Remco Campert

Dutch poet, columnist and writer from a noted family.

His parents were journalist and poet Jan Campert (1902-1943) and the actress and drama translator Wilhelmina "Joekie" Broedelet (1903-1996). They divorced on 19 December 1932 when Remco was three. He then stayed with his mother, first in The Hague, later in Amsterdam (1941).

His father died in the Nacht und Nebel of Nazi Germany. After his death in World War II his Bohemian father Jan, became a Dutch symbol of resistance, but for Remco, who would also become a celebrated poet of the movement of the Fifties, his father was miles away. Also his mother was often away for work, he was sent to stay with family, including his grandfather, the writer and actor Johan W. Broedelet (1877-1946).

During the war Remco visited the Lyceum in The Hague. In 1941 his house and their surroundings were destroyed when the Germans dug tank ditches. They expected the invasion at the coast of Holland. In 1942, Remco was sent to the Moody family in Epe, friends of his mother. He spent three three years and followed the MULO school. In Epe he heard that his father died in the Neuengamme concentration camp. Later he wrote the poem "January 1943", included in the anthology Hotel Morandi Scenes (1983).

After the war, 16-year-old Remco moved to Amsterdam in September 1945. He visited the Lyceum, where he met his life-long friend Rudy Kousbroek (1929-2010). Kousbroek spent his youth in Japanese detention camps. Both talented writers became editors of the school paper Halo (Het Amsterdams Lyceïsten Orgaan), went to Paris (1949, 1950) and in 1950 founded the literary magazine Braak. Remco left the Gymnasium before getting a diploma, as he decided to become a writer.

Together with Lucebert, Simon Vinkenoog and Hugo Claus they formed a new generation of poets, called the Vijftigers.