The Silent Listener
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THE SILENT LISTENER The Life and Works of J.H.W. Eldermans by Wilmar Taal
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The Silent Listener © 2017, 2018 by Wilmar Taal. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First North American Edition, 2020 First Printing, 2020 ISBN 978-0-7387-6586-0 Originally published by Troy Books Inc. 2017 ISBN 978-1-909602-28-1 Llewellyn Publications is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Cataloging-in-Publication Programme data is on file with the British National Bibliography. Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public. All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources. Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America
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FOR BOB RICHEL WHO LED THE WAY
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Contents Preface by Jeannet Richel
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Introduction
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PART ONE: LIFE
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CHAPTER ONE: A MILITARY FAMILY Hendrik Willem Eldermans Johannes Eldermans The National Railways The Rotterdam years The Great War
22 23 24 26 30 34
CHAPTER TWO: ADOLESCENCE AND YOUNG ADULTHOOD A vacation home in Nunspeet More schooling, engagement, marriage, children and probation The first Hague period
38
CHAPTER THREE: THE ALMELO YEARS 1936-1949 A public figure 1938-1940 World War II The prelude to liberation 1944-1945 Liberation The Almelo Tribunal Wartime myths about J.H.W. Eldermans
60 62 69 79 83 88 92
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SECOND HAGUE PERIOD 19491985 Eldermans’ professional career in the 1950’s and 1960’s His Personal life Retired Involvement in the Round House mystery Double tragedy
96
CHAPTER FIVE: THE LEGACY OF J.H.W. ELDERMANS His name must be heard! The collection disperses The destroyed parts The Richel-Eldermans Collection
128 129 135 142 144
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43 48 56
97 103 113 118 123
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PART TWO: WORKS
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CHAPTER SIX: THE MAGIC OF J.H.W. ELDERMANS A life filled with magic Sources of J.H.W. Eldermans Believer, investigator or mythmaker?
150 150 154 163
CHAPTER SEVEN: NOTEBOOKS, HANDWRITINGS AND THE MANUSCRIPT The Blue and Red Notebook Methode Rueff M2547 The rite of Egypt (Dressage by candlelight) Ritus Ruthenicus The Manuscript (1970-1984)
169
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONTENTS OF THE MANUSCRIPT People Literary and other references Magical symbols Secret and Magical Societies Objects and their purpose Folklore, mythology and folklore tales Gnomes Mandrakes
194 194 197 201 204 207 210 216 224
CHAPTER NINE: SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS Technique Cataloguing Drawings in the Richel-Eldermans Collection Collection Cees Stam Collection Dr. H.T. Hakl Collection Martine Richel Collection Jeannet Richel Collection Theo Eldermans Collection Wilmar Taal
230 230 233 236 265 277 286 291 300 302
CHAPTER TEN: OBJECTS Objects in the Richel-Eldermans Collection Collection Martine Richel Collection Willem Bosman Collection Erik Hille Collection Jeannet Richel
305 306 314 318 320 325
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PART THREE: LEGACY
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CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE MYTH OF J.H.W. ELDERMANS Mythmaking on the internet Round in circles: Myths concerning J.H.W. Eldermans and the Round House Who caused the myths?
