To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII the iconic Mauritshuis in The Hague, which houses some of the world greatest paintings, has just unveiled a new exhibition spanning the years of the German occupation from 1940-1944. And a fascinating story it turns out to be.
Painstakingly researched and splendidly documented by Quentin Buvelot it reveals a host of astonishing events. The story centres around a family closely associated with the Mauritshuis, with the museum director Wilhelm Martin who seems to have had a talent of tiptoeing and at times outwitting the German authorities.
Wilhelm Martin’s administrator, Mense de Groot and family were housed in the basement of Mauritshuis itself. Mense de Groot and his young son Menno play a crucial role in the story. Menno’s father kept a daily logbook which exhibition curator Quentin Buvelot has exploited to brilliant effect. Mense de Groot used his nine-year-old son to smuggle and distribute hastily copied newspaper articles to people around The Hague who were in hiding. Not only this, but some were hidden in the attic of the museum itself. No one knows how many there were hiding above the priceless works of art, but they required 36 loaves of bread to be smuggled in, right under the eyes of the Germans with a clear view of the museum’s entrance. The family kept rabbits on a balcony, the boy balanced around the parapet of the large building, fished in the Binnenhof lake, rowed to its small island to collect swan and duck eggs for the family’s table.
Mauritshuis is, as you will know, is a stone’s throw from the heart of the Dutch government. But during the war it found itself in the heart of the lion’s den closely surrounded by administrative offices of the Nazi occupiers.
As part of the exhibition is a moving video in which the now ninety-year-old Menno, who had emigrated to Canada with his family, is interviewed about his extraordinary childhood by his granddaughter Kella.
As for the works of art themselves, museum director Wilhelm Martin, at the approach of the German menace, removed all the works. A photograph, a blow-up of which forms a backdrop to the exhibition, shows the gallery’s wall with nothing but empty frames. It must have felt like a poke in the eye to the arriving Germans who claimed that the Dutch and the Germans were one and the same people.
A few days later, seeing half of Rotterdam bombed to ruins, Wilhelm Martin had a bombproof cellar built under the museum. The Germans insisted on regular inspections, no doubt with an eye on stealing them if things went wrong. Martin subtly coded paintings with the colours of the Dutch flag – red for the most important, blue for the less valuable and white of lesser interest. Needless to say, works such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, first moved to Zandvoort, was then taken by train by Wilhelm Martin himself to Maastricht before being returned The Hague. Works by Rembrandt, Holbein’s Portrait of Robert Cheseman, Fabritius’s beautiful Goldfinch and Paulus Potter Young Bull must also have been top of the red list.
The pragmatic museum director also flattered the Germans vanity with a number of propaganda exhibitions glorifying the German nation, even showing a huge painting of peasants from Hitler’s personal collection.
There is a fairly comprehensive educational programme attached to the exhibition with a nice little accompanying booklet for children. Packed with lots of pictures, information, questions, quizzes, spaces for notes and a route map of relevant locations it will, when completed become a logbook, like that of Menno’s father for the children to keep.
All this and more can be seen in this superbly curated exhibition and important historical exhibition. Highly recommended. Astrid Burchardt 12th February 2025
Photo by Michael Hasted
To accompany the exhibition Quentin Buvelot’s richly illustrated book Het huis in de storm (Dutch only version for now), is available at the museum. The exhibition opens on 13th of February and continues until 29th June.
