From a gray building, all the way back on the barracks area in Assen, music sounds this morning. Inside the Royal Military Chapel Johan Willem Friso rehearses. They are preparing for a very special concert series, which will start next Saturday in Westerbork. The show has ‘freedom in the picture’.
Literally ‘in the picture’, because the music pieces are interspersed with film fragments. In it, survivors of the Second World War share their memories of the war and the liberation, eighty years ago. What is special about this is that they are stories from the orchestra members families. And it is the orchestra members who interviewed their family members.
“My grandmother consciously experienced the entire war,” says Sergeant Sander Borst. He is a pagottist. “She told me everything she still knows. A number of those stories are recorded for this project. “This is how Borst’s grandmother talked about the hunger winter in the film.” I found that the worst. There was nothing to eat anymore. It was very cold. “
Borst interviewed his grandmother about this radical period in her life. “She told that she was stole three winter peat from the greengrocer from an emergency. And that she quickly upset them with her sisters before they went home. But her mother immediately realized it, because her mouth was completely orange.”
The images and interviews will be played this morning during the rehearsal. They visibly enter the other orchestra members. “This is the first time for the orchestra that they see the images,” explains Major Frans-Aert Burghgraef. He is a chief conductor. “Those emotions may be there. In fact, that is precisely the intention. But if we will play the performance in Westerbork, there must be a balance between head and heart.”
Today’s music makes memories come up with the generation of the time, notes fagottist Borst. For him and his grandmother, this performance, where liberation is being considered, is extra special: “My grandmother lived during the end of the war in The Hague. When the liberation was celebrated there, the JWF chapel also played. She has seen that orchestra and I play in it now. The circle is around.”
This Saturday is the premiere of ‘Freedom in Beeld’ in sports hall De Börkerkoel in Westerbork. The Royal Military Chapel JWF then tours the performance by the rest of the Netherlands.