334 336
CHAPTER TWELVE: MAGIC IS NEVER SUITABLE FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE A product of his upbringing A peculiar sexual preference? A practicing magician? Was the family aware? An embittered man J.H.W. Eldermans: a final word
349
Acknowledgments Consulted Archives Consulted museums Consulted libraries Digitally consulted libraries Illustrations Bibliography
370
NOTES
340 346
349 354 358 363 365 368
372 374
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve
358 386 389 395 400 402 402 403 408 409 410 412
Photoplates
between pages 198 – 199
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PREFACE by JEANNET RICHEL
A
fter the death of my father Bob Richel, the collection of drawings and artefacts of my grandfather, Bob so dearly loved and cherished, was, according to his wishes, transferred to the Museum of Witchcraft. Life for me became a bit of a rollercoaster. The visit of Tessel Bauduin and Wouter Hanegraaff in 2004 and their subsequent questions made me wonder about my own memories and it made me want to know my grandfather better and to understand what drove him to make such a giant oeuvre and keep it hidden from the world… When I was a child nothing would make me happier than to sit on my grandfather’s lap before going to bed. He smelled of sweet pipe tobacco and, leaning against him, his voice would resonate through his chest. He would toss his slipper high into the air, make it flip several times over and then always catch it on time. Only stopping it to clean his pipe in his regular habit – using his scraper en pipe cleaners, blowing into the stem of the pipe, filling it and then lighting it with his matches… I did not really listen to what they were talking about just hearing the occasional word now and then… Did I know at a young age that he was an extraordinary person? Yes, of course I did but, at the same time, it never really felt that way. To an extent, we were all outsiders and even when I became older, although I could see we were different and understood it was ‘not normal’ to have an Aunt Dini living with one’s grandparents, for me it was ‘the norm’ and it was as it should be. When arriving on the train from Amsterdam (often on my own after I was 11
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The Silent Listener about nine years old), I would go into the van Reesstraat, walking a bit faster to see him through the window – sitting at the table, drawing as ever. There was no need to ring the bell or wait for the door to be opened as I could open the door myself by pulling the cord which hung outside and unlock the lock. The first thing I would do was to stand beside him and look at the drawing and watch him using his pen. I would kiss him (I can still feel the rough, leathery texture of his skin) and then we would talk for a while. He would ask me how I was and always teased me a bit! I usually stayed there for two weeks or even more and although it was mainly my grandmother who entertained me (and the girlfriend I could take with me and who stayed over as well), he would go with us to Madurodam, the Gevangenenpoort or the Bedriegertjes and, of course, the Efteling, (his favourite!) on daytrips. Even though my childhood holidays with my grandparents were not always positive, when I look back, I remember them with great fondness. Later, when my grandfather’s work was out in the open and examined, some people looked at me with a bit of a sorry smile probably thinking it was all very awkward. For me, there was nothing unexpected or even embarrassing about his work – it was never kept a secret. But there were still a lot of questions to be answered. It was Bob who started this ‘project’ of making JHWE known to the world. His own artwork and occult interests made him at that moment in time, the only person who could appreciate the enormity and quality of JHWE’s work. But, after his passing, it was me who had to take the next step and make it all my own. I would search and find out what there was to know about his life; to find the truth behind his intentions. During this journey, I found and had contact with the few people still alive who had known him. It was they, who indeed for the most part, confirmed my own gut feelings and memories but who also opened new windows of thought for me to look into. I often felt the frustration my father must have felt too, of not getting doors open – people to speak about what they 12
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Preface knew or the encounters with opportunistic persons who wanted to run away with it. In the middle of this long and sometimes difficult road I found a great accomplice in Wilmar Taal, who had already proven his talent when writing about ‘The Round House’ and with whom I had a very worthwhile and pleasant contact about my grandfather’s role in that story. I knew when he had taken over and put his life and soul into it (like he did) that if there was ever any truth to be found, he would be the one to find it. Still, the saying Opa always lived by and imprinted on both me and Martine, holds very true, even now: “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.” Benest September 2016.
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INTRODUCTION
O
n the evening of 13th October 1983, two men in a car drove down the A12 highway from Utrecht to The Hague, to visit a man who could tell them something about a group of people who performed occult rituals involving human sacrifice at a place called Nunspeet, in the Northern Veluwe. They were on their way to Voorburg, a small town near The Hague. The person they were visiting was Johannes Hendrik Willem Eldermans, who had been a top official in the Department of Justice and a former army lieutenant who had worked for the Political Investigation Unit right after World War II. He had also been part of the security detail of Prince Bernhard and responsible for the political education of Princess Beatrix. The two men, Johan Montenberg and Hans Schalkwijk, considered J.H.W. Eldermans to be a person with a very high clearance level within the Dutch government. It will come as no surprise when I say that I, too, was fairly impressed with this man when I learned about him in 2012. Jan Eldermans was a force to be reckoned with, in the up and coming investigation of my first book about the Round House mystery. Eldermans became more and more fascinating as I learned of his pastime activities: he made not only thousands of drawings, sketches and manuscripts but also objects fashioned in wood, metal, paper and even bone. The subject matter of his works was magic – and magic appeared to be a very broad term for Eldermans, simply because he saw connections to it everywhere. The first thing I actually learned about him was his fascination with gnomes. It was 15
