Tainted Youth Life after the war for the children of NSB members.
‘Politically contaminated youth.’ That is what the children of members of the Dutch National Socialist party (NSB) or other collaborators were during the Second World War were called. In the years of reconstruction after 1945, these children were in an exceptional position. They were held accountable for the actions of their parents. Of course, the vast majority of these children were blameless.
In this book, Ismee Tames examines how people in the post-war Netherlands dealt with guilt and punishment. In doing so, she convincingly shows that the lives of the children whose parents had collaborated uniquely reflect the views of the time on education, family, and gender relationships. These views determined the way the government and social organisations, as well as neighbourhoods, schools, and youth movements responded to these children. Moreover, the ways in which their families dealt with the past was of crucial importance.
Tames paints a new picture of the period between 1945 and 1960. To prevent a group of collaborators from emerging in a possible next war, the children of Dutch Nazi collaborators had to be integrated and made invisible as quickly as possible. Their forced integration often had the opposite effect: they felt rejected and cornered. This insight makes Tainted Youth a historical work with great topicality.
