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Atlas van een bezette stad
Atlas van een bezette stad van Bianca Stigter tovert de lezer het beeld van de oorlog zeldzaam levendig voor ogen.
Overal in Amsterdam bevinden zich zichtbare en onzichtbare sporen van de oorlog. Waar zaten onderduikers? Waar was het hoofdkwartier van de NSB? Waar werden Het Parool en Vrij Nederland gestencild en waar werden de voedselbonnen uitgedeeld? In welke straat werd een aanslag gepleegd en welk huis werd als represaille in brand gestoken? In dit prachtig geïllustreerde boek gidst Bianca Stigter de lezer door bezet Amsterdam. Ze vertelt wat er in de oorlog op straathoeken en achter voordeuren heeft plaatsgevonden, en laat zo de lezer met andere ogen naar de stad kijken.
Atlas van een bezette stad is een indrukwekkend monument voor oorlogsslachtoffers en verzetsmensen, en een tijdmachine van papier.
Overal in Amsterdam bevinden zich zichtbare en onzichtbare sporen van de oorlog. Waar zaten onderduikers? Waar was het hoofdkwartier van de NSB? Waar werden Het Parool en Vrij Nederland gestencild en waar werden de voedselbonnen uitgedeeld? In welke straat werd een aanslag gepleegd en welk huis werd als represaille in brand gestoken? In dit prachtig geïllustreerde boek gidst Bianca Stigter de lezer door bezet Amsterdam. Ze vertelt wat er in de oorlog op straathoeken en achter voordeuren heeft plaatsgevonden, en laat zo de lezer met andere ogen naar de stad kijken.
Atlas van een bezette stad is een indrukwekkend monument voor oorlogsslachtoffers en verzetsmensen, en een tijdmachine van papier.
- GenresHistory
560 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 3, 2021
Een indrukwekkend, gedetailleerd overzicht van wat heeft plaatsgevonden in Amsterdam tijdens 1940-45, gerangschikt naar straat, zelfs de specifieke straatnummers waar iets heeft plaatsgevonden dat de moeite waard is om te melden, en verdeeld in hoofdstukken van Amsterdamse buurten. Het boek start met een inleidend hoofdstuk waarbij in de algemene zin wordt verteld over wie waar verbleef aan organisaties, zowel wat betreft de fascistische bezetters, de Nederlandse NSB’ers en onderduikers en verzet. Wat een enorm werk heeft Bianca Stigter verricht! Een huzarenstukje! Ik kijk nu naar veel adressen in de stad met een nieuwe blik. Mijn oprechte complimenten aan Bianca Stigter!
May 22, 2023
I would LOVE to be able to read this book. An English translation would be an excellent idea. HINT, HINT to the publisher!!
January 2, 2020
For me, this has to be the publishing event of 2019, although it is a book that i will be referring to for many years to come. It comprises four distinct elements, each of which constitutes high scholarship. First, is the brief but valuable section providing an historical introduction covering the moment of invasion, the immediate changes implemented by the occupying forces, repression and resistance, the hunger winter and the liberation. Second, is the wijk per wijk, street by street, history of the city in the war years - who lived where, who hid where, who dispossessed whom, where arms and small presses were hidden, suicides and arrests, murders and liquidations; it is a tour de force. Third, is the immensely valuable index and bibliography, including details of on-line resources that were wholly new to me. Fourth, and finally, are the photographs and reproductions of maps and documents that are curated with such care by the author and usually directly linked to the addresses in the accompanying text. As a complete work, the description magisterial does not seem inappropriate. Bianca Stigter has achieved what might be more easily expected from a team of researchers. It is simply magnificent.
Appropriately enough for an atlas, the author introduces the book as a representation of the infrastructure of a city in wartime: “waar zaten de bezetters, onderduikers of het verzet en waar haalde elke gewone Amsterdammer de voedselbonnen? Waar vonden de talloze deportaties plaats? Welke mensen liepen door welke straten?” (p. 13). Beyond the spatial representation of the occupation, however, reading the entries organised according to wijk offers a unique non-narrative history of the process of subjugation and resistance. What emerges is an understanding of a systematic sifting, separation and control of Amsterdam’s diverse populations. The sifting occurs initially through the racist classification of citizens by ethnic origin traced back three generations. Ethnic separation then takes many forms - children are separated through the segregation of schooling; citizens are separated temporally, by limiting times of day they are allowed access to shops and markets and, finally, populations are separated physically, by exclusion from employment, services and places of recreation and then by forced moves to designated ghettos in preparation for removal from the city to the death camps. Discipline and control are further exercised by requiring some to serve as forced labour for the German war effort and by forcing all to participate in their own subjugation by making compliance with the bevolkingsregister a condition for access to rations.