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The Silent Listener hard to imagine. A grown man who believed in gnomes? It brought quite a smirk to my face. Who, in their right (adult) mind, believed in gnomes? It would appear that this ‘judgment’ came from pure ignorance: I had the little fellow in mind – a red pointy hat, holding a wheelbarrow or fishing rod in his hands and whistling after women (if batteries were put in him!), whilst eerily resembling one of the seven dwarves from Walt Disney’s Snow White. What we knew was that a large part of his works was kept at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. A collection of twelve drawings were in possession of a private collector in Alkmaar and some random works were in a few other museums like the Rob Scholte Museum and the Amsterdam sex museum ‘De Venustempel’. His granddaughters still owned a number of his works as well. So when the question came – would I be interested in writing a book about Jan Eldermans – I knew that my work was cut out for me. But what I did not expect was that the collection of works would grow. A thousand more pages were discovered in the collection of Dr. H.T. Hakl, who graciously granted me access to these works. The folders and sketchbooks in Dr. Hakl’s collection differed greatly from the works I became acquainted with in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. These works were much more text-based and they appeared to describe a sexual magical ritual with a strong sado-masochistic undertone. It was also Dr. Hakl who pointed out another extensive J.H.W. Eldermans collection in Zürich, Switzerland. This collection in the Zentralbibliothek, especially the Oskar Schlag collection, is the largest collection of drawings and manuscripts currently known. For the first time I would have to travel abroad for the research of a book but how would I finance such an undertaking? Well, by writing articles for various magazines and institutions. Thus far, my research took me to Zürich, Cornwall and France. The rest of my travels happened inside the borders of The Netherlands but from Leeuwarden to Tilburg and from Rotterdam to Almelo. 16
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Introduction You might ask yourself if this research changed anything about my views on Eldermans. It changed everything. I learned that the bulk of the stories about him were mythology, Some people, like the aforementioned Hans Schalkwijk, loved to build on this mythology, simply because he believed Jan Eldermans. And here is the bizarre part: Jan Eldermans was pulling his leg. That is only one aspect of the man but I also had the impression he was not the person he wanted to be. He lived his daily life as a probation officer but dreamed of becoming something much greater in life. In that respect he was no different to you or me. We all dream about better prospects, bigger houses or an important job but the difference is that he wrote it down and illustrated it! The most important discovery, however, would be that we were never meant to see it. We have to thank Bob Richel, his son-in-law, for ensuring the survival of this unique work and for making sure that it came into the hands of an institute worthy of keeping such a collection. Bob’s efforts made it possible for us to be able to take a look inside the mind of Jan Eldermans and to learn how fascinating his mind was – and that is what this book is all about. When writing a book, there is also a process of learning. Although I am quite a sceptic towards the workings of magic, the cultural scientist in me soon discovered the beauty of the writings, the objects, the drawings, the works they were inspired by and their meaning compared to the history of western civilization. You do not know how much influence the occult sciences had on our history until you start studying these works. It influenced our way of speaking; our way of building, the history of art and our scientific development. There are profound meanings in the works of Agrippa, Paracelsus, Pico della Mirandola and more recently, in the works of Israel Regardie, Sayed Idries Shah and even Aleister Crowley. All these names crop up frequently in Eldermans’ work and I cannot deny there is beauty in magic, alchemy, astrology, numerology, tarot and all the other various subjects Eldermans describes. Although 17
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The Silent Listener I am not a believer, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the people who keep this part of western culture alive and even build on the foundations laid down by those who came before them. Unwittingly, Eldermans has become part of that history and now, whenever I am on my bicycle, riding across the Veluwe in the eastern part of The Netherlands, I always start to wonder whether today, maybe, will be the day when I might just see a gnome‌ Koog aan de Zaan, March 2017
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Part One
LIFE
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Part One Life
The Eldermans Family Tree The above family tree outlines the Eldermans going back two generations from J.H.W. Eldermans. It follows the patriarchal line from Hendrik Willem Eldermans to Johannes Hendrik Willem Eldermans and includes both daughters of J.H.W. Eldermans and Dina Roelanda Constantia Callenbach and Louise’s partner, Bob Richel. It is far from complete as we have included only the important persons who play a role in this book. The omission of the other members of the family or kindred is of no disrespect but simply to aid the reader with the complexity of persons mentioned. This family tree is courtesy of Jeannet Richel, who designed it.
