Jacob (Jacques) Presser (24 February 1899 in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
– 30 April 1970 in Amsterdam) was a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
historian, writer and poet who is known for his book ''Ashes in the Wind (The Destruction of the Dutch Jews)'' on the history of the
persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II. Presser made a significant contribution to Dutch historical scholarship, as well as to
European
European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to:
In general
* ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe
** Ethnic groups in Europe
** Demographics of Europe
** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
historical scholarship.
Early life
Presser was born in the former
Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. His family was rather poor (his father was a diamond cutter), and his parents, who were
secular Jews, had
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
leanings. Presser himself in later life, also gravitated towards the left. As a child, he lived for a while with his family in
Antwerp,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
.
He attended the
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
after he finished a commercial vocational college and having worked in an office for two years. At the university, he studied history, art history, and Dutch. He graduated ''cum laude'' in 1926. Then, he taught history at the newly founded ''
Vossius Gymnasium
Vossius Gymnasium is a public gymnasium in Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands. It was established in 1926 and is named after Gerardus Vossius. In 2014, it was ranked best VWO school in Amsterdam and 4th in the country by RTL Nieuws. It is a ...
'' grammar school in Amsterdam.
In 1930, he came into contact with the renowned historian
Jan Romein
Jan Marius Romein (30 October 1893 – 16 July 1962) was a Dutch historian, journalist, literary scholar and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam. A Marxist and a student of Huizinga, Romein is remembered for his popularizing ...
, who helped him to get a job as an instructor at the ''Instituut voor Historische Leergangen'', which launched his academic career.
Wartime
Presser was affected by the rising
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and wrote critically about it. When
Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, that was a very great shock for him, and he even attempted suicide. Because of the Nazi anti-Jewish policies, he lost his job at Vossius Gymnasium, but he managed to find work as a teacher at the Jewish
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Generally in that type of school the t ...
.
In early 1943, his wife, Deborah Appel, was arrested and deported to the
Sobibor
Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland.
As an ...
death camp, where she died. The loss of his first wife marked Presser for life, but he managed to escape from the Nazis by going into hiding in several places, including in the small town
Lunteren
Lunteren is a town in Gelderland, the Netherlands. It has a railway station on the line between Amersfoort and Ede.
It is well known for three conference centres in the vicinity, including ''Het Bosgoed'', which mostly hosts academic conferences ...
.
Postwar
After the war ended, Presser retutned his teaching job at the Vossius Gymnasium, and he was also a lecturer in political history, didactics, and the methodology of history at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Amsterdam.
In 1947, partly at his instigation, the politico-social faculty of law was established at the University, and he began to teach there. From 1948, he was also professor at the Faculty of Arts. His
Marxist political leanings prevented him from receiving full promotions at the university until 1952. Over the years, he spoke out on political controversies, such as the Dutch ''
Politionele acties
' ( en, police actions) refers to two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution. In Indonesia they ar ...
'' against Indonesian decolonisation and the activities of U.S. Senator
Joseph McCarthy against suspected
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
. He also contributed to the communist daily paper ''De Waarheid'' shortly after the war. Later, he published in other leftist magazines, such as ''Vrij Nederland'' and ''De Groene Amsterdammer''.
In 1954, Presser married Bertha Hartog, his second wife.
In 1959, he succeeded Jan Romein in his Dutch history chair at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Amsterdam. In 1966, he became a member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Presser retired from his job on 31 May 1969. He died suddenly on 30 April 1970.
Historical contributions
One of Presser's most significant works was his extensive biography of
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
, first published in 1946. In contrast to the common hagiographies of the French emperor, Presser is quite critical of the personality and the political and military activity of Napoleon. Already in the introduction to the book, Presser makes quite clear that one of his main intentions is to try to dispel various euphemisms and legends about Napoleon. Presser depicts him as a ruthless autocrat and the axis of a group of marauders, his marshals. Napoleon comes to the fore as the organizer of the first ''modern'' dictatorship, which became an example for all later dictatorships. The book also contains extensive chapters on the pillars in French society which he used to strengthen his rule: Propaganda, Police & Justice, the Church, Education and (of course) the Army. Finally, Presser describes the legends about Napoleon in various countries. (The work is available only in Dutch and in German.)
