Abstract

Informed by oral history and memory studies, this chapter draws on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists and is dedicated to the impact of the Second World War and its aftermath, and the events of 1956 – the year of Khrushchev's secret speech and the Soviet invasion of Hungary – on the Dutch and British communist movements. This chapter particularly examines how cradle communists in the Netherlands and Britain experienced the contrast between the communist movement's zenith during the Second World War and its nadir in 1956. Within this context, it discusses the Dutch communist resistance during the German occupation, parental war trauma and transgenerational communication, and the impact of anti-communist measures in Britain and the Netherlands on participants’ lives.

Keywords: oral history, communist resistance, war trauma, anticommunism, Cold War

When my mother came back from the camp, she and her fellow travellers were pelted and called ‘dirty communists’ upon crossing the Dutch border into Brabant by train. This was just after the Netherlands was liberated, in May 1945. Whenever my mother spoke about this, she would still get upset. Their train's final destination was Amsterdam, where a welcome committee was supposed to pick them up. But there was no welcome committee, they were just dropped off at Amsterdam's central station. They had nothing, no place to return to (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).