I am here in my function of curator of the collections of the Grand Lodge¹ of Freemasons for the Netherlands. These collections are considerable and comprise an Archive, a Library and a collection of objects, the Museum; the Library especially is regarded by experts as among the first and foremost in the world, in the particular field of Freemasonry.

Of course, I cannot tell how much you know about Freemasonry. Many of you, I suppose, know little about it. I cannot even begin to explain to you, by way of introduction, what Freemasonry stands for and how it works. This is not the time or place to do so. But I am sure we can start from something that all of you do know, and perhaps this is even a feeling you share: Freemasonry has always been looked upon with suspicion. Through the centuries, it was actively persecuted and suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church and by authoritarian regimes of all types, including of course Hitler's National Socialism. Hitler in fact regarded Freemasonry as evidence and proof of the existence of a world wide Jewish conspiracy: the lodges formed the network! In 1933, as soon as he had the power, Hitler outlawed all lodges in Germany and confiscated all their property, immovable and movable. Some Grand Masters were imprisoned in concentration camps. The same procedure was followed in all countries later occupied by the German armies, Austria 1938, Norway, Belgium, France and others in 1940.

The Netherlands were attacked May 10, 1940, and capitulated after the brutal bombing of Rotterdam, a few days later. Before the end of May the Germans had seized and sealed all freemasons' halls in the country. By September, 1940, a plan to liquidate all masonic property had been drafted and began being carried out. The Grand Master was arrested, put in prison, and later transported to Sachsenhausen, where he died. Property of all individual local lodges was either sold (real estate, furniture) or destroyed (books, documents). However, the collections of the Grand Lodge, -this is the (national) umbrella organization that holds the lodges together-, were deemed to be very valuable and useful for future purposes. In Frankfort on Main there was to be established a special branch of the 'Hohe Schule der Partei', commissioned to study the Jewish Question, of which of course, in this ideology, the freemasons were part and parcel. The books and archives seized in The Hague, were accordingly transported to Frankfort. Later in the war, when all German cities were systematically bombed to rubble, many valuable collections were brought to safer places in the country, and so, in the summer of 1945, Library and Archives of the Grand East were found back in a village near Giessen, Hirzenhain. This was done by a section of the American army especially created to search for stolen and displaced cultural valuables. They found our possessions and made sure that they were promptly and safely returned to The Hague. The Museum, it must be said was not included in this find, and in fact was never rediscoverd. Of the Library, only some 6% appeared to be missing, of the Archives, however, at least 20%.

Where were these missing documents? One striking lack were the most recent years. Documents over 1932-1940 were in fact missing. Could it be that they had been separated from the rest in order to be checked, first in Holland by the occupation officials, and then sent to Berlin for study and safekeeping by the Reichssicherheitsdienst ? If so, had they eventually been destroyed in the ruin of Berlin? No one could tell, of course. They were considered as lost for ever.

In the early nineties, however, not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union, rumours began to reach the West about a 'Special Archive' in Moscow, where all documents that the Red Army had managed to seize from the Germans, were being kept. Soon, the 'Osobyi Arkhiv', however, became more than a rumour, after the first journalist had been inside, and soon articles on it started to appear in Western journals. It appeared that somewhere in rural Silezia the SD had set up a depot, and that its contents were now the Osobyi Arkhiv. Then, in Amsterdam, I met people who had actually been there! They told me there were vast stocks of masonic materials there, and they urged me to go there and see for myself. Finally, I did go and see for myself². 'They'³ were absolutely right. Vast stocks, and a tiny part from The Netherlands. I hoped to find a pattern to suit the hypothesis: were the years 1932-1940 here indeed?

Well, I still cannot be sure. In this respect I have been rather disappointed. Thus far, I have been able to inspect 133 files within the space of nine working days, which is less than half of what there is, according to the inventory⁴. Unfortunately, the rules for consultation do not favour my purpose, which is a swift but thorough identification of all files described as being both masonic and Dutch. Of course, I have tried to be intelligent in choosing which files I would request to see. But it's hard being clever if you have to work from an opis which is rather erratic, to put it mildly. One cannot blame the archivists who did the job, really. Who knows both Dutch and is an expert on Freemasonry? And who can cope with such incoherent rubble as these documents prove to be? Really, the overall effect, of this section of the 'fond' at least, is as if you would smash Michelangelo's David to ten thousand pieces and then display each piece of the rubble in a museum glass case with a description saying what part of the statue it belonged to. Because this is really a mess, debris of war. The Russians have spent years describing rubble. No wonder they've made rather a muddle of that.

Of one thing I have found proof, however. Our documents have been checked in Berlin by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. In some of the files I found a report from an SS-man assessing the papers of that particular file. Our inspector had a hard time finding us guilty of the ridiculous accusations the Nazis were so fond of. The worst he could find was that Grand Lodge had given financial support to Jewish refugees from Germany in Holland, in the thirties, hapless and helpless people in general. Some judeo-masonic plutocratic conspiracy, indeed!

part two: the future

Anyhow, rubble or not, pattern or no pattern, there can be nou doubt that 281 files in the great amalgamated international masonic 'fond' of the former Osobyi Archive are of Dutch provenance and originate from our organization. Further, there can be no doubt that they ended up so far from home through the typical war activities of seizure and looting. These are, in essence, stolen goods. Should they be returned to the original owner, to The Netherlands? Should the Norwegian masonic archives go back to Oslo and the Austrian ones to Vienna?

