Bands and DJs around the Netherlands are working the crowds today as part of the national Liberation Day celebrations, marking the end of the Second World War. In wartime too, music had a strong role to play in the Netherlands. It made fun of the German occupier, and provided a little cheer in dark times. In the transit camps and concentration camps, music helped to make life a little more bearable.

When half of Europe he had taken over,
Herr Hitler made it to the Channel coast,
He thought that he would steam ahead to Dover…

The song Herr Hitler wants to go to London (loosely translated from the Dutch) goes on in this vein. In 1941 it was popular in Batavia, capital of what was then the Dutch East Indies, now the Indonesian capital Jakarta. The satirical lyrics were set to a tune by the Ramblers, a famous Dutch dance band.

Light-hearted
Every piece of music of the time has its own story to tell. “If you listen to songs that were written in Vught, Ravensbrück or Westerbork, they have a lot to say about everyday life in the concentration camps,” says Nicolette Jansen of the website The Second World War in Music, which documents the wartime music of the Netherlands. 

“There are light-hearted songs, like those by the Amsterdam jazz duo Johnny & Jones, who played in the Westerbork transit camp, or the cabaret songs written in the Vught SS concentration camp. The music came about under extreme circumstances, but at the same time it contains gentle irony about everyday life.”

Jewish
Johnny & Jones were very popular before the war, scoring hit after hit with their cheerful, light-hearted songs. But because they were Jewish, they were arrested. They were married to non-Jewish women and they had hoped this would save them from the transports. But none the less, in 1943 they arrived in Westerbork, where they continued to give performances, of songs like Westerbork Serenade. The two men ultimately met their deaths in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Music also played an important role in Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women, many of whom were transferred there from Vught. Giesela Wieberdink-Söhnlein and her bosom friend Hetty Voûte composed and sung a stream of satirical cabaret songs. “It was a task we set ourselves,” she said, “It was expected of us.”