P iet J. B uijnsters Presser, J., Ondergang. De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse jodendom , 2 vols. (’s-Gravenhage 1965 ). Rosenthal, Bernard M., ‘Die sanfte Invasion. Aus dem kontinentalen Europa emi- grierte Buchhändler der 30 er und 40 er Jahre und ihr Ein fl uss auf den antiquar- ischen Buchhandel in den USA’, in: Aus dem Antiquariat , 10 ( 1987 ), pp. 389 - 97 . Schilt, Jan, Hier wordt echter het belang van het boek geschaad . . . Het Nederlandse boekenvak 1933 - 1948 (Amsterdam [ 1995 ]). Somers, Erik, & Mark Pier, Archievengids van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Nederland en Nederlands-Indië (Zutphen 1994 ). Uit de notulen van de ’s-Gravenhaagsche Boekhandelaars Vereeniging 1854 / 1954 (’s-Gravenhage 1954 ). Venema, Adriaan, Kunsthandel in Nederland 1940 - 1945 (Amsterdam 1986 ). idem, Schrijvers, uitgevers en hun collaboratie. Deel 1 : Het systeem (Amsterdam 1988 ). idem, Schrijvers, uitgevers en hun collaboratie. Deel 4 : Uitgevers en boekhandelaren (Amsterdam 1992 ). Visser, M.J., ‘De Haagse boekhandel 1900 - 1960 ’, in: Jaarboek Die Haghe , 1962 , pp. 1 - 142 . Vries, H. de, Notities voor Herman (Haarlem 1995 ). Shop journal kept by a Haarlem book dealer during the war years. Waardevol oud papier. Feestbundel bij het tienjarig bestaan van Bubb Kuyper Veilingen Boeken en Gra fi ek 1986 - 1996 , ed. Nop Maas (Amsterdam 1996 ). appendix 1 Dealers in old books according to Sijtho ff ’s Adresboek 1935 Amsterdam Boekcentrale E. Vet, corner Spui/Spuistraat 305 Boekhandel en Uitgeverij van het Nederl. Jongelingsverbond, Singel 58 B.E. Boekman, Sa ffi erstraat 48 II Mej. C. Boekman, Vijzelgracht 9 G. Theod. Bom & Zn., Kerkstraat 310 H.A. van Bottenburg N.V., Prinsengracht 493 Magazijn ‘De Bijenkorf ’ N.V., Damrak L. Cohen, Heerengracht 243 J. Emmering’s Universiteitsboekhandel, Antiquariaat en Uitgeverij N.V., Rokin 102 Internationaal Antiquariaat (Menno Hertzberger), Keizersgracht 610 J.L. Joachimsthal, Jodenbreestraat 63 J. Jukkers Dekker, Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 33 Lobo’s Antiquariaat (M. Lobo Mz.), Prinsengracht 1075 Frederik Muller & Co., Doelenstraat 16 H.D. Pfann, Oudemanhuispoort 1 P. Pieters Jr., Nassaukade 366 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 282</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 283 Schleyer, De Vries & Kraay, Vondelstraat 75 a Spieghelboekhandel (L.B. Boekman), Nieuwe Spieghelstraat 70 Swets & Zeitlinger, Keizersgracht 471 R.W.P. de Vries, Warmoesstraat 197 A. De Waal Male fi jt, Van Hogendorpstraat 46 A. van West, Uithoornstraat 11 J.J. v.d. Wey, Andreas Bonnstraat 10 Akkersoude E. Noordhof Gz. (specializing in theology) Amersfoort Sim. Klein, Muurhuizen 2 and Scherbierstraat 9 Apeldoorn A. Kroes, Beekstraat 28 Arnhem S. Gouda Quint, Bakkerstraat 17 Hijman, Stenfert Kroese & Van der Zande, Koningstraat 64 B.M. Israël (The Bookshop), Emmastraat 43 Arum J.L. van Gorkum Delft Academia, Boekhandel en antiquariaat voor techniek, wetenschap en kunst, Oude Delft 101 D. Garnade, Choorstraat 21 Minerva, Oude Delft 121 Dordrecht A.G. Versteegh, Vleeschhouwerstraat 22 Driebergen W. Kraal & Zonen The Hague Simon Blok, Lange Poten 5 a Meyer Elte, Korte Poten 13 A.N. Govers N.V., Westeinde 2 - 4 Gerard Halwasse. Established 1904 , Prins Hendrikstraat 20 A. Jongbloed, Juridische Boekhandel en Uitgeverij, Archimedesstraat 54 Koens Arch. Boekhandel, Bankastraat 2 a Gé Nabrink’s Boekhandel en Antiquariaat, Wagenstraat 146 a De Nieuwe Boekerij, Anna Paulownastraat 14 N.V. Martinus Nijho ff ’s Boekhandel en Uitgeverij, Lange Voorhout 9 W.J. Ort, Prins Hendrikstraat 84 N. Posthumus, Daendelstraat 68 A.J. Roebert, Hobbemastraat 106 N.V. v/h N. de Roo, Frederik Hendriklaan 263 Van Stockum’s Antiquariaat, Prinsegracht 15 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 283</p>
