Archief Eemland. CC BY-NC-ND
After the German invasion during World War I, the neutral Netherlands welcomed over one million Belgians. The modest town of Amersfoort hosted 19.000 of them, of which 15.000 soldiers were interned in the ‘Juliana van Stolberg’-barracks. The barracks were soon replaced by a new camp in Soesterberg: Kamp Zeist. The soldier’s families were housed in three wooden villages: Albertsdorp, Nieuwdorp and Elisabethdorp. At the latter, Louis Verdyck would be reunited with his wife Jeanne and daughter Augusta Maria after having stayed at Kamp Zeist for several years. The background story lends a unique perspective to this image, that could easily be mistaken for an unassuming homely scene. Louis’ uniform does hint at a military connection, yet the backdrop (a studio canvas depicting a stylish interior) obscures the fact that this family was forced to temporarily live apart and to rebuild its future in a home-away-from-home. The picture-postcard was inherited by Augusta Maria’s son, who authored a book about his grandfather’s life in Kamp Zeist.
