(The city of Ghent, Belgium during WWII)

Internationally acclaimed Dutch author Stefan Hertmans has written two powerful historical novels that have achieved extraordinary recognition.  The first, WAR AND TURPENTINE was long listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017 and the second, THE CONVERT was a 2020 National Jewish Book Award finalist.  His latest effort, THE ASCENT is a captivating story about family and evil that alludes to the problems that face society today.

It is a story that originated with Hertman’s own life experiences.  In 1979, the author purchased a town house in the Belgium city of Ghent.  It was in poor condition that dated back to the end of World War II.  Though a neglected structure, Hertman was enamored with it.  The house forms the basis of the novel which fits the mold of a technique known as auto fiction, a combination of autobiography and fiction that describes the author’s quest to learn about Willem Verhulst, a Flemish nationalist who during World War II was a member of the SS and sought to link Flanders and Nazi Germany.   Hertmans was unaware of the checkered history of the house when he purchased it and the interaction between the real estate agent and the author lends itself to the condition of the house and why it attracted him.  Years later when he sold the house he came across a memoir of the previous owner’s son, Adriaan Verhulst, a renowned professor of history and coincidentally, the author’s former teacher.  Hertmans would learn that Adriaan’s father, Willem had served in the SS during World War II and committed unspeakable crimes.

(Pro-Nazi rally with speech by VNV strongman Hendrik Elias (Vlaams Nationaal Verbondat) at Grote Markt, Antwerp, on 26 September 1943)

Hertman would become obsessed with the Verhulst family resulting in an exploratory mission to tell the story of Adriaan’s father, the story of the house in which he lived, and the people who he came in contact with.  Hertman’s relies on memoirs, diaries, official documents, and interviews with Willem’s three children to recreate the lives of one family as they navigated the tumultuous events of World war II under the aegis of Nazi collaboration in their midst.  The result is an amazing novel that reimagines the life of a family surviving a world war that destroyed a significant part of Europe.  It is a testament to the author who successfully blends history and fiction to reach its readers about the past, the role of human nature during conflict, and providing lessons for the future.

Hermans carefully lays out the national and ethnic conflict that existed in Belgium before and during the war.  It centers on Flemish nationalists who wanted schools to reflect Dutch culture and those who favored the French.  Willem loathes the Belgium state and hitches his wagon to Flemish nationalism.  Willem was blind in one eye from childhood, and it greatly affected his socialization process while growing up and provides clues for his later behavior.  Willem’s first wife, Lisa, will die of cervical cancer in 1925 in her late twenties.  Two years later he will remarry Harmina Margaretha Wijers who had been Lisa’s nurse during her illness when she lived with her pastor who never accepted the “one eyed” Belgium.

Harmina who went by the name Mientje and Willem had a son Adriaan, and two daughters, Aletta, and Suzanne.  Mientje was a very pious Protestant and grew suspicious of her husband’s activities and his interest in Nazism.  Willem was a womanizer who had a long running affair with a woman nine years his junior named Griert Latomme.  For Mientje her children were her life and she overlooked “pappi’s” faults for years.  Willem would force the family to move from a comfortable middle class home in Ghent to a house provided by the Nazis in Oudburg after he had ingratiates himself with the SS and often traveled to Germany.  Needless to say, Mientje despised the house.

(German soldiers parade past the Royal Palace in Brussels, 1940)

Hertmans does an excellent job describing the German occupation of Belgium and its impact on its citizens.  He follows the course of the war carefully and has a firm knowledge of historical events and battles.  The author intersperses chapters describing his purchase of the house and his interactions with the children and other decades after the war. 

(‘Confidential agent’ Willem Verhulst and his wife Mientje in 1930) 

Under the German occupation Willem is made Director of the Ghent Rediffusion Service to be used as a vehicle for Nazi propaganda.  From this position Willem rose in the Nazi hierarchy to become a reliable collaborator and achieved SS rank as he cobbled together thorough lists of resistance fighters and anyone who opposed or even spoke words that the Nazis deemed treasonous.  Countless people were rounded up, beaten, tortured and many would die in the extermination camps.

The marriage of Willem and Mientje made little sense.  He possessed a dual personality; on the one hand he was very sweet toward his wife, but he was a womanizer and a Nazi collaborator.  He did his best to keep his wife and family in the dark when it came to his activities.  She was very religious and cannot fathom why their lives have taken such a drastic turn.  Once he started wearing his SS uniform at home, she forbade the children to enter certain rooms that were used for Nazi visitors and held Nazi memorabilia referring to them as “the death rooms.”  The issue of spousal loyalty reverberates throughout the novel.  No matter how abusive he acted at times or as she learned of his Nazi activities she always tried to smooth over their relationship and keep him calm, standing by him. However, by July 1944 when Willem contemplates fleeing with the family to Hanover, Germany, she refuses to allow herself and the children to accompany him.

(Stefan Hertmans)

Hertmans does a masterful job weaving the post war history of how collaborators fled Belgium and how they were treated by the Germans and Belgians upon their return.  Roughly 15,000 Flemish citizens fled with another 6,000 Walloons joining them. By integrating so much factual information into the novel it reflects the authenticity of the story as the author fictionalized certain aspects of his work.

The book is segmented into two parts.  The first half surrounds Willem’s rise in the Nazi hierarchy and the deeds that would result in his arrest and imprisonment.  The second half of the book focuses on the post war period as Willem languishes in prison unrepentant, writing untruths and fantasies in his diaries, while outside, Europe lies in ruins.  Hermans describes the boarders who Mientje housed and their futures, and what became of Mientje and her children and the final years of their father.   David McKay provides a lucid translation from the Dutch which is illustrated with photographs and other information.  Hertmans combination of history and fiction is a powerful reminder that the horrors of World War II are inexhaustibly fascinating and how events that seem beyond our control can result in disaster.

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(WWII German Luftwaffe soldiers training with a MG 34 machine gun – probably near Ghent, Belgium)