Facing the storm

A Museum in Wartime

04 Nov 2024

In 2025 the Mauritshuis will mark eighty years since the liberation of the Netherlands. The German occupation was a turbulent time for the Mauritshuis, with its collection in storage, propaganda exhibitions, music recitals and people in hiding to escape forced labour (the Arbeitseinsatz). The museum was located right in the heart of the centre of Nazi political power in the Netherlands. All the German administration’s most important organisations were literally just round the corner. Director Wilhelm Martin had many concerns, including protecting the museum’s world-famous collection of paintings, and how to deal with the propagandist role that the Germans had in mind for the exhibitions in the museum. Menno de Groot (b. 1931) and his family lived in the basement during the war. Menno’s recollections and experiences of that time provide the basis of an important storyline for young visitors to Facing the Storm – A Museum in Wartime. They will be able to see what happened within the museum’s walls from Menno’s perspective. The exhibition is sponsored by Stichting de Johan Maurits Compagnie, the Mondriaan Fund and Vfonds.

Personal accounts

Facing the Storm – A Museum in Wartime will take visitors back to the Mauritshuis of 1940-45, with paintings, objects, photographs, film footage and audio recordings. What historical events took place in and around the museum, and what impact did they have on visitors at the time, and the people who lived and worked there? Using personal accounts, the exhibition will consider themes like freedom and what it means to lose it, oppression, the protection of art and the national socialists’ culture policies. One key focus will be the story of daily manager Mense de Groot, who lived in the museum basement with his family from 1942 onwards. Two of his children were in fact born there. His logbook, which has survived, refers to some of the most important events of the period.

Empty frames

The Mauritshuis closed due to the threat of war on 25 August 1939, and reopened on 6 June 1940. Only a small number of works were on display. Director Wilhelm Martin had realised in the 1930s that ‘his’ collection would be particularly vulnerable in wartime, and did everything in his power to shepherd it safely through the war. The exhibition will devote attention to the travels of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring during the war. The Mauritshuis had a bombproof ‘art bunker ’ in which it would store all its masterpieces overnight, bringing out a few – including the Girl – during the day. Martin had an inscription painted over the door, which read (in translation): ’It is sad that war should mean the country’s Art cannot be seen’. During the course of the war, the most important works of art were taken to the various ‘National Storage Facilities’, where they remained until the war ended. During this time, the gallery walls at the Mauritshuis were a sorry sight, lined as they were with empty frames.

Common Kultur

During the war, the Mauritshuis hosted exhibitions for the first time, organised by the occupying German forces. The exhibitions had to underline the national socialists’ message that the ‘Germanic peoples’ (germanischen Völker), which included the Netherlands, shared a common Kultur. The Nazis used this propaganda to try to win over the Dutch. Facing the Storm will tell the story of several of those exhibitions, including Het Duitsche boek van heden (‘German Books Today’, 1941), which featured Mein Kampf on prominent display, Barnsteen: Goud der Zee (‘Amber: Gold from the Sea’, 1942) and Die kunst der Ruhrmark (‘Art of the Ruhr’, 1942), which included the painting Three Farmers in a Storm from Hitler’s private collection. The exhibitions, which were opened by high-ranking Nazis, received a lot of attention.

Music recitals

Throughout the war, director Wilhelm Martin worried that the occupying Germans would ‘annex’ the Mauritshuis, and he did everything in his power to prevent it. This is why, when it reopened on 6 June 1940, it did not only display several works of art, but also hosted music recitals. For 20 cents visitors could listen to music and look at art. Newspaper reports, photographs, archive documents and eye-witness accounts in the publication accompanying the exhibition give an impression of the concerts in the Potter Room, which until April 1941 included performances by Jewish musicians.

A family in the museum

In summer 1942 manager Mense de Groot and his family moved into the basement of the Mauritshuis. Director Wilhelm Martin was thus able to ensure that there was always a reliable member of staff on hand at the museum to keep an eye on things. At the end of the war, there were also people in hiding in the Mauritshuis, men who would otherwise be taken away for forced labour, as part of the Arbeidseinsatz. As a child, Menno de Groot saw all this happening at close quarters. After the war, he and his family moved to Canada. Menno was recently filmed talking about his childhood recollections of living in the museum during the war. Young visitors to the exhibition will be able to follow in Menno’s footsteps.

Director in Wartime

The war would continue to cast its shadow over the Mauritshuis long after it ended. The museum opened its first freely curated exhibition on 1 September 1945, showcasing pre-1600 Dutch art, including Madonna and Child, its last acquisition before the war. The ‘wartime director’ Wilhelm Martin had managed, through a mix of flexibility and pushback, to guide his people, collection and museum through the war almost unscathed. The dilemmas he faced suddenly seem close at hand again today.

A programme of activities for young and old will also be offered in conjunction with the exhibition.

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