October 27, 2017

First ever Frisian translation for Book Week

Filed under: Dutch first,Literature by Orangemaster @ 4:52 pm

The city of Leeuwarden together with the province of Friesland will be one of the Cultural Capitals of Europe in 2018. To mark the occasion, during Book Week in March, the traditional free book handed out will be available in a Frisian translation for the very first time.

Best selling Flemish author Griet Op de Beeck will have the honours of contributing a book to Book Week, entitled ‘Gezien de feiten’ (roughly, ‘Having seen (given) the facts’ in English and ‘Mei it each op de feiten’ in Frisian). Dutch and Flemish authors read each other all the time, but it’s television that tends to ‘localise’ Dutch and Flemish television shows. Fans of Dutch-language literature, which includes any kind of Dutch, is read by all without a fuss.

And a free book is a free book.

(Link: lc.nl, Photo by Rupert Ganzer, some rights reserved)

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February 6, 2017

Unique Jewish Frisian wedding caught on film

Filed under: Film,History,Religion by Orangemaster @ 12:37 pm

A film of the only known footage of Frisian Jewish life from before the Holocaust is currently doing the rounds, and “comes amid a wave of popular interest in the Holocaust, including in films and series with record ratings and in the construction of monuments – most recently with the opening last year of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam.”

This unique black-and-white, silent document from 1939 shows the wedding of a Frisian Jewish couple who escaped the genocide, and was shown on Frisian public broadcaster, Omrop Fryslân. In late January the film was placed on YouTube by the Frisian Film Archive. The film reel was discovered by the couple’s children in their late mother’s suitcase in 2008, but they needed all those years to process its content.

Just a year after filming, the people in the movie would come under the Nazi occupation that decimated the Frisian Jewish community, along with 75 percent of Dutch Jews — the highest death rate in occupied Western Europe.

The Dutch government’s policy of storing information about its citizens enabled the Nazis to efficiently murder as many Jews as possible. Against all odds, this couple survived. Watch images of the wedding of Barend Boers of Amsterdam and Mimi Dwinger from Leeuwarden, Friesland.

(Link: timesofisrael, Photo by Jacques Lahitte, some rights reserved)

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January 24, 2017

Amstelveen hospital wants to deliver Amsterdam’s babies

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:58 pm

450px-Flag_of_Amsterdam.svg

While 20% of pregnant women from Amsterdam were being refused access to three main hospitals in 2016 because there was not enough personnel and beds, a hospital in the neighbouring city of Amstelveen wants to declare maternity space in their hospital as ‘territory of Amsterdam’ to help them out. In 2015 only 7% of Amsterdam’s women were refused at hospitals, but that was before one major hospital shut down their maternity ward. As well, note that this is happening in a country with one of the highest percentage of home births in the world, about 30%, so imagine if more women decided to give birth in a hospital.

Besides wanting to help out women from Amsterdam with additional maternity ward space, the personnel of Amstelveen understands how much people from Amsterdam want to be able to have ‘born in Amsterdam’ on their children’s birth certificate and passports. To give you an idea, when you meet someone Dutch and ask them if they are from Amsterdam, you rarely get a nod or a ‘yeah’, you often get a ‘I was born and raised in Amsterdam!’.

In a similar vein, in 2011 the mayor of the island of Terschelling wanted to have part of a hospital in Leeuwarden declared ‘territory of Terschelling’ in order to claim more island babies, but that didn’t pan out.

(Links: nhnieuws.nl-1, nhnieuws.nl-2, parool.nl, Image: Flag of Amsterdam, public domain)

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September 29, 2016

New letters and photos of Mata Hari published

Filed under: History,Literature by Orangemaster @ 10:17 pm

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The Frisian History and Literature Centre Tresoar in Leeuwarden, Friesland have made public a gift of 48 letters and 14 photos never been seen before they received from the family of the ex-husband of famous Frisian exotic dancer, Mata Hari. The only thing Tresoar had to do in return was turn it all into a book, so that everyone could enjoy the discoveries. The book ‘Don’t think that I’m that bad’ (‘Denk niet dat ik slecht ben’) by Marita Mathijsen-Verkooijen should be out at least in Dutch any day now.

One of the letters written during Mata Hari’s life in Paris in 1904-1905 talked about her one day become a mother and how difficult her life was in general, while in another she talks about living in Nijmegen and having to sell her bike to be able to survive. Mata Hari’s life story is a great read in itself, and these letters will certainly help historians and fans find out even more about her turbulent life. Next year in 2017, the legal documents of 1917 about her execution by a firing squad just outside Paris for being a German spy on 15 October 1917 will be made public, so stay tuned for more.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Mata Hari in the public domain)

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May 23, 2016

Plane spotters rush to Leeuwarden for European JSF debut

Filed under: Aviation,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:29 pm
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In about four hours, the city of Leeuwarden, Friesland will be welcoming two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which will stay in the Netherlands for three weeks. The JSF is the successor to the F-16 (shown here), which has been flying in the country since 1979.

The Ministry of Defense says it’s time for the residents near the airfields of Leeuwarden and Volkel, Noord-Brabant to experience what they sound like because in 2019 the first bunch of F-35 will be coming to stay. According to the Ministry, it is the first time this type of aircraft has been flown from the United States to Europe, which is why Leeuwarden expects one or two thousand plane spotters from around Europe to come and watch the show.