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A MILITARY FAMILY
J
ohannes Hendrik Willem (Jan) Eldermans is a name synonymous with the Richel-Eldermans collection in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, United Kingdom. Earlier studies painted a picture of a man shrouded in mystery and with a high-ranking position in the Dutch Department of Justice and possible connections to the Dutch monarchy. In The Netherlands his name is mostly associated with a myth concerning a villa in the forests south of the village Nunspeet. A small audience has learned of his fascination with gnomes and gnome lore when a small book was published in 1989 about his gnome-manuscript in a first and only edition of 500 copies. In various sources and on a couple of websites there is information to be found about Jan Eldermans, but most of this information is faulty at least. As we will see over the course of this book there has been a lot of mythmaking going on about Jan Eldermans, and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, this time it is the other way around: the fiction is stranger than the truth. Jan Eldermans appeared a more mundane man with few social contacts and a remarkable fascination: magic and the occult. How he learned about this, will be explained in the following twelve chapters. How his life was shaped by his upbringing and schooling will be the subject of this first chapter. His problems with discipline and order might come from an ancestry which is deeply rooted in the military, so before we will introduce Jan Eldermans, we will have a closer look at his family tree. 22
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A Military family
Hendrik Willem Eldermans
Hendrik Willem Eldermans (1810-1864) was called to arms in 1831, it being a year of political turmoil in The Netherlands which ended in an armed conflict with Belgian rebels. Hendrik Willem was assigned to the mobile army, meaning he had experienced the fighting firsthand. Belgian insurgents rebelled against the conservative King Willem the First, causing the so-called Ten Day Campaign. Although the Dutch Army was victorious, international pressure caused them to finally recognize the independence of Belgium in 1839. Hendrik Willem stayed in the mobile army until 1833. He was allowed to take a permanent leave in 1835 but in 1836, he signed up for two more years in the standing army. Already promoted to corporal in 1834, Hendrik Willem got his promotion to sergeant in 1836. From 1838 until 1862 he signed on for further two year periods and was promoted to first and second chevron on 1st April 1839, standard-bearer in 1839 and 1853 and on 21st November 1841, he was promoted to an Aide-deCamp non-commissioned officer. On 7th October 1840, Hendrik Willem married Pietje van der Kooij. This marriage produced eight children, two of which became involved in the military as well. The second son, Johannes, became a non- commissioned officer for life and his sister, Adriana Petronella Wilhelmina Eldermans, married Gerrit van Arkel, whose children were very active in the Dutch military, especially in the Indonesian colonies. Hendrik Willem was decorated twice during his career in the Dutch army. His first decoration was the Bronze medal which he received on 18th November 1839, along with a gratuity of twelve guilders. The second medal was the Silver Medal, received on 13th October 1851, when Hendrik Willem had been twenty years in the service. At the age of fifty four, Hendrik Willem was given an honorable discharge in 1864 – his final position being an administrative aid for the regiment’s infirmary. He didn’t live to enjoy his retirement for very long, dying on 10th December 1864, barely a month after his retirement date.1 23
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Johannes Eldermans
Johannes Eldermans (1852-1937) joined the Instruction Battalion on 28th May 1868. He had volunteered as a soldier for the duration of ten years.2 On 1st January 1869, he was promoted to corporal titular. Johannes was registered with the regimental number 6941 and transferred on 6th July 1869 to the First Regiment Infantry, with the regimental number 39252.3 In 1878, his ten-year tour came to an end and Johannes signed on for further six year periods in 1878, 1884, 1890 and 1896 until finally in 1902, when he signed on for three more years. The reason why he signed on for only three instead of six years might have had something to do with his eyesight and varicose veins. In 1890 and 1896 his declining eyesight (though not severe) is mentioned in the regiment roll, but in 1902 we see a ‘cause’ – myopic astigmatism. Johannes Eldermans married Hylkje Holstein in Leeuwarden on 28 July 1878. Hylkje was already five months pregnant with their first child, so it is not unimaginable that this was a ‘shotgun wedding’, as was customary in those days. As a non-commissioned officer in the Dutch military, Johannes was transferred to a variety of posts in The Netherlands and so his children were born throughout the entire country. It is through his children that we know where Johannes was stationed. On 9th November 1878, his first son, Hendrik Willem, was born in Amsterdam. A second child, a girl called Petronella, was born on 21st November 1880, in Hoorn, whilst the third child, Hylkje, was born on 12th June 1886, in Den Helder. A fourth girl, Louise, was born around 1888 – her place of birth is unknown. Johanna Eldermans was born on 27th March 1890, in Leeuwarden. William Henri was born on 23rd April 1894, in Groningen. Hendrika Cornelia Eldermans was born on 27th April 1896 in Groningen. After Groningen, Johannes was transferred to ‘s Hertogenbosch and Nijmegen, where he was stationed during the Great War, at least until his retirement. After his retirement, Johannes Eldermans lived near the army barracks in Nijmegen. 24
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A Military family During his time with the Dutch army, Johannes Eldermans achieved almost everything a non-commissioned officer could achieve. He became a fourier (someone in charge of clothing and accessories) on 1st January 1876 (probably in Leeuwarden) and received his first chevron on 19th May 1876. Johannes was promoted to sergeant on 1st April 1879. One year later, on 1st June 1880, he gained further promotion to sergeant-major. His promotion to second chevron occurred on 19th May 1888 and Johannes achieved his final rank as a non-commissioned officer on 1st May 1893 when he was promoted to Aide-de-Camp. Throughout his time in the army, Johannes Eldermans was awarded a number of medals. The bronze medal was awarded on 19th May 1882, for twelve years of service, although he had served fourteen years by then. On 19th May 1894, he was awarded the Silver Medal for twentyfour years of service, although he had actually served twentysix years in the army. On 19th May 1900, Johannes Eldermans was awarded the Gold Medal for thirty years of service, which should have been awarded to him in 1898. This two-year discrepancy with every medal could be explained perhaps, by the fact that his training years were not counted.
