Figure 1.-- This is a photo taken in 1942 at a boys' school in the Netherlands. We know it is a Dutch school because of the Dutch word "Jongens" in te name of the school. (Flanders in Belgium of course is another possibility.) The name of the school looks like 16 Jongens School. Actually that is not "16", but "K". And just missed by the photographer was the latter "R". In the Netherlanfs, "RK" meant Roman Catholic. A Dutch reader was confused by the use of "Jongens". Dutch is similar to German and this looks like Jugend. What we do not understand is why a school would be called a youth school. Presumably it meant a boys' school.

This is a photo taken in 1942 at a boys' school in the Netherlands. We know it is a Dutch school because of the Dutch word "Jongens" in the name of the school. (Flanders in Belgium of course is another possibility.) We know it is a Dutch school because of the Dutch word "Jongens" in te name of the school. (Flanders in Belgium of course is another possibility.) The name of the school looks like 16 Jongens School. Actually that is not "16, but "K". And hust missed by the photographer was the latter "R". In the Netherlanfs, "RK" meant Roman Catholic. A Dutch reader was confused by the use of "Jongens". Dutch is similar to German and this looks like Jugend. What we do not understand is why a school would be called a youth school. Presumably ir meant a boys' school. The boys look to be about 10 years old. They mostly wear long stockings with short trousers. This was not all that common in the Netherlands at this time. Long stockings were still worn in the Netherlands, but not that commonly. The stockings are mostly black although we see a few boys with dark brown stockings and one boy wearing knee socks. Many boys wear suit jackets although some wear sweaters. They are standing outside their school. Notice the large numbers of boys wearing wooden shoes. The photograph was taken during the German World War II occupation. The similar clothing suggests an orphanage to me. The wooden shoes surely must reflect World War II shortages. German occupation policy was to ship food and consumer products to the Reich. This meant that shortages for consumer products like lether products developed in the occupied countries. The Dutch had to rely more on less expensive wooden shoes. NAZI authorities did not interfere much with the Dutch schools, except to insist that Jewish teahers be dismissed and Jewish children be expelled. This would, of course, changed had the NAZIs won the War. It is likely that the NAZIs would have annexed the Netherlands to the Reich.

Chronology

This is a photo taken at a boys' school in the Netherlands during 1942. A Dutch reader writes, "I am not sure if the picture was taken during World War II. It could be 1939, but you perhaps have the right date." A date like 1942 is only a few years removed from the 1930s. And as World War II and the German occupation had great economic consequences, fashions were affected. Thus the clothes worn by Dutch boys in the early 40s were essentially the same as the 30s. The basic differences was the shortages thst developed during the NAZI occupation.

Dutch

This is a photo taken in 1942 at a boys' school in the Netherlands. We know it is a Dutch school because of the Dutch word "Jongens" in te name of the school. (Flanders in Belgium of course is another possibility.) The name of the school looks like 16 Jongens School. Actually that is not "16", but "K". And just missed by the photographer was the latter "R". In the Netherlanfs, "RK" meant Roman Catholic. A Dutch reader was confused by the use of "Jongens". Dutch is similar to German and this looks like Jugend. What we do not understand is why a school would be called a youth school. Presumably it meant a boys' school. A Dutch reader explains, "As far as the name is concerned: The word for boy is jongen in Dutch. Plural is jongens. So Jongens School is Boys' School. It does not mean youth or jugend. That word is jeugd in Dutch and such a school could have included girls as well."

Location: Zijtaart

Zijtaart is a village in the Dutch province of Noord Brabant, not far from 's Hertogenbosch, the capital of the province. Noord Brabant and Limburg are the only provinces with a Catholic majority. When I saw the picture of the boys' school I suspected that it must have been a Catholic school, because the Protestant and public schools did not separate the genders. The girls went to a girls' school in the convent near the village. The rural location may explain the long stockings and wodden shoes.

