Ode to Imre Kleinlugtenbelt | She lived for others, but not because she pitied them

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Father Henk Kleinlugtenbelt could sometimes be driven crazy by the sometimes chaotic life of his daughter. Whenever Imre had to move house, for example, he had to come to Amsterdam from Drunen in Brabant to help out. “I found that difficult at times, this disorder and the resulting hectic situation. I myself am a different person.”

When Imre's cancer returned last spring, after she had just been declared cured of breast cancer four years earlier, it was time for her latest move. To a downstairs apartment in the Olympic neighborhood in Amsterdam, so she wouldn't have to climb stairs during the disease process. Together with her children Eliah (8) and Saba (6), in this house she caught the blows of increasingly bad news about the tumors that had started growing again.

On Jan. 13, 2023, the life of 43-year-old artist and social entrepreneur Imre Kleinlugtenbelt came to an end. In a bitter message on Facebook two weeks earlier, she announced. “I made this message extra long,” she wrote. “This is how I separate the wheat from the chaff. Those who are really interested will read on.”

Tireless advocate
Her fate managed to stir hundreds of Amsterdam residents. The women's group from Amsterdam New West, for example, with whom she worked in neighborhood workroom Geuzennest, kept bringing food during her last weeks. Their imam did not allow the women to attend the funeral, but on that occasion bowls full of couscous and tagine were once again set up.

A usually less visible community was also in mourning following Imre's death. The group of more than a hundred undocumented people, which had united more than a decade ago under the banner “We are here” and then toured the city from Refugee Church to Refugee Garage, misses in her a tireless advocate. “For Elijah Niyukuri, the father of her children, she really pulled out all the stops to get him to stay in the Netherlands,” says mother Ria Brouwer. “Or, when he was in immigration detention while she was at home with their newborn baby, to get him released again. She did that for her loved one, but also for others.”

Tireless advocate
Her fate managed to stir hundreds of Amsterdam residents. The women's group from Amsterdam New West, for example, with whom she worked in neighborhood workroom Geuzennest, kept bringing food during her last weeks. Their imam did not allow the women to attend the funeral, but on that occasion bowls full of couscous and tagine were once again set up.

A usually less visible community was also in mourning following Imre's death. The group of more than a hundred undocumented people, which had united more than a decade ago under the banner “We are here” and then toured the city from Refugee Church to Refugee Garage, misses in her a tireless advocate. “For Elijah Niyukuri, the father of her children, she really pulled out all the stops to get him to stay in the Netherlands,” says mother Ria Brouwer. “Or, when he was in immigration detention while she was at home with their newborn baby, to get him released again. She did that for her loved one, but also for others.”

Calling lawyers, chasing immigration authorities IND, collecting documents. Many a civil servant must have been shocked by the determination with which she could throw herself into a file. According to friend Yora Rienstra, cabaret performer and programmer, Imre approached social problems with the gaze and resourcefulness of an artist. “Just as other artists can lose themselves in cooking, she could lose herself in solving 

Aversion to dependence
The well-established route in the world of the arts and theater takes one past exhibitions and premieres, climbing ever higher. Imre's path ran differently. But don't think she wasn't ambitious, Rienstra emphasizes. “With making money she was not so concerned, but she was definitely looking for status. And didn't want to be forgotten. To be a person of significance. Just with different things than you might expect.”

Imre used her artistry for social purposes. For example, she worked for 'Samen Kappen', a social hair and beauty salon in Geuzenveld, where local residents could go in exchange for some pieces of fruit. And for 'Schone Zaak', a social laundromat that also functioned as a meeting place.

Friend Elke Uitentuis, herself a social artist: “That sounds like just social work, but it was much more than that. Such a project became a kind of social work of art. The stories women told there went much deeper than was expected with a social project. And from that fruit they made masks, or smoothies for the neighborhood.”

A central concept in Imre's life was reciprocity, says Uitentuis. Also: an aversion to dependency. “In her work, but also in her love affair with Elijah, who had come to the Netherlands as an asylum seeker, she always tried to remove the one-sidedness of a dependency relationship. She absolutely did not want to see the people she helped as pathetic and needy. An impossibility almost, but she tried anyway. She was hyper-conscious about that.”

Cancer, she learned in the last phase of her life, made her suddenly dependent. On the care and attention of others. “Her life suddenly showed great similarities to that of an undocumented person,” Uitentuis noticed. That she was suddenly a director who had to leave direction to others did not strike her lightly. “I once apprised her during her illness process how she was doing. Just, innocently, I thought. But she freaked out terribly on me. All those people who thought she was pathetic and wanted to talk to her about her illness. She much preferred to talk about our lives and what she still wanted to do.”

When she had just learned that she was incurably ill, she even tried to put on another theatrical performance. About reciprocity, of course. She mobilized her network with all her might to get the performance off the ground in time. Yora Rienstra: “We are all busy enough, but you couldn't refuse her. Unfortunately, her death came too soon and the performance never materialized.” At the end, resignation did come. “Mom,” she said to her mother. “I've had a beautiful life and I don't regret anything.”

Source: NRC April 7, 2023