Hendrik Willem Eldermans
Hendrik Willem Eldermans (1878-1942), Jan Eldermans’ father and oldest son of Johannes Eldermans had by far the most interesting career in the Dutch military. Hendrik Willem Eldermans enlisted on 2nd February 1892 at the Pupilschool of the Instruction Battalion in Kampen. He was fired from the pupilschool on 29th August 1892 under the authorization of the Department of War. His regimental number was 16373. When he was registered at the ‘Pupilschool’ his height was 164 centimetres. On 13th April 1894 he registered at the First Regiment Infantry as ‘hornblower’ on a voluntary basis for eight years. On the 2nd August 1894 Hendrik Willem Eldermans was transferred to the Instruction Battalion in Kampen. On 31st December 1894 he was unable to fulfil his duties and was fired without a military passport.4 In 25
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The Silent Listener most cases this would mean the end of a military career but not for Hendrik Willem Eldermans. On 7th March 1898 Hendrik Willem was drafted for military service in the city of Groningen. His regimental number was now 71528. Hendrik Willem was promoted to corporal on 30th September 1898 and was sent on ‘grand furlough’ on 30th October 1899. Grand furlough is an honourable discharge with little chance for repeat exercises. However, this will turn out to be ‘not so accurate’. He returned on 2nd November 1899 and received promotion to sergeant on 9th July 1900. However, once more he was sent on grand furlough on 11th October 1900. On 12th August 1901 he returned to the army for exercises but left on grand furlough again on 14th September 1901. On 1st September 1903 he returned for repeat exercises and left again on 26th September 1903.5
Johannes Eldermans (far right) is sitting with his son, William Henri, on his lap. Hendrik Willem is in uniform, standing right behind him. To the left we see Johannes’ wife, Hylkje Holstein. Photograph courtesy of Jeannet Richel.
