Haunted by the horrors of conflict
WHAT a truly beautiful, peaceful, friendly city Delft is. My favourite place in Holland.
On our short holiday we also visited Leiden, Gouda (bought cheese!), the Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, studied Vermeer and Rembrandt, heard a brilliant lecture by my favourite art historian Andrew Graham Dixon, drank quantities of Dutch gin (me) and beer (my husband), saw beautiful churches, chatted to pleasant people in the group, ate good food and generally felt refreshed.
Yet such a trip is always (for me, at least) overshadowed by conflict. I don’t just mean World War II when the Germans bombed Rotterdam to smithereens and invaded neutral Holland in 1940, occupying it until 1945.
The Nazi occupiers deported the majority of the country’s Jews to concentration camps, but these days the house where Anne Frank and her family hid until betrayed is a major tourist attraction. When I took my children years ago it made me weep. Never forget…
Long before that there was the horror of the Eighty Years’ War, (1568–1648), which was the struggle for the Netherlands’ independence from Spain, leading to the separation of the north and south. So much suffering, so much destruction...
Why am I writing this? Because I think we should all understand history and try our best to use those glimpses of knowledge to help understand the present.
When you visit the rather pathetic ‘Peace Flame’ which has modestly burned beside The Hague’s Peace Palace and International Court of Justice since 2002, you can’t help feeling sad.
At the moment Holland is facing many problems. There are arguments over (guess what?) immigration, the cost of living, energy, housing, health provision, crime, unemployment, the environment and climate change.
What else can I tell you — other than that to travel to another, seemingly-perfect country can help you realise that our problems are shared all over Europe. It’s a strange relief. And anyway, your own bed is the best.
■ BEL answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or email bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.