<p>284 P iet J. B uijnsters Boekhandel Synthese, Lange Voorhout 96 M. Tokkie jr., Noordeinde 150 J. Vloemans, Kon. Emmakade 148 Groningen Bouma’s Boekhuis, Turfsingel 3 Cloetingh’s Boekhandel, Coehoornsingel 51 Noord-Nederlandsch Antiquariaat, O. Ebbingestraat 38 Haarlem N.V. v/h P. van Akkeren, Zijlstraat 89 Firma H.N. Mul, Kruisstraat 25 Firma P. Visser Azn., Zijlweg 83 H. de Vries, Jacobijnestraat 3 Harderwijk A.J. Wuestman, Markt ’s-Hertogenbosch Boekhandel Adr. Heinen, Kerkstraat 27 Zuid-Nederlandsch Antiquariaat, Kerkstraat 31 Hilversum J.C. Auf der Heide S.H.D., Nassaulaan 5 ’t Gooische Boekhuis, Havenstraat 25 Kampen G. Bos, Oudestraat 43 Leiden N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij v/h E.J. Brill, Oude Rijn Burgersdijk & Niermans, Nieuwsteeg 1 S. Garnade, Steenstraat 15 J. Ginsberg, Kort Rapenburg 17 Firma B. de Kler, Nieuwe Rijn 45 Maartensdijk D.M. Zwart Maastricht F. Schmitz, Groote Gracht 3 Boekhandel Veldeke, Kl. Staat 14 Nijkerk Verhoog’s Boekhandel Nijmegen Dekker & Van de Vegt N.V., Oranjesingel 4 Rotterdam H. Berkelouw, Pompenburgsingel 25 b Pieter D. Bolle N.V., Binnenweg 64 Boxem’s Antiquariaat, Nieuwe Binnenweg 245 J.H. La Grand Jr., Schiedamsche Dijk 53 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 284</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 285 101 K.W.J. van Rossum, ‘De Nijmeegse vestiging van Dekker & van de Vegt’, in: Numaga , 36 / 1 (April 1989 ). 102 In 1905 Jan Bom, twin brother of G.T. Bom, went to work for publishing house, printing fi rm and bookshop G.C.T. van Dorp & Co. in what was then the Dutch East Indies (founded 1 November 1857 ) with branches at Semarang, Bandung, Surabaya and The Hague. In 1922 he became managing director there, holding the post in the Netherlands from 1 September 1929 until his death. The company, whose o ffi ces were on the Spui and at Prinsegracht 83 , was for a long time very much oriented on trade with the East Indies, where it was in a powerful position and published over six hundred titles, including the railway timetable. To Van Dorp & Co. the inde- pendence of the republic of Indonesia meant the loss of four pro fi table branches. This was some- thing with which general manager Jan Bom had di ffi culty coming to terms. A new branch in Aruba brought little by way of compensation. After October 1973 the fi rm concentrated on the wholesale o ffi ce products business. See M.J. Visser, ‘De Haagse boekhandel’, in: Jaarboek Die Haghe , 1962 , pp. 62 - 3 , and esp. Nieuwsblad voor de boekhandel , December 1959 . L.A. Leons, van Alkemadestraat 36 c A. van Witsen, Oppert 87 Sneek Firma C. de Boer Sz., Hoogend 10 Uitgeverij Boeijenga, Kleinzand 89 Stiens Gaele de Vries Terneuzen P. Simons-v.d. Peyl Tilburg Boekhandel De Kempen, Nieuwlandstraat 58 Utrecht N.V. Boekhandel en Antiquariaat v/h J.L. Beijers, Wed 5 - 7 Cohen’s Boekhandel, Nobelstraat 29 Dekker & Van de Vegt N.V., Oude Gracht 206 A. Fisscher, Lange Elisabethstraat 3 A.J. van Hu ff el’s Antiquariaat, Trans 13 Erven de Ridder, Over den Dom Firma M. Vet, Oude Gracht 261 G. v.d. Vet’s Oude Boek- en Kunsthandel, Oude Gracht 326 J. Wristers, Minrebroederstraat 13 Weesp Posthuma’s Weesper Boekhandel, Nieuwstad 52 appendix 2 List of NV v A members before 1940 1. H. Berkelouw: 1936 - 42 ; 1947 - 8 2. A.J.W. van de Bilt ( 1897 - 1974 ): 101 Dekker & Van de Vegt, Nijmegen 1935 - 8 3. G.T. Bom ( 1884 - 1963 ): Amsterdam 1935 - 46 4. Jan Bom ( 1884 - 1959 ): 102 Fa. G.C.T. van Dorp & Co., The Hague 1935 - 59 5. Martin Cohen ( 1905 - 62 ): Academia, Delft 1932 - 42 ; 1946 - 62 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 285</p>
