79 920 Walraven W

79 920 Walraven W

- File holder frayed.

= With corrections, mostly typescript, a few with pen. Perhaps the copy sent by Walraven to be published in Kritiek en Opbouw. Willem Walraven (1887-1943) was an author and journalist. Although from a family with an orthodox protestant background, he was raised liberal. In his youth he affiliated himself with socialism. Despite being a good student, his parents did not stimulate or facilitate a higher education, causing a rift between him and them. He held various jobs, i.a. for a while in North America, but finally enlisted for 3 years in the Nederlands Indisch Leger and emigrated to the Dutch Indies. He met a local woman, whom he married and had 6 children. He became a bookkeeper in the sugar industry and was highly critical of the position of workers in that industry. After 1931 he became a fulltime journalist. In 1941 after some careless remarks in a train, he was sentenced to a month imprisonment for NSB (Dutch fascist) sympathies and insulting 'Indo-europeans'. His jail time experiences were written down by him in Een maand in het boevenpak, parts of which were published in Kritiek en Opbouw at the end of 1941 and 1942. Half a year later in 1942, he was interned together with his sons by the Japanese army. He died several months later in captivity of exhaustion and other illnesses.