Ode to Engel Dirks | You are not a fallen angel, never have been

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Dear Engel (Dutch for Angel) Dirks,

You called me, reached out to me in every possible way, as some historical figures do after which I decide to write a novel about them. It is a subtle but persistent beckoning that cannot be ignored. The first time I saw your name was on a poster we took to Dam Square on 3 June 2023 at the one-off, nationwide commemoration of victims of the witch hunt. Among the names of seven other Amsterdam women and one man executed for witchcraft at this spot, your name seemed to whisper emphatically to me: Engel Dirks. You kept ringing in me. At lectures, the hundreds of names of the Dutch victims collected by the National Witch Monument Foundation rolled across a screen behind me, and every time I looked behind me, your name 'happened' to pass by.

During a meditation, you presented yourself and made me promise to look into you. One morning I cycled to the Amsterdam City Archive to request your trial file. All that was left was the verdict, handwritten in sixteenth-century New Dutch, which read: 'Met den brande geexecuteerd tot pulver toe' (be burnt to ashes) because you had 'God ende haer crisdom versaeckende met den boose geest verondt gemaeckt en haer tot toeverij begheven heeft gehadt' (renounced God and the Christian faith, made a covenant with the devil and engaged in sorcery). This was evident from a 'confessien' obtained after 'torture'.

In late 1541, you, Engel Dircx dr, were arrested on suspicion of evil sorcery and taken into custody. Because the Amsterdam sheriff and aldermen lacked an experienced witch master, the help of the Utrecht secretary of justice Master Dirk van Zuylen, a notorious witch hunter who had great success in breaking the will of suspects, was called in. He had you tortured using the usual torture method, where suspects were hung by their wrists for hours, flogged and seared with burning candles. In the process, suspects were completely undressed, according to good custom, in the presence of the lords of justice and the state. Only one institution was still missing: that of religion, in this case Christianity, never too shy to give an ideological justification for subduing troublesome women and others disagreeable. After all, it was about the holy battle against 'evil', responsible for diseases, crop failures, poverty, miscarriages and every other conceivable calamity, caused by the devil. The fallen angel. The anti-God. His earthly accomplices were mostly women (85 per cent of those convicted of witchcraft were women), especially older women, and in persecuting, torturing and punishing them, anything was allowed.

The three powers of justice, state and Church were complete when Master Dirk van Zuylen ruled that you also had to undergo an exorcism ritual, performed by a Franciscan priest. He had to exorcise the devil from you with sacred texts and rituals, and you probably had to drink holy water containing a piece of incense, a snippet of priest's stole or some shavings from a Palm Paschal branch.

That worked. On 7 January 1542, you confessed that you had forsaken God, made an alliance with Satan and practised sorcery. The Amsterdam court sentenced you to death. You were not allowed a burial, because your demonic body and soul had to be completely decomposed by fire, so that even after your death you could do no more harm. Three days later, you were tied to a stake on Dam Square and thrown forward into the fire. You burned alive.
 

I wrote about you in the preface of a history book on the witch persecution, asked Manja Bedner to mention you in her play about the Witch of Almen, shared your fate on my own social media, but it all helped just a little. You kept feeling desperate. Help me now. I thought you wanted me to bring out the injustice done to you, and so many with you, to clear your name, bring honour and share your pain.
 

But on a subsequent meditation, I understood your cry for help: you must have come to believe the cleric at the exorcism in his claim that you were possessed by demons. That your soul was darkened and corrupted. That you were a fallen woman, a sorceress, a witch. You must have become convinced that the world was better off without you and without your soul. You had confessed because you had come to believe the label you had been given down to the very deepest layer of your soul.
 

Then, on Dam Square, on the stake, you must have looked into the faces of hundreds of people, including perhaps acquaintances, who wanted you dead, who were afraid of you, just before you were thrown into the flames. You must have thought, dazed, on the other side of death, that the divine light that appeared could not have been meant for you. That you had no access to a heaven, an afterlife. You must have turned away from it and remained stuck in an in-between space, a twilight zone.
 

And then, upon hearing your name in the same place, the Dam, but almost five centuries later, something was awakened in you. Again, hundreds of people stood, but this time with white flowers in their hands. These people were not scolding you, but crying for you and the injustice that had been done to you. You heard me say: 'We lay these flowers to remember and honour all the innocent women, children and men who died or were harmed at this place by a witch trial. We see you. We hear you. We mourn you. We honour you. White flowers symbolise purity, innocence and the feminine aspect in every human being. May there be healing in the past so that the present and the future are no longer burdened with this injustice. May all that has been suppressed, suspected and punished by the witchcraft persecutions return to the world today, which so desperately needs it. We clear the way and bow our heads in reverence for the sacrifices made here.'
 

You are not a fallen angel, never have been. There is nothing wrong with your soul. You were a proud, free Amsterdam woman with your heart in the right place and a mouth that could stir. You are Angel. And you may go to the light.
 

With the highest regard for who you are and what you have endured,
 

Susan Smit
 

For more information, visit www.nationaalheksenmonument.nl