The School

The boys look to be about 6-10 years old. So it is clerly a primary school. The similar clothing suggests an orphanage to me. A German reader writes, "In Germany a similar name is "Knabenschule" (not "Bubenschule"). In many towns and villages there were different schools for girls ("Mädchenschule") and boys ("Knabenschule"). Now we have everywere co-education - although there have been and are some schools again with gender differentiation: 'The girls may not have access to computers as much as boys in co-education schools' is the top argument!"

Clothing

The boys almost all wear short pants, mostly with long stockings with short trousers. This was not all that common in the Netherlands at this time. Long stockings were still worn in the Netherlands, but not that commonly. And note that it was nor winter. There are leaves on the tree. So it might have been a cool day, but it was not a cold day, or even was it early Spring or late Fall. Given the weather it seems to us unlikely that every mother in the village would have insisted on long stockings, even in a rural area. The stockings are mostly black although we see a few boys with dark brown stockings and one boy wearing knee socks. Many boys wear suit jackets although some wear sweaters. They are standing outside their school. Our Dutch reader writes, "Although most boys are dressed alike, but that was the style at that time. Clothes were simple, but durable (lots of corduroy)."

Long stockings

The boys mostly wear long stockings with short trousers. This was not all that common in the Netherlands at this time. Long stockings were still worn in the Netherlands, but not that commonly. And note that it was nor winter. There are leaves on the tree. So it might have been a cool day, but it was not a cold day, or even was it early Spring or late Fall. Given the weather it seems to us unlikely that every mother in the village would have insisted on long stockings, even in a rural area. The stockings are mostly black although we see a few boys with dark brown stockings and one boy wearing knee socks. It may well be that long stockings were more common in the Netherlands at the time than we had thought, especially in rural areas.

Wooden shoes

We had thought that by the 1930s-40s that wooden shoes were no longer very common in the Netherlands and the prevalence here suggests war-time shorytages. A German reader writes, "The situation is not related to any Nazi influence during the World War II. Wooden shoes (the 'Klocks') are very usual in The Netherlands (and some parts of Northern Germany). They are by no means result of war shortage. It is like the Bavarian 'Lederhosen', typical since many, many years for these areas. Also adults wear them." We suspect that at least by 1942 that it was difficult to find leather concumer goods (boys' Lederhosen and even shoes) in Germany. Leather was a critical war material. It was used in uniforms gear and equipment and the Wehrmacht used a lot of horses requiring leather tackel. Thus we suspect that NAZI occupation authorities rounded up all the leather they could find in ocvcupied countries and shipprd it to the Reich. Our archive on Dutch clothing, however, is very limited and as our German reader suggests, wooden shoes may have been more widely worn than we thought. This is a topic we need to pursue in greater detail. A Dutch reader tells us, "It was school right through the war. Clogs/wooden shoes were not that common in the cities of the Netherlands during that time, but the town of Zijtaart is is a small rural town in the south. I suspect that it was still common to wear clogs there in this time, I found this reference to an English soldier's time in hiding when he'd worn clogs to work in the fields. In fact it's still common to see people wearing clogs as they work on farms - although it's highly unlikely that any young boy would wear them to school." We have read that clogs were worn by farmers at the time. We are less sure that children commonly wore them to school, even schools in rural areas, before the War. We have not noted this in the photigraphic record, but our Dutch archive is very limited.

NAZI Occupation (1940-44/45)

Notice the large numbers of boys wearing wooden shoes. The photograph was taken during the German World War II occupation.The wooden shoes surely must reflect World War II shortages. German occupation policy was to ship food and consumer products to the Reich. This meant that shortages for consumer products like lether products developed in the occupied countries. The Dutch had to rely more on less expensive wooden shoes. NAZI authorities did not interfere much with the Dutch schools, except to insist that Jewish teahers be dismissed and Jewish children be expelled. This would, of course, changed had the NAZIs won the War. It is likely that the NAZIs would have annexed the Netherlands to the Reich.