<p>286 P iet J. B uijnsters 103 Bouma’s Boekhuis N.V. in Groningen was founded on 28 April 1931 by Tiete Wever and Tjako Hessel Hummelen. Berend Forsten (b. Oude Pekela 17 August 1908 , d. Groningen 11 March 1990 ) joined the fi rm in 1925 as o ffi ce boy, becoming managing director in 1934 . His principal interest was in the academic side of the antiquarian business, with the emphasis on theology and classical languages. During the war he was for a while imprisoned by the Germans for selling work by Karl Barth; after this he went into hiding. The fi rm was wound up in 1992 , having been run by Berend Forsten and his son Egbert since 1 January 1968 . Personal fi le in bkvb ; Nieuwsblad voor de boekhandel , 1950 , p. 310 ; letter from Egbert Forsten of 26 February 1997 . 104 N. Posthumus opened his bookshop in The Hague in May 1913 . The business was wound up after his death on 17 February 1952 (personal fi le in bkvb ). 105 De Antiquaar , 1 / 1 (October 1969 ), p. 3 . 106 Interview with Paul Valkema Blouw 31 October 1986 in Amsterdam University Library; Mercurius en Minerva , op. cit. (n. 16 ), pp. 62 - 70 ; Ton Croiset van Uchelen, ‘In memoriam Paul Valkema Blouw ( 1916 - 2000 )’, in: De Boekenwereld , 17 ( 2000 ), pp. 138 - 42 , idem , ‘In memoriam Paul Valkema Blouw, 1916-2000 ’, in: Quœrendo , 31 ( 2001 ), pp. 87-96 . 107 Abraham Meijer van Witsen, b. Woerden 15 August 1891 , started work as an o ffi ce clerk; as such, from 1911 to 1918 he lodged with his uncle Emanuel Abraham van Witsen (b. Rotterdam 12 September 1869 ), bookseller at Oppert 79 b; following nine months in Haarlem, on 4 March 1919 he returned to Rotterdam, now himself a bookseller; he married Sophia Levitus and the cou- ple had two sons. From October 1932 to the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 the family lived at Oppert 87 (letter of 21 March 1997 ). After the war van Witsen returned safe and sound from Westerbork camp, after which he settled in ( Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel , 1945 ). 6. P.J. Dee ( 1884 - 1947 ): Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden 1935 - 42 , then honorary member 7. Meyer Elte ( 1877 - 1937 ): The Hague 1935 - 7 8. Joseph (‘John’) Elte ( 1914 - 42 ): The Hague 1937 - 42 9. Mozes Joseph (‘Max’) Elte ( 1909 - 84 ): The Hague 1938 - 42 ; 1946 - 84 10. Berend Forsten ( 1908 - 90 ): 103 Bouma’s Boekhuis, Groningen 1935 - c. 1980 11. Menno Hertzberger ( 1897 - 1982 ): Internationaal Antiquariaat, Amsterdam 1935 - 42 ; 1946 - 82 12. Jac. van ’t Hooft (. . . .- 1944 ): Leiden 1939 - 44 13. Abraham Horodisch ( 1898 - 1987 ): Erasmus, Amsterdam 1936 - 42 ; 1946 - 87 14. J.A. de Jong: The Hague 1935 - 42 15. A. Jongbloed ( 1889 - 1958 ): The Hague 1935 - 58 16. Mathias Kemp ( 1890 - 1964 ): Limburgs Antiquariaat, Maastricht 1935 - 48 ? 17. Jean Baptiste Joseph Kerling ( 26 May 1869 - 13 January 1947 ): Van Stockum’s Antiquariaat, The Hague 1935 - 47 18. Bart de Kler ( 1899 - 1966 ): Leiden 1935 - 55 19. S. van Maarsen: Boek & Kunst, Amsterdam 1938 - 42 ; 1946 - 52 20. H.D. Pfann Sr. ( 1889 - 1957 ): Amsterdam 1937 - 8 ? 