Het is niet waar... dat hebben we niet gewild! (It's not true... we didn't want that!)
Utrecht: De Bezige Bij (Busy Bee GA), 1940s (1945). First edition. Loose leaf. 1/5000. Sextodecimo. 12 flash cards. Original portfolio wrapper with mounted illustration and printed title in brown, protected by modern mylar. Folder with twelve postcards containing six numbered cards with caricatures of German soldiers reproduced in color lithography, with Dutch captions.
During the German occupation of the Netherlands, and in the years following the war, the stoic attitude of the Germans "We didn't know, we didn't want that!" towards the Holocaust was met with anger and dismay in the Netherlands. The publication "Het is niet waar..." represents but one of the publications during the occupation and beyond, expressing the predominating sentiment towards Germany felt in the Netherlands.
The six numbered cards how soldiers confiscating copper, radios, bicycles, clothes, dogs, and holding up people at gunpoint in their apartments. The six unnumbered cards with subjects such as the Red Cross, bombing of The Hague, reduction in bread rations, deportation from Putten, inundation, and concentration camps. Underground edition distributed illegally. Printed to mounted label on back wrapper in Dutch: "BB De Bezige Bij (The Busy Bee). This edition is for the benefit of the victims of the current tyranny." Printed in an edition of 5000 copies by H. de Koningh in The Hague. Text in Dutch. Wraps with light wear along edges and some foxing to front and back cover. Postcards in very good+ condition. g to vg. Item #47162
The issue is likely from the estate of the German writer Wolfgang Frommel (Name penciled to inside cover flap). Frommel emigrated to Basel in 1937 and in 1939 to the Netherlands where he became an active member of the resistance, helping to hide Jewish children from the Gestapo. Frommel's friendship with the German officer Bernhard Knauss of the occupation forces was helpful in view of his underground activities. Frommel also was one of the important conversational partners of the German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann who had emigrated to the Netherlands.
Price: $650.00