For all of you who can’t make it, watch it live thanks to this handy stream brought to you by the Ministry of Defense:

(Links: www.lc.nl, www.defensie.nl)

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January 5, 2016

The North turns into one big skating rink

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 9:09 pm

Today’s weather called for black ice in the North of the country, as the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) issued a code red with many accidents happening on the roads, albeit nothing fatal so far.

To quote Dutch football legend Johan Cruijff, “every disadvantage has its advantage”, as many people in places like Leeuwarden, Assen and Groningen were gripped by ice fever and took to skating on the streets (see video) because ice must be skated on when it’s there, a sentiment echoed by former world champion Renate Groenewold who ‘couldn’t resist it’.

There was even a fake event on Facebook, joking that the Elfstedentocht was going to be a tour of the motorways.

I scored a pair of free Dutch speed skates recently that I have not tried yet. These puppies really want to go outside now.

speed-skates

(Links: nos.nl, news.yahoo.com, Photo by Remko van Dokkum, some rights reserved)

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January 9, 2014

Tax office in Friesland refuses Frisian letter

Filed under: General,Literature by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

The National Frisian Party claims to have received an unfair fine of 50 euro and decided to complain about it to the local tax office in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Frisian language.

The law says that if the letter of objection is submitted in a foreign language and a translation is needed to be able to process the objection, the person submitting the letter must provide a translation. The thing is, Frisian isn’t a ‘foreign’ language (as in from another country), it is one of the Netherlands’ recognised minority languages.

According to AD.nl, The NFP is waiting for an answer from the tax office about what their policy actually is with regard to what constitutes a ‘foreign’ language for them. As well, it’s quite surprising that nobody at the tax office in Leeuwarden is apparently capable or willing to read Frisian, considering that Friesland has some 350,000-400,000 native speakers. I have a feeling that if the tax office were to receive a letter in English or German that they wouldn’t have any problems with it, considering their site is partially in English and German.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo by Rupert Ganzer, some rights reserved)

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December 25, 2013

Longest concert ever in Leeuwarden

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 3:47 pm

logo-serious-requestMore than 400 bands broke the world record for the longest concert last Saturday by playing 363 hours (15 days and a bit) consequetively in Leeuwarden as part of the Serious Request charity event.

The record attempt produced 17,000 euro through ticket sales for fighting lethal diarrhoea in Africa and Asia. The entire event, which takes place annually while three 3FM radio DJs lock themselves up in a glass house in order to be the focal point for all kinds of spin-off charity drives, produced over 12 million euro for the good cause.

Leeuwarder Courant writes that after the record was broken, the success was celebrated by having a band—the Broken Brass Ensemble—play some more music.

(Illustration: 3FM Serious Request logo)

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August 12, 2013

There’s a Metal Bible for lost Frisian metal fans

Filed under: Music,Religion by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am

Here I thought fighting music containing satanic messages had long been given up as a futile pastime back in the late 1980s, but that was before I went to my first Frisian metal festival and found out that Bible thumpers still want to convert metal lovers. In all fairness, the guy running the stand looked pretty normal with a black t-shirt and shorts (and is apparently a metal fan), with the exception of his stand full of bibles and using God as an excuse or explanation for his life choices.

The Metal Bible was being handed out right at the entrance of the Into The Grave metal festival, a small one-day event in downtown Leeuwarden, fantastically located at the foot of the leaning Oldehove tower and on an actual burial ground. It featured eight bands, local, European and American ones of different styles and was quite cheap (6,66 euro early bird price, 10 euro afterwards).

The Metal Bible started in 1996, with a ‘metalhead’ who wanted to share his love of God with metal fans, but finally kicked off in 2002 when said guy realised that the Bible was being used to approach other notoriously God-hating groups, such as bikers and footballers. The first edition of the Metal Bible was published in Swedish in June 2005, then a Dutch version was published in 2007. In 2011 it was published in English and German and 2012 in Spanish and Polish.

Regardless of its content, which reads like brainwashing to me, it is nicely made, with testimonials from metal bands and other people whose lives were turned around by reading the Bible.

If the good book was such a good read (I was forced to read a lot of it back in Catholic school), then you shouldn’t have to ‘metal it up’ to get your target group to read it. Sexing something up must have some connection to the Devil, but then every good book needs an antagonist.

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September 23, 2012

KAW Architects put women’s shelter out in the open

Filed under: Architecture,General by Branko Collin @ 12:22 pm

De Veilige Veste (‘the Safe Fortress’) in Leeuwarden is an old police station repurposed as a shelter for young women who have become the victims of ‘lover boys’ (young pimps), abuse, human trafficking and the likes.

KAW Architects write: “these girls used to be hidden from view, but modern media hound them. That is why shelter organisation Fier Fryslân came up with the idea of ‘visible but safe’.”

The building will house up to 48 women aged 15 to 23, and still have room for 1600 square metres of office space. Visitors will have to pass four security measures to get in. Fier Fryslân figures these measures will hardly be necessary, as the perpetrators typically don’t want to come out in the open anyway.

If you don’t understand what they say in this video by Omrop Fryslan, don’t worry, neither do we. It is presented in Frisian, although the interviews are in Dutch.

(Link: Inhabitat. Image: KAW Architects)

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