Ode to Benthe Knipmeijer | Continuing. Pass on. Not cutting the lines

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Hello Benthe,
 

And you're not even my hairdresser! Faithful as I am to the hairdresser who 'did' my hair before I moved to Tuindorp Oostzaan in Amsterdam Noord seventeen years ago. Our bond encompasses something else; let me try to put that into words. Why you, who have been running an independent barbershop - 'Magnifique' - on Zonneplein for almost forty years, you who 'survived' many a crisis - the renovation of the houses in Tuindorp which meant that your customers could no longer pay the rent and had to move, corona, gentrification, to name but a few - and stayed put, in the neighbourhood where your heart and your history lies, yours and your family's, which stands for a much bigger story, the story of Amsterdam's working class, of resistance against injustice, of solidarity, of survival and loss, of feeling abandoned, yet bravely rising again, why you, Bente, are a heroine in my eyes.

And why you make me 'come home' in Tuindorp because I recognise so much in you from my own family and background. How you talk, move, laugh. Tell stories with a passion that betrays an intense compassion for the world and people around you.

We sit in the first spring sunshine in front of your shop. I ask why you are such a perseverer. You say, "I don't want to cut the line. When I look at the square like this, I see my grandfather standing in line, during the war - World War II. All the men from Tuindorp had to go to Germany to work. Jews were picked out and sent to the camps. My grandfather fled, along with the neighbour. They dared because grandpa dared. They went via the doll doctor, who was here in the square at the time, who repaired dolls. He said: go to the attic - all attics were still connected back then - but watch out because there's a runaway NSB man with a gun.
 

That's how they escaped.
 

Grandfather was head commander of the welding department here at NDSM, before the raid. When the Germans came, under my grandfather's leadership they disabled the machines and hid the loose parts here under the stage in the Zonnehuis so the Krauts couldn't do anything. Was never discovered. Less than a week after the liberation, the machines on the NDSM were up and running again.

That's how it went.

That was my mother's father. He and my grandmother had people in hiding in the attic. By the way, they were all in the resistance, including on their father's side. I can tell books about that. My father's father was two metres tall and had shoe size 48. You couldn't argue with that. You could hear him four streets away. He was redder than red. Chief of the cooperative in the village here during the war. But because he had such politically outspoken opinions, he was fired. Then he ended up going door-to-door on a delivery bicycle. Grandpa Bart with a cart with sweets... and food for the women who were left alone with children because their husbands had been killed by the Germans....

That's the kind of story I want to pass on...'

Go on. Pass on. To necessarily NOT want to cut the lines, where many do. That's you. Loyal and loyal. To your roots. Your ideals.

Your family lived here from the beginning. Over a century ago, Tuindorp Oostzaan was built to relieve the overcrowded Jordaan neighbourhood. In Tuindorp lived mainly 'able-bodied workers', as it was called then, and their families (women were expected to stay at home), people with jobs at the municipality or one of the shipyards in the neighbourhood. It was sometimes called a 'socialist workers' paradise' because the houses were spacious and bright for that time, with gardens in front and behind, with courtyards, squares and parks, greenery, the Zonnehuis where people could go for 'elevation' (culture, meetings et cetera). Conceived from the enlightened liberal bourgeoisie and social democrats such as alderman of public housing and industrialist Floor Wibout. These were the heyday of the labour movement (trade unions; social democracy). People were taken into account. Everything would only get better. But such a project as Tuindorp was also patronising in a way; the ruling class, to which Wibout belonged, wanted above all no unrest and riots, but a contented and industrious workforce. Or am I seeing this wrong Benthe? Talking to you, I am trying to understand something about our neighbourhood; how the sentiment of solidarity and (self)confidence slowly seeped away from the community. Why the far-right gets so many votes in Tuindorp these days. It wasn't down to your grandparents. They were fighters. Rebels. You see yourself in that tradition. That becomes clear when you tell about the history of your barbershop.
 

It's the 1980s. 'Imagine. We were running two, three shopping nights a week. I was working with three, four staff, including my mother. It was busy! Once a month I drove to Antwerp to buy gold, which was here in the showcase in the salon. Those wide King necklaces, bracelets, rings, panthers with inlaid stones. There was a lot of dirty money. They were plasterers plumbers carpenters. Labourers. The women worked in home care or as cashiers at Albert Hein. They were not that highly skilled. But with a lot of humour.' And then came the renovation of the neighbourhood; the houses became more spacious and better insulated. Progress, you might say. But the economic crisis also hit. Workers from shipbuilding and other industries lost their jobs. Rents became higher; incomes lower. There were house evictions. People sometimes lost more than their homes; their dignity, pride. And where were the leftist trade union leaders and administrators from City Hall? You say it started then, that name-calling on 'foreigners', even at your place of business. Aunt Ria and Aunt Jopie who drank coffee with you every day. They were aunts to you, grabbing a broom when they saw you were busy. While your assistant Sefgül was cutting a customer, they would comment. Yes and those fucking Turks get the big houses and my children have been on the waiting list for so long... Sefgül lived with her husband at her in-laws' house because they couldn't get a house. You told Sefgül it was okay to speak up, but she didn't dare. 'I said something about it myself. We don't accept discrimination in the shop here! My grandparents fought discrimination in the war! 'Oh, but I didn't mean it that way,' it would be...'

What I admire in you is that you always remained in solidarity. With Sefgül and her family and with Aunt Ria's and Aunt Jopies. But you did raise them, the latter. You understood what lay behind their bitter statements, the disappointment, feeling 'not heard and seen', without accepting it as an excuse. Your shop became a kind of safespace, thanks to you. Zero tolerance for racism and discrimination; but keep talking, all together.
 

And just when you thought things would get better, gentrification struck in the new century. Privatisation gone mad. Social housing of barely sixty square metres for so many tons on sale. These are for the 'highly educated,' as you call them, with their expensive jobs. Children of original Tuindorpers no longer come into it.
 

In your business it gets quieter, so quiet even sometimes that you think, 'shoot me'. Seriously. 'The other day... two of these young mothers walk past my shop. Toddler on the hip, coffee from White Label, that expensive coffee shop next door, in the other hand. Yuppies so to speak. I just put out my racks of second-hand clothes, step back inside. Do I hear one woman say to another, "What a mess." That hurts. I don't sell rubbish.'
 

But you recover, as always. You ask yourself: can I do something with this? 'In the positive, of course. That it gets busier in the salon. That this educated group will also feel at home here. And in the neighbourhood.
 

And you succeed, because at the end of the day, who doesn't want to sit in your chair? Talk to you? Listen to you? Your heart is open to everyone; you are a connector par excellence. And one of the best hairdressers in Amsterdam. In all these years, the look of your shop has hardly changed; you feast your eyes on so many shiny and shiny trinkets and accessories and mirrors. So you experience even better in which tradition we stand here in Tuindorp, you seem to want to say. A tradition of undiluted solidarity and pride, of resisting injustice and standing up for each other and yourself, of togetherness instead of finger-pointing, of humour instead of bitterness. The ghosts of your brave ancestors invariably float through the shop. There is always hope, their voices whisper.
 

Thank you, Benthe, for not giving up.
 

Love,
 

Christine