1948 - 57 21. A.C.M. Pillot ( 1902 - 75 ): Oude en Moderne Boekhandel De Kempen, Tilburg 1935 - 70 ; 1971 - 5 honorary member 22. N. Posthumus ( 1870 - 1952 ): 104 The Hague 1935 - 7 ; 1947 - 52 23. G.W. Schultz ( 1874 - 1945 ): J.L. Beijers, Utrecht 1935 - 45 24. Johannes Pieter Stam ( 1904 - 69 ): 105 Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden 1939 - 69 25. A.S. (Adriaan) Swets Sr. ( 1868 - 1950 ): Swets & Zeitlinger, Amsterdam 1935 - 50 ; honorary member from 1948 26. F.W.G. Théonville ( 1888 - 1969 ): A.J. van Hu ff el, Utrecht: 1935 - 7 ; 1943 - 50 27. Paul Valkema Blouw ( 1916 - 2000 ): 106 J.L. Beijers, Utrecht, 1939 - 48 28. Abraham van Witsen Sr. ( 1891 - c. 1980 ): 107 Rotterdam, 1935 - 42 ; 1946 - 64 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 286</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 287 108 For decades Marius van de Wouw, who was originally a teacher, ran the Zuid-Nederlandsch Antiquariaat in Den Bosch, initially together with Marius J. Heinen ( 1889 - 1964 ) but later on his own; for many years this was the only antiquarian bookshop in the south of the country and it specialized in prints and the history of Brabant. In 1962 his widow, by now Mrs Weck, sold the business, which by now was run down and surviving mainly on the proceeds from its lending library, to Ans van Pagée, who was thus able to re-merge the businesses of Heinen and van de Wouw into a single Antiquariaat Brabant; personal fi le Van de Wouw in bkvb ; J.J. Luyckx, Den Bosch, drie generaties Bosschenaren en Boekhandel Adr. Heinen (Zwolle 1994 ); oral information from Mrs Ans van Pagée-Selis, 25 October 1996 . 109 Information provided by telephone by J. Wristers Jr. of Utrecht, 3 December 1996 ; no his- tory of the company exists on paper. Wristers has always specialized in theology. 110 My interviews with G.W. Gijsbers: 11 April, 2 and 13 mei 1980 , augmented with extensive notes. Also: Lisa Kuitert, ‘Je bent eigenlijk een soort detective. Boeken op postzegels. In gesprek met G.W. Gijsbers’, in: De Boekenwereld , 9 ( 1993 ), pp. 170 - 6 ; G.W. Gijsbers, ‘Antiquarische belevenis- sen I-II’, in: De Boekenwereld , 11 ( 1995 ), pp. 214 - 20 , ibid. 12 ( 1996 ), pp. 274 - 80 . 111 Antonie van der Horst Sr., a cousin of the well-known organist Dr Anton van der Horst, started life as a typographer. In 1906 he opened a bookshop called ’t Gooische Boekhuis in Hilversum, ultimately becoming one of the country’s fi rst large school textbook suppliers. ‘But his great love was the antiquarian side of the business, which after a while was accommodated in sep- arate premises’, Nieuwsblad voor de boekhandel , 16 December 1965 . The fi rm ended its bookselling activities in 1974 to concentrate exclusively on the stationery and o ffi ce supplies business. 112 De Antiquaar , 1 / 1 (October 1969 ), p. 5 . 113 In November 1932 A. Meyer opened his Oriental Bookshop at Noordeinde 115 a in The Hague with the idea of creating a cultural meeting place between East and West. He remained the owner until the end of February 1968 , when the business was taken over by Gé Nabrink’s Boekhandel en Antiquariaat of Amsterdam. Meyer died 4 April 1974 . See personal fi le in bkvb , which includes a lea fl et given out at the opening ‘Een woord bij de opening. November 1932 ’. 114 The founder of the fi rm, which dealt (and still does) in coins, medals and books in that fi eld, was Jacob Schulman, who moved his business from Amersfoort to Amsterdam in 1902 . See [E.E. Timmer], 100 jaar numismatiek, een reportage (Amsterdam: Jacques Schulman 1980 ). With thanks to the present proprietor Laurens Schulman of Bussum. 