Let's look at a Polish example, where the answer finally given was 'no'. Some 50 kms outside Poznan, in a lovely spot on the river Warta, near a village called Cianzen, there is an old summer residence of a bishop. It is now a library. A most curious library, in a way the most exceptional one I have ever seen. It contains 80,000 books. But it has perhaps 8000 titles, because of each book there are six, eight, twelve or twenty copies. Here are former lodge libraries from Germany. They were looted by the Nazis, and apparently the books were not all destroyed but, partly at least, deposited in the eastern parts of the Reich, parts which were to become Polish territory after the war. The Poles collected them in the cellars of the University Library of Poznan, and later they decided to use them for the foundation of a special branch of the Poznan University Library, viz. a masonic library. Now, it is understandable that each of the individual lodge libraries contained the same general handbooks. No German lodge without Lennhoff-Posner's masonic Lexikon. Accordingly, some twenty copies of that book in the Cianzen library. It is just an example, I have not checked whether this is true for this particular title. Is it a useful library? It may be, for those Poles who read German, and get it into their heads to do research on German Freemasonry before the Second World War. There may be such people, but they can't be that many. There are probably more Germans who take the trip and come and look at these books.

Shouldn't they be returned to Germany, then? Wouldn't that be more efficient and reasonable? The Poles have decided no. They say: we've taken care of these books, we have made a catalogue, it is a public library, everybody can come and read these books, Germans included, and they all know where the books are. It isn't important, in these days of swift transport and electronic means of exchanging information, where exactly a collection happens to be. What counts, is whether it is accessible for all, not whether it is in Cianzen or in Bayreuth or Berlin.

Would the same sort of reasoning be applicable to the masonic archives of Fond 1412? I think not. I would like to plead a special case for archives. They are not books. They are not like books. Books are acquisitions, they are a very welcome extra feature as compared to archives. Our organization, our Grand Lodge, is rich in that it has such a splendid Library. But our organization, our Grand Lodge, is an organization, is what it is, through the fact that it has an archive to show. Archives are, if not the backbone, then fibre and tissue of all of our societies, yes, of our Society as a whole. An archive is not external, additional to the organization which produced it; the archive is the egg in the nest from which the bird came, where it was reared. That is why I would plead to reunite all masonic bodies who have suffered such losses, with their archives. In the cases of Norway and Austria, for instance, this will be a grand restitution, because not all is rubble in 'fond' 1412. Of these Grand Lodges, practically complete archives are contained in it, from the beginnings up to 1940 and 1938, respectively. In the case of The Netherlands it would be a step nearer to that complete documentation of our past that we could once offer. It would be like finally throwing away the crutches that we have had to use ever since the accidents of war.

Archives, then, belong where they are produced. All the organizations concerned still exist, and still produce archive. Life goes on. But there can be no future where there is no past, and our past documents deserve a new future. The Russians have not been bad masters, in the meantime. At least, they have made inventories, and whatever their quality, this is of course essential for finding anything at all⁵. In that respect they have done a valuable job. In terms of the reasons why the Russians undertook this great labour, the masonic materials must have proved most disappointing. The communists had pretty much the same kind of prejudice against Freemasonry as the fascists had. There is not such a big difference between being called volksfeindlich, an enemy of the people, or a class enemy or enemy of the party. We are none of that. Searching our archives for subversive political acitivities, for names of spies or traitors, for covert operations against the Soviet Union, against communism, it must have been a frustrating experience. No names, no facts of any political relevance, through all those years of scrutiny. What a waste of time and energy! They should have done what the Americans in their zone have done rightaway, and what the Russia is now beginning to be willing to think about. All they ever found in their useless search was eveidence of a brotherhood that clings to an ideal, an illusion perhaps. The illusion that we can make a better world by beginning to improve ourselves first. That's all, in essence. This world would be a bit better, and Russia would definitely improve herself, if she gave back the archives we lost through sheer brutality. It would be a small triumph for humanity and civilization over brutality, a small step for Russia, but a great leap for mankind, in a way.

FOOTNOTES
1 officially styled 'Grand East of the Netherlands' (in Dutch Grootoosten der Nederlanden); in this connection 'Grand East' or 'Grand Orient' is equivalent to 'Grand Lodge'
2 in fact I visited the Russian State Military Archive, into which the Osobyi Arkhiv has been incorporated
3 among them, of course, Patricia Grimsted
4 in 'opis'1412, file numbers 9113-9393, that is 281 files, are listed as pertaining to the 'Velikii Vostok Niderlandov'
5 really incomprehensible, therefore, is that no general survey of all the 'fondy' with their titles or themes is to be inspected at the RSMA; I knew the number 1412 from literature and those who had been there before