Resources required

• Resource J: Timeline
• Resource K: Personal of experiences of Nazi occupation
• Resource L: The Dutch Resistance
• Resource M: Letter to Lieutenant Arthur Royal of the 1st Battalion, Border Regiment
• Resource N: Example of mind map
• Resource O: Accounts of British servicemen who fought at Arnhem

Rationale and learning intentions Introduction:

4 May is Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. At eight o’clock in the evening, communities gather by local memorials and hold a two minute silence. A ceremony attended by the monarch and important politicians is also held at the National War Monument at Dam Square in Amsterdam. Both civilian and military victims of conflict and persecution are remembered as wreaths are laid.

This activity can be carried out as a stand-alone task but ideally should be carried out in conjunction with other resources (for example, work done as part of KS3 Twentieth Century World Study Unit). Some revision should be done of life in Britain during the War which students have studied at KS2 or by teaching some aspects of the Home Front. This can be an ideal opportunity to examine local history or accompanying themes studied in Citizenship, especially civic participation.

Aims and objectives:

• To introduce students to the Dutch experience of the Second World War and to understand what it was like for Dutch people to live and work under Nazi rule
  To examine the concepts of wartime occupation, resistance and collaboration in the Netherlands and to compare this with the British experience
• To develop source evaluation skills and to enable students to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different sources

 
Starter – the purpose of this is to stimulate student interest and discussion.

Begin the session by establishing a hypothesis. Ask students to consider what they might think if they arrived home from school to find that someone had broken into their home to steal personal objects. How might they feel? Angry, upset, confused, violated, suspicious, worried that it might happen again, fearful that the things they value might never be seen again are possible responses. What might they expect to happen? A police investigation and hopefully, punishment for the thief, an insurance claim, the desire to move house might be suggested.

Then ask them what they might feel if the very people supposed to do the protecting such as the police turned out to be the culprit or if, instead of it being their house that had been broken into, it was their country. A range of responses similar to those already suggested but with words like betrayal added could emerge.

What was it like to live under Nazi rule? Give students Resource J and ask them to find evidence to support the ideas they have already suggested.

Students should then consider the following questions:

Are there any things in the timeline that surprise them? It’s at this point that some pupils may spot references to Dutch Nazis (NSB), to resistance, to reprisals and to forced labour.

How does this information inform their understanding of occupation?

In groups of no more than five, ask students to examine Resources K, L and M and construct mind maps to illustrate the different of experiences of occupation. Resource N demonstrates how this can be done. Felt-tip pens and large pieces of paper will be required.

(AV suggestion: Students could watch extracts from the ‘Occupation’ episode of the “World at War” TV series)

Examine the validity of different sources  Students should now consider the actual sources they have been using and answer the following questions:

What have the pupils found from the sources?

Is there anything missing from them? The simple answer is yes. The sources only present the perspectives of a selection of people. This is the first obvious limitation. However, the more noticeable omission is any reference to collaboration and other more sensitive subjects (for example, the deportation of the Jews). What, for instance, do students think of the reference to ‘Dutch Nazis’ in Resource M?

Why should students consider the purpose of the first six sources in Resource K? For example, why were they collected in the first place? The teacher could then tell or show students that they come from a book/website called ‘A Telling Silence, Spectrums of Dutch Remembrance’

What would students need to do to construct a fuller picture of the Dutch occupation?

What further questions would students like answers to?

Activity extension and follow up work Ask students to examine the sources in Resource O and consider how the account from British troops informs their understanding of the Dutch occupation experience and the Battle for Arnhem.

Extension:

How does what students now know about the Dutch experience of war compare with what they know about the British experience?

Further activities:

Students could research the ‘Telling Silence, Spectrums of Dutch Remembrance’ website (please see Resource K for web address) which contains 38 sources that illustrate Dutch experiences of the Second World War from all over the world, including Java. Extension work could involve researching these in more detail. Students could be given a character each as a starter for wider projects on different aspects of the war.
‘A Family Secret’ is a graphic novel about the Dutch experience of the Second World War, available from the Anne Frank House website. (There are additional resources which accompany the novel that are also available on the website, please see Resource Z for web address) The novel could be compared to the other sources in this enquiry to test the value of the graphic novel as a source for teaching History.