Menno Huizinga

In the 1930s, Menno Huizinga (1907 - 1947) was one of the better Dutch professional photographers. For a number of years, he ran is own studio for corporate photography in The Hague. Following the closing of this business, he worked for various large companies. In the years 1940-1945, he photographed everyday life under the German occupation. It is chiefly through the photos he took during the war that his work has achieved greater recognition.

In the winter of 1944-45, Huizinga produced an impressive reportage on The Hague’s inhabitants, who had begun tearing down their own city due to a lack of fuel. By the end of the war, he had taken approximately 750 images of everyday life in The Hague, right up to city’s liberation. After the war, he selected the best material, approximately 420 photos, and organised them into the following seventeen themes: the demolition of the city, the chopping down of the Haagse Bos (‘The Hague Forest’), the evacuations of Wassenaar and the Marlot neighbourhood, buildings used by the Germans, means of transport, ‘Mad Tuesday’, the fuel shortage, food, the Scheveningse Bosjes (woods at Scheveningen), V-2 strikes, garbage disposal, street signage, the entry of the Canadians and the Princess Irene Brigade, the Germans’ departure, the aftermath of the liberation, the queen’s entry, and finally, the food shortage. This last series is the only one that Huizinga made on assignment. The series was ordered by the Plaatselijk Interkerkelijk Bureau ‘s Gravenhage en Omstreken (‘Local Interfaith Office of The Hague and Environs’), which hoped to convince the government in London of the seriousness of the food shortage in the western part of the Netherlands. The text that accompanied the reportage was provided by B. Hunningher (a teacher of the Dutch language at the time, who later became a professor at the University of Amsterdam). The reportage had a medical character, but showed the dire living circumstances experienced by families and individuals suffering from cold and hunger. The reportage arrived in England prior to the liberation and appeared in Vrij Nederland, which was then being published in London. -Leiden University