Janus Borghs had a disfigured face and one of his eyes was permanently closed. Every person over 50 in Den Bosch knows him by his nickname Janus Kiep or Janus Kiepoog. He became a true legend after his death. The striking inhabitant of Bossche is one of the people whose life is looked back on in the new Omroep Brabant series ‘Vergane Glorie’.
Janus Kiep (1914-1981) terrified people, especially children, with his startling appearance. For example during carnival, when he always walked in the Oeteldonk parade. Janus is said to have fallen face-first into a burning coal stove as a child. “He was unkempt, dirty”, Piet Netten remembers from Bossche. “He stank to life. You couldn’t stand next to him.”
As a child, Piet liked to challenge him, he says in the program: “When we walked past Janus, he got angry. He sometimes threw an ax when he was cutting firewood. He never hit anyone. That he deliberately didn’t, I think. But when he met us, he attacked you. He had a good memory, you know. He wasn’t stupid.”
“Dude, I’ll catch you soon.”
Fred van Veen used to be impressed by Janus Kiep, he remembers. “I said to my boyfriend: ‘Hey, there’s Janus Kiep’. He could read that from my mouth and then he said: ‘Little man, I’ll get to you later’.”
Although everyone in Den Bosch aged fifty or older knows Janus Kiep, not much is known about him. He was a “social village idiot” who didn’t hurt anyone, but couldn’t really bond with people. The fact that he was loved by residents of Den Bosch until long after his death became apparent in 2021, when thousands of euros were collected to save his grave from clearance.
“During World War II, he walked around with a belt marked ‘JB’ on it.”
“He is described as feeble-minded. I describe him as different“, says Ernst-Jan van Loenen, ‘guardian’ of Janus Kiep’s grave. “I have read letters that were found after his death. He wasn’t stupid. He wrote letters to everyone: from the province, to the Senate and House of Representatives and even the Queen.”
Ernst-Jan also knows another story about Janus Kiep. “During World War II, he walked around with a belt with ‘JB’ on it. That stood for ‘Juliana Bernhard’. When Germans approached him, he said: ‘That’s Janus Borghs’. Then you’re brilliant, aren’t you?”
“In the time they were there, they were vomited.”
Janus Kiep is one of nine people from Brabant who is portrayed in ‘Vergane Glorie’. The lives of the striking Brabanders, including the Herbal Doctor, Zot Joke and Tôntje d’n Dwerg, are sung about by Björn van der Doelen, Martijn Kuijten and Ruud van den Boogaard.
“Somehow it pisses me off,” says Van der Doelen. “In the time they were there, they were vomited. And eventually it becomes a legend, because everyone has something with them. Because in the end everyone wants to be someone else.”
‘Vergane Glorie’ can be seen for nine weeks from Tuesday evening at Omroep Brabant. The portrait of Janus Kiep can be seen on Tuesday 7 March.