Jeroen Brouwers

Dutch journalist, translator and prophilic writer who made his literary debut in 1964 with Het mes op de keel (The Knife to the Throat).

He was the fourth child of five of Roman Catholic parents. His father Jacques Theodorus Maria Brouwers (12 January 1903, Den Bosch – 28 December 1964, Delft) was an accountant in an architect firm. His mother Henriëtte Elisabeth Maria van Maaren (2 May 1908, Amsterdam – 27 January 1981, Delft) was the daughter of the musician Leo van Maaren (1885– 27 July 1945, Semarang). They married on 1 August 1928 at Bandung.

On 5 March 1942, Batavia fell to the Japanese. In 1943 his father was sent as a POW to Tokyo. He, his mother, sister and grandmother were taken prison in the Japanese internment camps for women and children, first in Kramat and some months later in Tjideng (1943-1945). As a toddler (age 3-5) he was confronted with the separation from his father, the death of friends and of his grandmother (Elisabeth Henrica Pos 1885-1945) of exhaustion and disease and the emaciation and humiliation of his mother. From April 1944 the Tjideng camp was under the command of Captain Kenichi Sonei, who was responsible for many atrocities. Sonei was sentenced to death on 2 September 1946.

Following the surrender of Japan, Indonesia declared its independence on 17 August 1945. Jeroen's mother and children returned to the Netherlands in 1947. In 1948 their father followed them. Until 1950 Jeroen lived at home. But at age 10, he was sent to several Roman Catholic institutions, because he needed special psychological care. He had difficulties adjusting to normal life after his traumatic camp experiences in Indonesia. But his spiritual care-takers had no experience with the evil concentration camps.

Brouwers left the secondary MULO school in 1955. From 1958–1961 he had military service, after which he started working as an apprentice journalistic for De Gelderlander, a Dutch provincial newspaper (1961).