Commissioned by Elsevier Publishers in 1941, Presser wrote a comprehensive history of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and completed the first version while in hiding. A reworked edition came out in 1949. Shortly after the Second World War, there was a lot of interest in
US history in the Netherlands. The book is rich in its descriptions, anecdotes and details. The writer explicitly sympathizes with the 'underdogs' in American history: the native Americans, the unfree immigrants ('indentured servants'), the Afro-Americans and the poor. At the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the
US Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ...
in 1976, a fourth, revised and updated edition was published with a postscript on the period after 1965 by the expert Professor Rob Kroes. Since the book was mainly intended to serve the Dutch reading public, it was never translated.
In 1950, Presser received a commission from the Dutch government to produce a study about the fate of the Dutch Jews during the war. That would later become his historical masterpiece ''Ondergang''
he destruction of the Dutch Jews He worked on this project for fifteen years and made full use of the vast archives of the
Dutch Institute for War Documentation. The resulting work was a huge bestseller in the Netherlands when it was published in 1965. It still is the main reference work on the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands under German occupation. A British edition came out in 1968 and an American edition in 1969, with reprints in 1988 and 2010. Presser graphically recounts stories of persecution: the registration, stigmatization, segregation, isolation, spoliation, roundups, the temporary exemptions, life in the transit camps, deportation and ultimately extermination but also stories of Jewish resistance, escape attempts and the process of going into hiding. The author pays attention to the role of the Dutch bureaucracy in the segregation and the isolation of the Jews and conveys the utter despair felt by people whose whole world had crumbled and would be destroyed. Of the Jewish population of some 140,000 in 1940, about 107,000 were deported from the Netherlands to the Nazi concentration and extermination camps from 1941 to 1944. Of those, fewer than 6,000 returned in 1945. An epilogue considers the aftermath on the "postwar Jewish attitude to life".
Presser made a very significant contribution to Dutch historical studies. His book on the Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain (1568–1648), first published in 1941 with a second print in 1942 that was soon prohibited by the German occupiers, was reprinted another four times after the Second World War. Until the late 1970ss it was the only modern, comprehensive historical study on the Dutch Revolt in its entirety. In 1953 Presser introduced the term 'egodocuments' as an umbrella term for texts in which he was especially interested: diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, interviews and personal letters.
[Rudolf M. Dekker, 'Jacques Presser's Heritage: Egodocuments in the Study of History', in: ''Memoria y Civilización'', vol. 5 (2002), pp. 13–37, 13–14, 17 note 14.] Along with other great historians, such as
Groen van Prinsterer,
Robert Fruin,
Huizinga,
Pieter Geyl
Pieter Catharinus Arie Geyl (15 December 1887, Dordrecht – 31 December 1966, Utrecht) was a Dutch historian, well known for his studies in early modern Dutch history and in historiography.
Background
Geyl was born in Dordrecht and graduated ...
, L.J. Rogier,
Jan Romein
Jan Marius Romein (30 October 1893 – 16 July 1962) was a Dutch historian, journalist, literary scholar and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam. A Marxist and a student of Huizinga, Romein is remembered for his popularizing ...
,
Annie Romein-Verschoor and Arie Th. van Deursen, he can be counted as one of the greatest historians of the Netherlands in the 19th and the 20th centuries.
Besides historical work, Presser also wrote works of literature. His book ''The Night of the Girondists'', based on his war time experiences, received literary prizes and became an international best-seller. Set in the Dutch transit camp of
Westerbork
Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, ...
, the leading character of this book is an assimilated Jewish teacher collaborating with the Nazis. His job was to select Jews for transportation to
Auschwitz, but he later realises that as a Jew, he was also bound to share the fate of those he had sent away.
Presser also wrote poetry and even ventured into the area of crime fiction.
Bibliography
Historical works
* ''Das Buch "De Tribus Impostoribus" (Von den drei Betrügern)''. Amsterdam: H.J. Paris Publisher, 1926; 169 p. (doctoral dissertation, with the highest distinction, written and published in German).
* ''De Tachtigjarige Oorlog''
he Eighty Years' War Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishers, 1941; 304 p. (under ps.), 1948 (3rd ed., under his own name; 6th ed. 1978; 378 p.).
* ''Napoleon: Historie en legende''
apoleon: History and Legend Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishers, 1946; 596 p. (7th ed. 1978; 632 p.).
* German translations (by Christian Zinsser):
**''Napoleon: das Leben und die Legende.'' Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1977. Zürich:
Manesse Verlag
The Manesse Verlag is a German publishing house for classical literature, founded in 1944 in Zürich in Switzerland. It belongs today to Random House publishing group based in Munich. The publishing house is mainly known for its library of world ...
