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, the museum director Wilhelm Martin who seems to have had a talent of tiptoeing and at times outwitting the German authorities.
Martin’s administrator, Mense de Groot and his family were housed in the basement of Mauritshuis itself. 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 Jews were hidden in the attic of the museum itself. No one knows exactly how many there were hiding above the priceless works of art, but they required 36 loaves of bread to be smuggled in every day, right under the noses of the Germans who had a clear view of the museum’s entrance. 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.
To feed themselves the family kept rabbits on a balcony, and Menno walked gingerly around the parapet of the Mauritshuis and would fish in the Hofvijver lake in which the Mauritshuis stands. He even rowed over to the small island to collect swan and duck eggs to augment the family’s meagre table.
As part of the exhibition a moving video in which the now ninety-four-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, in 1941after the Germans had arrived museum director Wilhelm Martin removed most of the paintings 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 believed that the Dutch and the Germans were one and the same people.
Even before the bombing of Rotterdam Wilhelm Martin had the foresight to build a bombproof cellar under the museum. The Germans insisted on regular inspections, no doubt with an eye on stealing the pictures if they ever had to retreat. Martin subtly coded paintings with the colours of the Dutch flag – red for the most important, white for the less valuable and blue which could be left behind. Top of the list red works, such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, were first moved to Zandvoort, Girl was then taken by train by Wilhelm Martin himself to Maastricht before being finally returned to The Hague. Works by Rembrandt, Holbein’s Portrait of Robert Cheseman, Fabritius’s beautiful Goldfinch and Paulus Potter’s Young Bull must also have been top of the red list.
Although the museum was left more or less in peace Wilhelm Martin had no control about what exhibitions were mounted and what pictures the Germans hung on the walls. One such, which can be seen in this exhibition, was a large painting of peasants working in the field from the collection of the Führer himself no less
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.