29. M.H.C. (‘Marius’) van de Wouw ( 1894 - 1947 ): 108 Zuid-Nederlandsch Antiquariaat, Den Bosch 1935 - 47 30. J. (‘Jan’) Wristers (b. Grijpskerk 14 April 1868 , d. Utrecht 2 May 1935 , the founder, succeeded by his son Reinder Wristers: b. Utrecht 25 November 1898 , d. Utrecht 18 December 1973 ): 109 Utrecht 1935 - 7 Joined the NVvA during the Occupation 1940 - 5 31. T. Folkers ( 1879 - 1950 ): E.J. Brill, Leiden 1944 -? 110 32. G.W. (‘Ger’) Gijsbers ( 1916 - 99 ): Arnhem 1944 - 5 33. H.J. (‘Hans’) Hanselaar ( 1904 - 84 ): Biblio fi el Antiquariaat Minerva, The Hague 1941 - 73 34. Antonie van der Horst ( 1880 - 1965 ): ’t Gooische Boekhuis, Hilversum 1940 - 8 111 35. K.P. (Kees) Jongbloed ( 1913 - 94 ): The Hague 1942 ?- 94 36. Johan Kuipers ( 1906 - 69 ): Van Stockum’s Antiquariaat, The Hague 1941 - 69 112 37. J. van Loon ( 1919 - 99 ): Arnhem 1944 - 86 38. A. Meyer ( 1902 - 74 ): The Oriental Bookshop, The Hague 1942 - 8 ? 113 39. R.E. Schierenberg ( 1900 - 91 ): Antiquariaat Junk, The Hague etc. 1941 - 74 40. Jacques Schulman (b. Amsterdam 6 April 1906 , d. Bussum 9 April 1991 ): 114 Amsterdam 1941 - 1989 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 287</p>
<p>288 P iet J. B uijnsters 115 Henriëtte Boas, De boekverkopers en de oorlog, in: Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad , 3 October 1997 . 116 Louis Putman, ‘Vier veilingen van (met en zonder) A.T. Kleerekoper’, in: Uitgelezen Boeken , 4 / 3 (December 1991 ). For P.A. Hemerijck (b. 1884 , d. Gouda 1945 ), joint managing director of De Tijdstroom in Lochem, see Nieuwsblad voor den boekhandel , 26 July 1945 , p. 53 . 41. Friedrich August Wilhelm Heinrich Vossieck or Vossiek (b. Bielefeld 25 March 1888 , d. after 5 February 1946 ): The Hague and Wassenaar 1942 -[ 4 ] 42. B.P. (‘Bart’) Zijlstra: Wageningen 1942 -? Moved to Paris after the war appendix 3 German Jewish and other emigré antiquarians ( 1930 - 40 ) M. Basch: Antiquariaat De Boekenkamer, Spiegelgracht 9 , Amsterdam 1934 - 41 . Walter Baumann (Kassel 1899 - 19 ??): worked under Horodisch at Erasmus 1933 - 6 ; then left for South Africa. Martin Cohen ( 1905 - 62 ): Antiquariaat Academia, Delft 1932 - 42 ; 1946 -. Dr J.J. Dalberg, who founded De Pampiere Wereld; he and his wife died in Sobibor. The business was initially situated on the Rokin in Amsterdam, where another German Jewish emigré Salo S. Meyer (q.v.) came to work in the mid nineteen-thir- ties. It was not long before Meyer became a partner in the business. At the begin- ning of 1941 the shop was shut and its stock con fi scated. Meyer went into hiding in Brabant, but after Dalberg’s death continued the business on his own. 115 Dr Kurt Freyer (b. 1885 ): managing director of Utopia-Antiquariat in Berlin; in July 1933 he was appointed head of the then newly formed antiquarian department of Boekhandel P.A. Hemerijck (A.T. Kleerekoper), Koninginneweg 137 , Amsterdam; left with his wife for Palestine on 27 August 1937 . Also Jewish, Abraham Tzemach Kleerekoper (b. Amsterdam 2 January 1904 , d. Sobibor 23 July 1943 ) was active as an auctioneer from May 1933 until 1940 . In 1942 his books were auctioned anony- mously by G.T. Bom in Amsterdam; by this time he himself had already been sent to a concentration camp. 116 Paul Gottschalk ( 1880 - 1970 ): from 1907 to 1933 he had an important antiquarian business in Berlin specializing in periodicals and early printed works; in 1936 he moved to The Hague, where his cousin Heinz already lived, but after war broke out he emigrated to America. His stock of books (half a million volumes) was ‘bought’ pro forma by Nijho ff and stored in a store-room on the Kazernestraat. ‘Paul’s brother was a family doctor in