Secretly Inside by Hans Warren is a Minor Dutch Hiding Narrative

“Couldn’t they have found a safe house for him that was a bit more…safe?” (94)

The UW-Madison press tends to focus on hidden gems and scholarly texts, so I was particularly excited to receive their English translation of Secretly Inside, a novella by Dutch author Hans Warren. It belongs to the subgenre of Dutch hiding narratives, which follow Jewish protagonists as they try to remain undetected in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. The most famous example of the genre, Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, is a nonfiction primary source, but other accounts are fictionalized and written after-the-fact.

There are several reasons why such a specific premise might be popular in the Netherlands. For one, the tension of hiding and escape keeps readers hooked like a more conventional thriller, founded in real history. Hiding narratives also contribute to Dutch Remberance Culture, promoting tolerance and empathy without depicting the well-known atrocities of the Eastern Front. Furthermore, because their protagonists must often rely on the protection of Dutch Gentiles, they support the myth of a unified resistance against occupation.

Secretly Inside, originally titled Steen der Hulp ("Stone of Help") is certainly free from whitewash. Although the Van’t Westeinde family opens their doors to Ed, a Jewish resistance member from Utrecht, their decaying Zeeland farmhouse harbors perils of its own. The parents are coarse, suspicious yokels. Both Mariete and Camiel, the brother and sister of the house, develop feelings for their visitor, but their triangular desires threaten to attract more dangerous attention. And Camiel is still hung up on a German solider, recently killed under mysterious circumstances.

As Ed struggles to navigate their claustrophobic dynamic, the beauty of the Dutch countryside comes into focus. Warren and translator S.J. Leinbach usually employ a spare narrative voice, underscoring the novella’s ambiguous tensions. But in nature, Ed and Camiel are free—if not to love one another, then to exist without the scrutiny of their neighbors.

“They walked through the orchard and the vegetable garden, surrounded by dense hawthorn hedges that were red from the berries growing on them. The air was heavy with autumn melancholy. Spider silk gleamed in the sunlight. Slowly, as if they were drunk, velvety, brightly colored butterflies danced above bursting fruit that had fallen from the trees…Ed kept wanting to ask, What was that all about, last night? But he was afraid” (60)

The plot is composed mostly of revelations and pauses, with a few interludes of heart-pounding action. It is extremely short, and can be read in less than an hour, but is not particularly well-written. In a world where homosexuality is no longer novel, it lacks the urgency of other hiding narratives.

But as a reminder of the dangers of intolerance, and counter-evidence to the myth of national resistance, its virtues may yet be discovered.