In her entry for the Rivierenbuurt, Bianca Stigter identifies it as one of the three ‘Joodse wijken’ imposed by the occupation forces on previously existing patterns of settlement in the city. Jews were so numerous in the area that, after the yellow star was made compulsory for Jews in April 1942, it was referred to as ‘de Melkweg’. She concludes this entry with some figures: “Van de 17000 Joden die in 1940 in deze buurt woonden zijn er 13000 vermoord” (p. 434). Given the scale of the horror, a glance at the thirty-two page index shows that even this large book can capture only a fragment of the full story of the occupation; the accounts of bravery, betrayal and persecution it contains are a sample only, but a sample that is immensely valuable for our understanding of the time, the place and the people.
It would be possible to highlight one after another of the human stories Bianca Stigter has made available, but that would be to distort the overall impact of her book which arises from the moral complexities that emerge from the struggle for survival in occupied Amsterdam. Without leaving the ‘Joodse wijk’ of the Rivierenbuurt, that tragic complexity can be seen exemplified in a couple of entries seized almost at random - Churchilllaan 37 (previously Noorder Amstellaan) and Jekerstraat 46 (pages 426 and 429-30, respectively). Walk the streets that Bianca Stigter has opened for us.
Appropriately enough for an atlas, the author introduces the book as a representation of the infrastructure of a city in wartime: “waar zaten de bezetters, onderduikers of het verzet en waar haalde elke gewone Amsterdammer de voedselbonnen? Waar vonden de talloze deportaties plaats? Welke mensen liepen door welke straten?” (p. 13). Beyond the spatial representation of the occupation, however, reading the entries organised according to wijk offers a unique non-narrative history of the process of subjugation and resistance. What emerges is an understanding of a systematic sifting, separation and control of Amsterdam’s diverse populations. The sifting occurs initially through the racist classification of citizens by ethnic origin traced back three generations. Ethnic separation then takes many forms - children are separated through the segregation of schooling; citizens are separated temporally, by limiting times of day they are allowed access to shops and markets and, finally, populations are separated physically, by exclusion from employment, services and places of recreation and then by forced moves to designated ghettos in preparation for removal from the city to the death camps. Discipline and control are further exercised by requiring some to serve as forced labour for the German war effort and by forcing all to participate in their own subjugation by making compliance with the bevolkingsregister a condition for access to rations.
In her entry for the Rivierenbuurt, Bianca Stigter identifies it as one of the three ‘Joodse wijken’ imposed by the occupation forces on previously existing patterns of settlement in the city. Jews were so numerous in the area that, after the yellow star was made compulsory for Jews in April 1942, it was referred to as ‘de Melkweg’. She concludes this entry with some figures: “Van de 17000 Joden die in 1940 in deze buurt woonden zijn er 13000 vermoord” (p. 434). Given the scale of the horror, a glance at the thirty-two page index shows that even this large book can capture only a fragment of the full story of the occupation; the accounts of bravery, betrayal and persecution it contains are a sample only, but a sample that is immensely valuable for our understanding of the time, the place and the people.
It would be possible to highlight one after another of the human stories Bianca Stigter has made available, but that would be to distort the overall impact of her book which arises from the moral complexities that emerge from the struggle for survival in occupied Amsterdam. Without leaving the ‘Joodse wijk’ of the Rivierenbuurt, that tragic complexity can be seen exemplified in a couple of entries seized almost at random - Churchilllaan 37 (previously Noorder Amstellaan) and Jekerstraat 46 (pages 426 and 429-30, respectively). Walk the streets that Bianca Stigter has opened for us.
August 23, 2026
Verslagen over oorlog zijn vaak chronologisch. Deze opzet is geografisch en gaat per stadsdeel de hele stad door. Kan er op dit moment niet meer over zeggen dan ontzettend interessant.
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December 27, 2019Mooi overzicht in groot detail over Amsterdam in de 2de wereld oorlog
November 14, 2019
Het blijft toch echt wel een pracht van een boek dit. Zeker niet om regelmatig te lezen, maar zo heel af en toe om weer eens wat feitjes erin te prenten..
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews