Safely out of hiding, but then?

On Sunday, April 19, the opera Poles in Plan South premiered at the Liberal Jewish Community in Amsterdam. Composer Caroline Ansink and librettist Olaf Mulder based their work on Daniël Vermeulen's (pseudonym) recollections of going into hiding in Brabant and his subsequent reunion with his mother in Amsterdam in 1945. Three questions for Caroline Ansink.

Why did you choose this topic?

It is a personal epitaph for the protagonist with whom I was a friend, but who has since died. The libretto was written by another friend. It is about a child who is one-and-a-half years old when the war begins and who, when he is two, is placed with a Catholic family in Brabant. In 1945, he returns to Amsterdam as a six-year-old. His father died in Bergen Belsen, his mother narrowly survived the camp and moves into a house in the Rivierenbuurt, then called 'Plan Zuid'.

The boy does not recognise in the emaciated lady the woman who was snatched from him as a two-year-old and now claims to be his 'real mother'. He even fears her and understands nothing of the Jewish customs she forces on him. While in hiding, he has become steeped in Catholic customs and even speaks with a Brabant accent. He barely understands his Polish mother, as she speaks Dutch only sparsely. What should have been a happy reunion, he experiences as a kidnapping from paradise.

This leads to a suffocating atmosphere, in which the child becomes increasingly frustrated and strongly resents his mother and other family members, who stubbornly refuse to assimilate. Towards the end of his life, he writes off his frustrations, looking back on human inability with a sharp, sometimes vicious, but more often also understanding and humorous view. In retrospect, he understands how damaged his mother was, causing her to watch over his Jewishness anxiously, fearful of the world of the 'goy' who had persecuted her so mercilessly.

What attracts you to this theme?

The story of displacement, return and alienation is universal because it affects so many others. Moreover, it is also about motherhood, about connection and letting go, and about the universal theme of always trying to find light, even in the deepest darkness. The account of the protagonist's mother is a kind of summary of my grandmothers' stories. Both were widowed, one dragged her two daughters through the camp, the other was left with a baby son (my father). And then there is the post-war silence, which meant children didn't know where they stood, and the damning 'didn't come back'.

How did you develop the opera, do you refer to Yiddish music, to works by Jewish composers?

Because the subject matter is very personal and intimate for me, I chose a small-scale chamber opera, with three singers and four instrumentalists. The direction is also sober and we play in small venues. I have not used literal quotes from Jewish composers and I only refer to Yiddish music in passing. The boy's confusion returns in the form. Present and past tumble over each other: the two singers and the singer constantly switch roles, even within the same character. In my music, I try to express the deeper layers of all those confusing feelings, bubbling under the surface.