Ode to Johanna (Hans) Westerdijk | You are a classic example for women's emancipation

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Highly respected professor,

You got hold of a small fungus collection, originating from the East Indies, through Prof Went in 1907, just like that. About 50 or so. In your hands, over the course of 50 years, by the thousands, it became the largest in the world. Indispensable for the development of penicillin. The British managed that development even before the war. Your loyal close associate in the laboratory became a member of the NSB and even a rabid party member. You now had to stay at your post: under no circumstances should the Germans be allowed the entire collection. Thanks to your commitment and a bit of skimming here and there, you managed to achieve this. Did you play them unworkable penicillin formers, though? Be that as it may, the Nazi Germans had it coming. Otherwise, there world would have looked different. In the end, the war was also about possession of penicillin.

For the last months of the war, you lived in that fungal lab. You shared your scarce food with the fungi. Everyone was gone (including that one). By a hair, the fungi stayed alive. After the war, you continued with everything for another 10 years; the lab also grew.

After the war, you were taken to task by the honour council. You acknowledged of your own accord that you had not done enough in resistance activities such as housing Jews.  But what else could you do? You were discharged from prosecution and could simply return to work. Your attitude during the war deserves belated but due respect.

In 1917, you were appointed the first female professor in the Netherlands, in Utrecht. For that, you had to overcome cliffs. At HBS, you were only a ‘listener’ as a woman, and so too at university, where you did botany and zoology. You had to put in the effort. Doing a PhD on a plant pathology subject was not possible in Patria, not even in Munich where you stayed for a long time, but in the much freer Zurich. Only there could you achieve something as a woman.

In 1930, you also became Professor by Special Appointment  in Amsterdam. Your contact with students was stimulating.

After your doctorate, thanks to the Buitenzorgfonds, you had made a big trip to and through the Dutch East Indies in 1912, where you received a great welcome and learned a lot. In December 1914, you had to travel back with a big diversions.

At that time, you formulated your motto: WORKING AND PARTYING CREATES CLEAN SPIRITS. You liked to go out with women. Dancing. Writing letters. And playing tennis, too. You preferred to use that male first name. In the end, you remained single. It seems you didn't make much of an issue of that. Were there more important things in life?

You are a classic example for women's empowerment. 54 PhD students obtained their doctoral degrees under your inspiring leadership. Among them, the percentage of women was very high. Many made it far in their profession, even to the rank of professor. A number of societies of female students and scholars were under your leadership. 7 Of your female students, partly under your leadership, unravelled the Dutch elm disease, still a scourge along Amsterdam's canals.  They never manage to unravel that, the gentlemen said. Abroad, people now speak of the Dutch disease.

But you had great difficulties with some women-unfriendly lecturers. Hugo de Vries, initially greatly admired by you, when you did not understand why your experiments failed, was caught by you one night in the laboratory (you had allowed yourself to be trapped) disturbing your specimens.  OK, he said right away, You have succeeded!

And from Ritzema Bos you took over his unpopular and languishing phytopathology (plant pathology) laboratory, which you later merged with the fungal lab. That had fallen to you before. He had made a mess of things, I gather from your biography. You immediately made something big out of it. The laboratory later moved to Baarn. You moved with it (Java House) and travelled back and forth. 

You were born in January 1883 in the municipality of Nieuwer-Amstel in what is now de Pijp. Dad became a GP, went to live on the Amsteldijk in what soon became Amsterdam-Zuid. At home, you devoured the famous magazine De levende natuur (Living Nature). Would you otherwise have gone into music? Would have been a success too. You continued to play the piano. You also wrote occasional songs. There were more children at home. In the end, it seems you are on a higher pedestal abroad than in the Netherlands. Because everyone knows you here - no, not at all.

At the end of your life, you were quite strict. In 1953, you travelled to South Africa for the second time especially to officially open the Bertha Stoneman laboratory. You must have known her very well; you were in her will. Then, in 1954, you finally became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. And when you were asked why you didn't talk about miracles of nature or something like that, you said: then you should investigate well, then you will find out. Ah, you were a modest person; when you entered somewhere, not much happened.

No, your street in Amsterdam East is really underwhelming. You belong in the scholars' neighbourhood; you are at least their equal.

Jan Dijk