The National Railways
On the 25th October 1900 Hendrik Willem Eldermans made the move from Groningen to Zutphen to start his 26
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A Military family training as an apprentice Railway Conductor for the State Railway service. He registered in Zutphen on October 31st 1900. Around 1900 the Railroad service was fairly new. In 1839 the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg Maatschappij (HSM 6) established a track between Amsterdam and Haarlem. Since most cargo went by the waterways (which existed a-plenty in The Netherlands), the Railroad service was used almost exclusively for passenger transportation. Most of these railroad companies were private initiatives – it would take until 1863 before the Dutch government would meddle in the railroad business by founding the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen (SS) but in the formative years the tracks were mostly used by the HSM. From Zutphen, where Hendrik Willem Eldermans was stationed, it was possible to reach every corner of the country. Hendrik Willem started his training as a railway conductor on the salary of a hundred twenty guilders a month. His first promotion was a half year away but doesn’t come with a raise of salary. He was sworn in Zutphen on 10th May 1901 and served as an apprentice until 25th April 1902, when he was given a permanent contract and a monthly raise of twenty guilders.7 He was sworn in as a second class conductor on 15th February 1902 in Gronau and worked independently. Also living in Zutphen was a young woman named Gerharda Christina Hekkers – Grada to her friends and family. Born on 5th April 1882, she must have been twenty years old when she met Hendrik Eldermans. She lived at the Rozenhoflaan 139 with her parents Mannis Hekkers and Petronella Morren.8 Neither belonged to any church community, which was very unusual in those times. Grada worked as a nanny, watching and helping to raise the children of upper class families. Her granddaughters Gerda and Els van Zuuren remember Grada pointing out the large estates where she had worked. She often visited the parks in Zutphen with the children under her care and there she had met Hendrik Eldermans, it must have 27
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The Silent Listener been sometime during 1902 or 1903. Hendrik had been raised in the Dutch Reformed Church but that did not stop him from courting Grada Hekkers. A later source confirms that Grada converted to the Dutch Reformed community.9 However, this might have been a mistake by city hall: Jan Eldermans’ nieces Gerda and Els van Zuuren both remember their grandmother as being a woman with beliefs close to atheism. In the years around 1903, it was assumed that the religious beliefs of the man were automatically the beliefs of his wife and it was often noted that way. As a second class conductor, Hendrik moved to a new post in Enschede on 1st May 1903. Enschede was one of the first industrialized cities in The Netherlands and the labourers who worked in the factories needed housing. This resulted in the establishment of working class neighbourhoods. Most of these were built by the industrial families, who also invested into City Parks and who needed the railroads for their transportation. The Eldermans family thus moved to the city in these prosperous times. 10 On 18th and 25th October 1903, they gave notice of their marriage, which then took place on 4th November. By that time Grada was three months pregnant, therefore, one would suspect that the marriage was a shotgun wedding. A conversation with Jan Eldermans’ nieces, Gerda and Els van Zuuren confirmed this view. Although they never knew their grandfather (he died before they were born), they are confident that Grada deeply loved Hendrik. From stories they had heard from Grada Eldermans, they could draw an image of their grandfather as being a loving man who rather stood in the background. Grada Eldermans was an outspoken, sometimes even nasty woman who spoke her mind no matter what. Gerda and Els van Zuuren do emphasize that she wasn’t a bad person; she was just their grandma who could be quite to the point! What exactly drew Hendrik and Grada together 28
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A Military family remains unknown but it is safe to say that Jan Eldermans’ personality (as we will learn in the other chapters) was mainly shaped by his mother. On 23rd April 1904, Grada Eldermans gave birth to a boy and days after his birth, Hendrik registered his son as Johannes Hendrik Willem Eldermans. Being a father at the age of twenty-five brought many responsibilities. His salary was raised by forty guilders but it remains unclear if this was a periodical raise or that he negotiated it. On 25th April 1905, Hendrik was promoted to First Class railway guard with the same salary. Soon after, Hendrik was assigned another post and the family moved to Huizum, a small village south of Leeuwarden, where they were registered on 7th October 1905. The small village of Huizum was annexed by the city of Leeuwarden around 1944.11 One can only imagine that Huizum in the early years of the twentieth century would have been next to nothing. The Eldermans family rented the Elisabethstraat 31 downstairs and remained in Huizum for two years. A possible reason why they moved again might have been the rural environment of Friesland. Another reason that comes to mind is that the young Jan Eldermans was by that time two years old and he would have to attend preschool in a couple of years’ time. In 1900, a new law on education had been enforced stating that all children should have a basic education of reading, writing and calculus. It is quite possible Hendrik Eldermans requested another post and he was stationed in Rotterdam on 10th February 1907. The young family found living quarters at the Nicolaas Zasstraat 10 in Rotterdam. Rotterdam, in 1907 was a large city, a huge centre of commerce and trade situated at one of the largest seaports of Europe. Rotterdam had become a metropolis, internationally orientated and in need of good transportation to and from the city. The Dutch Railroad Service was happy to oblige and for the young Eldermans family, Rotterdam offered more possibilities 29
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The Silent Listener than rural Friesland. The young family, however, was not that easily satisfied, as they moved another six times in Rotterdam but coming from a military family, Hendrik Eldermans must have been accustomed to moving from one place to another quite a lot.