, 1990, 1997; 1024 p. .
**''Napoleon: die Entschlüsselung einer Legende.'' Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1979.
* ''Amerika: Van kolonie tot wereldmacht''
merica: From Colony to World Power Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishers, 1949 (4th revised ed. 1976; 592 p., with a chapter on the period 1965–1975 by Dr. Rob Kroes).
* ''Historia hodierna''
ontemporary history Inaugural lecture. University of Amsterdam, 2 October 1950. Leiden: E. J. Brill Publishers, 1950; 35 p. Reprinted in: ''Uit het werk van dr. J. Presser''
ollection of 32 essays by Dr. J. Presser, written between 1929 and 1969 Amsterdam: Athenaeum, Polak & Van Gennep Publishers, 1969, pp. 209–225.
* ''Ondergang. De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse Jodendom 1940–1945''
'Extinction. The Persecution and Destruction of Dutch Jewry, 1940–1945'' Monograph Number 10 by the Netherlands' State Institute for War Documentation. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij (Government Printer) & Martinus Nijhoff, 1965; vol. 1, XIV + 526 p.; vol. 2, VIII + 568 p. (8th ed. 1985).
Dutch PDF and Text download of book
*Abridged English translations (by
Arnold Pomerans
Arnold Julius Pomerans (27 April 1920 – 30 May 2005) was a German-born British translator.
Arnold Pomerans was born in Königsberg, Germany on 27 April 1920 to a Jewish family. Because of growing antisemitism in Germany the family left for ...
):
**; 556 p.
**''The destruction of the Dutch Jews.'' New York: E.P. Dutton, 1969; 556 p.
**
**
* "Material Witness: The Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation", in: ''Delta'', vol. 9, nr. 4, Winter 1966-1967, pp. 47–53
* "Introduction to the English Language Edition", in:
Philip Mechanicus, ''Waiting for Death, a Diary''. English translation by Irene R. Gibbons. London: Calder and Boyars, 1968, pp. 5–12
* "Introduction", in: L.Ph. Polak and Liesbeth van Weezel (eds.), ''Documents of the persecution of the Dutch Jewry 1940–1945.'' Amsterdam: Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep/Jewish Historical Museum, 1969 (2nd ed. 1979), pp. 7–12
*
Literary works
* ''De Nacht der Girondijnen''
he Night of the Girondins(1957; 77 p., many reprints, translated into many languages)
*English translations:
**''Breaking Point''. Cleveland/New York: The World Publishing Company, 1958; reprint as pocket by Popular Library, 1959.
**''The Night of the Girondists''. Foreword by Primo Levi. London: Harper Collins, 1992.
* ''Orpheus en Ahasverus''
rpheus and Ahasveros. Poems Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 4th, augmented ed., 1969; 80 p..
* ''Homo submersus''
an in Hiding(A novel in the form of a diary by a Jew in hiding). Amsterdam: Boom Publishers, 2010; 528 p. (originally written in 1943-1944).
Documentary
* ''Dingen die niet voorbijgaan''
hings that never pass(Philo Bregstein 1970, VARA television; text of the movie edited
n Dutch
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
in ''Gesprekken met Jacques Presser''
onversations with Jacques Presser Philo Bregstein Amsterdam 1972, and Meulenhoff Filmtekst, Amsterdam 1981).
* ''The past that lives''. English-language version of ''Dingen die niet voorbij gaan''. For reference to the dvd-edition, see: https://jewishfilm.org/Catalogue/films/pastthatlives.htm
Notes
(Dutch and German Wikipedia articles on Presser were used as main sources for this article.)
Awards
* Dr. Wijnaendts Francken Prize in 1947 for his book ''Napoleon. Historie en legende'' (''Napoleon. History and Legend'').
* Lucy B. and C.W. van der Hoogt Prize in 1957 for his book ''The Night of the Girondists''.
* Knighthood, and membership of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
* The Remembrance Award in 1969 from the World Federation of
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...
Associations.
External links
Biography of Jacques PRESSER
{{DEFAULTSORT:Presser, Jacques
1899 births
1970 deaths
20th-century Dutch historians
Dutch Jews
Dutch male poets
Historians of the Holocaust
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Writers from Amsterdam
University of Amsterdam alumni
University of Amsterdam faculty
The Holocaust in the Netherlands
20th-century Dutch poets
20th-century male writers