Berlin. He too later fl ed with his son Lutz [Ludwig] and his non-Jewish German housekeeper to The Hague, where they were able to go into hiding in the home of C. Gilhuys, an executive and later managing direc- tor of Nijho ff . After the war Lutz Gottschalk went to New York, where he settled again as an antiquarian bookseller’ (letter from G.J. de Kievit, The Hague, 31 December 1996 ). See also Paul Gottschalk, ‘Memoiren eines Antiquars’, in: Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel (Frankfurter Ausgabe), 21 ( 1965 ), pp. 2660 - 4 ; 22 ( 1966 ), pp. 100 - 10 , 241 - 8 , 477 - 85 ; also as Memoirs of an Antiquarian Bookseller (Gainesville, Florida, 1967 ); Bernard M. Rosenthal, ‘Die sanfte Invasion’, p. 395 . Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 288</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 289 117 K.W.J. van Rossum, ‘De Nijmeegse vestiging van Dekker & van de Vegt’, in: Numaga , 36 / 1 (April 1989 ). As a young student I knew Hagen well. 118 See Fritz H. Landshof, Amsterdam Keizersgracht 333 . Querido Verlag. Erinnerungen eines Verlegers (Berlin/Weimar 1991 ), passim . 119 Letter 23 December 1999 from Mrs Netty van Rotterdam, Rotterdam. Dr Heinz Gottschalk, brother of Lutz and cousin of Paul: worked fi rst in the Berlin antiquarian bookshop of Paul Gottschalk, who in 1935 established a branch of the business for him at Wassenaarseweg 45 , The Hague; in the export trade sending academic and antiquarian books to the usa . He spent the war in hiding on the Koningin Emmakade in The Hague. Hans Ludwig Gumbert ( 1903 - 94 ): came to Nijmegen in 1935 ; from 1947 until his death he was managing director of J.L. Beijers in Utrecht. Joseph Hagen (b. Siegburg 1891 , d. Nijmegen 1970 ): half Jewish, cousin of Wernker von Braun; with a break in the fi ve years of the war, from 1938 until 1961 he ran the antiquarian department of Dekker & van de Vegt in Nijmegen. 117 J. Halle (from Munich?): antiquarian bookshop at Achillesstraat 30 , Amsterdam. P.A. Hemerijck (A.T. Kleerekoper): see Freyer. Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Hollstein ( 1888 - 1957 ): art dealer in Berlin, specializing in graphic art; married a Jewish woman and moved to Amsterdam in 1937 . Dr Abraham Horodisch (b. Lodz 1898 , d. Amsterdam 1987 ) and his wife, the graphic artist Alice Garmann (b. Berlin 1905 ), signing as Garman; married London 3 February 1934 . Ernst Horwitz: came from Munich. Hermann Igersheimer: had a business in Amsterdam, according to Max Israël a kind of De Slegte [or Foyles; i.e. it had everything]. 118 Dr Wilhelm Junk (b. Prague 3 February 1866 , d. 1942 ): came from Berlin; moved to The Hague in 1934 . Dr Felix Kau ff mann ( 1878 - 1953 ): proprietor of I. Kau ff mann, publishers and book- sellers specializing in Judaica in Frankfurt am Main; came to Amsterdam in 1938 , emigrated to the usa in 1941 . B. Korngold: Achter St. Pieter 17 , Utrecht; mainly classical philology; business moved to Sprang Cappele (North Brabant) in 1970 ; still there in 1972 . Louis Lamm: Amstel 3 , Amsterdam; from Berlin or Leipzig; dealt in Judaica. Lampusiak: tailor and dealer in old books on the Goudseplein and later in the Vierambachtstraat, both in Rotterdam. 119 Dr Otto Liebstaedter (b. Nuremberg 1900 , d. 1969 ): managing director of the A. Asher & Co. bookshop in Berlin from 1927 ; in 1933 he emigrated to The Hague, where until 1940 he ran Asher’s export department; in 1935 he and Dr Schierenberg bought the antiquarian business of Wilhelm Junk; in 1947 he and Karl Anton Steiner established the new natural history antiquarian bookshop of A. Asher & Co. Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 289</p>
<p>290 P iet J. B uijnsters 120 Letter from his son and successor R. (‘Bob’) Loose of Antiquariaat A.L. Loose, Papestraat 3 , The Hague, 19 September 1996 . 121 Interview 12 November 2003 with Mrs Lilly Couvée in Amsterdam; she worked for Hans Marcus; interview with Johannes Marcus 28 October 2004 . 122 Details of him in a letter of 12 January 1998 from J. Kingma, who worked for Salo Meyer in De Pampiere Wereld for a time in the nineteen-sixties. 123 Interview with Mrs Hilde Rosenthal-Wolf 22 June 1987 ; P.J. Buijnsters, ‘In memoriam Hilde Rosenthal ( 1910 - 1998 )’, in: De Boekenwereld , 15 ( 1998 ), pp. 218 - 19 ; Die Rosenthals. Der Aufstieg einer jüdi- schen Antiquarsfamilie zu Weltruhm . Mit Beiträgen von Elisabeth Angermair und anderen (Böhlau Verlag: Wien/Köln/Weimar 2002 ); interview with Mrs Edith Petten-Rosenthal 25 November 2004 . 124 Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens. Zweite, völlig neu bearbeitete Au fl age , vol. 6 (Stuttgart 2003 ), p. 384 . Walter Loose: from Kaliningrad (Königsberg); opened a small fashion shop in The Hague in 1933 ; it was only after the war that he opened his antiquarian bookshop specializing in children’s books and prints. 120 Hans Marcus (b. Duisburg 1912 , d. Düsseldorf 21 March 1992 ): graphic designer and advertising painter; in 1933 he moved as a Communist Jewish emigré to Amsterdam, where in 1936 he opened an antiquarian bookshop which since 1948 has been run by his son Johannes Marcus (b. 1950 ); liaison with gallery owner Magdalene Sothman (q.v.); during the war went into hiding in her house; in 1948 he married Alida van der Wal (d. 2004 ), from whom he was divorced in about 1970 ; later he settled in Düsseldorf, where he established a Buch- und Kunstanti- quariat focusing mainly on decorative graphic art; this is now run by his second wife Ange Kreuzer. 121 Salomo S. Meyer (b. Hamburg c . 1905 , d. Amsterdam December 1987 ); came to Amsterdam in the mid thirties; employed by, and later partner of, Dr J.J. Dalberg (q.v.) in his antiquarian bookshop De Pampiere Wereld. During the occupation Meyer went into hiding in Brabant. After the war he opened an antiquarian book- shop in Den Bosch and ran it for a while, but in 1947 or 1948 he returned to Amsterdam and in the late nineteen- fi fties opened a new shop called De Pampiere Wereld at Jonge Roelensteeg 1 (o ff the Kalverstraat). In about 1970 the business moved to much larger premises at Keizersgracht 428 - 32 . After Salo’s death the busi- ness was continued by his widow Edith Meyer and their son Benjamin J. Meyer, who later emigrated to Israel. 122 Dr Martin Oppenheim (b. Kassel 1886 , d. Amsterdam 1949 ): worked for Horodisch at Erasmus in Amsterdam; during the war he went into hiding. Philipsohn: ? Fritz Rosenthal ( 1908 - 55 ), his wife Hilde Rosenthal-Wolf (b. 1911 ) and brother Paul Rosenthal ( 1906 - 44 ): took refuge in The Hague in 1937 ; Hilde’s fi rst cousin Otto Liebstaedter acted as fi nancial guarantor for them. From 1942 they were in hiding at various addresses. Paul was betrayed (for money) and died in a camp. 123 Hans Rothschild (b. Cologne 1890 , d. Amsterdam 22 December 1987 ). German anti- quarian who until 1933 worked in Cologne, where in 1930 he became co-founder and fi rst secretary of the Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft; from the time of his emigration to Amsterdam until 1960 he had his own antiquarian bookshop Antiqua; during the war he went underground. 124 Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 290</p>
<p>The antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands 291 E. Samosch: ? Erik von Scherling ( 1907 - 56 ): Leiden 1927 -; later Oegstgeest. Dr Rudolph Eilhard Schierenberg ( 1900 - 91 ): Reichsdeutscher ; by training a national economist (in pre-war Germany he published on the Memel question) but greatly interested in literature; in 1935 together with Liebstaedter he bought Antiquariaat W. Junk; in 1996 Winterverlag, Heidelberg, published the following work by his son Dieter: Freundschaftsdichtung in den Niederlanden: Jacques Perk, Willem Kloos, Albert Verwey ( 1880 - 1935 ), aus dem Niederländischen übertragen und mit einer Einführung versehen durch Rudolf Eilhard Schierenberg . Magdalene Sothmann: not Jewish, she fl ed Germany on account of her communist sympathies, opening an art gallery in Amsterdam; she was associated with the Jewish graphic artist Hans Marcus (q.v.), who went into hiding in her house; later she mar- ried the antiquarian Brenner of the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat but they were later divorced. Karl Anton Steiner (b. Berlin 21 March 1905 , d. Kerkrade 8 December 1978 ): father of Julius Steiner, he was an Advokat-Gerichtsassessor ; in 1933 he emigrated to The Hague; he worked for Antiquariaat Junk (in Bilthoven?) before opening a general and antiquarian bookshop in Zeist together with Praamsma; in 1946 he opened his own academic bookshop Wetenschappelijke Boekhandel en Antiquariaat K.A. Steiner in Amsterdam; at the beginning of 1947 this merged with Liebstaedter’s Antiquariaat A. Asher & Co. in Amsterdam (later in Vaals); in September 1971 the resulting fi rm was sold to Nico Israël. Stock: antiquarian and general bookshop De Boekenbron, Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 37 a, Amsterdam. Hans Wol ff Antiquariaat (illustrated books of the 18 th- 20 th centuries and bibliophile editions); established in Munich in 1924 , moved to Mesdagstraat 55 , The Hague from 1 December 1937 . summary On the eve of the Second World War the antiquarian book trade in the Netherlands was in deep crisis brought about by the worldwide economic malaise following 1929 . One consequence of this was a catastrophic decline in the status of the antiquarian bookseller almost to that of rag-and-bone man. In 1935 the energetic Menno Hertzberger founded ‘his’ Nederlandsche Vereeniging van Anti- quaren to improve the situation, but this failed to make over-full storerooms any emptier. With the outbreak of war much was to change, not all of it for the bad. For the many Jewish dealers – some of whom had already fl ed here from Nazi Germany – work was made impossible. They lost their livelihood and some- times also their lives. But trade in ‘old & rare’ books fl ourished as never before. Never was more read or were old books more avidly sought after than in the dark days of 1940 - 5 . And when the war was over and the period of recon- struction had begun, it became apparent that in many respects the character of Holland’s antiquarian book trade had changed: it was now more businesslike Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 291</p>
<p>292 P iet J. B uijnsters and looked more strongly towards the English-speaking world, including its approach to bibliography. The new-style antiquarian was, or at least wished henceforth to be, a specialist scholar, the equal of the academic librarian. Translation: Harry Lake, Bussum Quaerendo 36,4_467_251-292IIII 11/7/06 5:23 PM Page 292</p>
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