The Rotterdam Years
Upon their arrival in Rotterdam, Hendrik Eldermans earned a salary of 195 guilders a month which was then raised to 210 guilders on 28th April 1907. Little Jan did not stay an only child for long – his younger sister, Petronella Gerharda Christina (Nel) was born on 5th October 1910. Jan was six years old by that time and attending school. This period of his life is open to debate. We simply do not know which primary school Jan Eldermans attended in Rotterdam. The records are far from complete. Gerda van Zuuren remembers her mother attended primary school at the Adriën Mildersstraat in the centre of the city but she also thinks that this was a school only for girls.12 Apparently it was not; there was a primary school for all children in the Adriën Mildersstraat but, unfortunately, there are no saved records of it. In relation to all the addresses where the Eldermans family lived, the Adriën Mildersstraat was always within a walking distance. When the time came for Jan Eldermans to attend ‘highschool’, finding any school results became a challenge. There are stories that survived, one being that of Jan Eldermans running away from the HBS and going ‘sailing’ and winning bar fights in foreign ports due to his boxing and jiu jitsu training in Katendrecht – quite a dangerous area in the early 1900’s. During one of his travels he supposedly took his schoolbooks and did the state-exam so that he was able to receive his HBS-diploma.13 HBS is an abbreviation for ‘Hogere Burgerschool’, translated as ‘Civil Academy’, and it had quite a theoretical curriculum. Subjects taught at the HBS were Dutch, English and French for languages, mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry and biology in the science department and there was room for arts and 30
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A Military family gymnastics. But how well can you study on board of a freighter? Jan Eldermans must have been between twelve and fourteen when he attended the HBS, and in Rotterdam there were three HBS schools: one was a five-year course and based on reform-pedagogic ideas; the other was a cityHBS with a three-year course and the third was the economic HBS. Jan Eldermans doesn’t show up as a student in any of the three educational facilities. Did he really go sailing? Unfortunately, the enrolment books of the Rotterdam harbour had been destroyed in the bombardment by the German Luftwaffe on 14th May 1940. It is possible that he enrolled on a freighter as a learner but there is no evidence to support this idea. Another source is Judith van Meel, a former archivist for the Regional Archives of the North West Veluwe area, who knew Jan Eldermans intimately: He was born at his grandparents’ house in Rotterdam on April 23rd, I can’t recall the year. He was quite vague about if his parents, who lived in The Hague, were already married (later they were). Anyways, he lived at his grandparents in Rotterdam, where he grew up and went to school until adulthood. After primary school he went to the H.B.S. in Rotterdam.14 This version of Jan Eldermans’ youth differs greatly from the other story. And on top of it, it is inaccurate. Johannes Eldermans lived in ‘s Hertogenbosch until 1917, then after that he spent his retirement years in Nijmegen until his wife Hylkje Holstein passed away on 11th February 1932. Johannes Eldermans doesn’t move to Rotterdam until 23rd April 1934 (indeed on Jan Eldermans’ birthday) where he lived with his daughter, Hendrika Cornelia, until his death on 27th April 1937. His other grandparents lived in Zutphen but we have already seen that Jan Eldermans wasn’t born in Rotterdam; that his parents didn’t live in The Hague during his youth and if Jan Eldermans had lived with his grandparents, it would have been in Nijmegen or Zutphen. 31
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The Silent Listener
Hendrik Eldermans is sitting with daughter, Nel, on his lap. Jan is in a sailor-outfit holding his father’s arm. Jan Eldermans does not appear to be a cheerful child, he rarely laughed or smiled in photographs, unlike his father in this one. Photograph courtesy of Jeannet Richel.
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A Military family This could mean that he went to school in Nijmegen. There are a few other possibilities. The Hague is not far from Rotterdam, and it might have come to pass that he received his education there. Another possibility could be that the human sources recollect the wrong information. Oral history is not a reliable source as memories can be biased. We must reckon with Jan Eldermans providing false information. Research into Civil Academies in The Hague did not provide us with the school records of Jan Eldermans. This would leave us with a possibility of his going to the HBS in Nijmegen or Zutphen but Jan Eldermans was never registered in Nijmegen or Zutphen, so we can safely say that he did not live with either grandparents and he did not go to school there. Sometimes, the most unlikely source can provide us with some answers. In this case, it is the Archives of the Dutch Military, who I consulted about Jan Eldermans’ participation in the Dutch Army in the 1920’s. They did not have any such records on him but they did provide me with records on his time with the Dutch military after World War II. In these records his education is described as ‘HBS, Zeevaartschool’, which would be translated as Civil Academy, maritime school.15 Strangely enough, I consulted the records of the maritime school in Rotterdam, and there was no mention of Jan Eldermans. I figured that he might have attended the maritime school of the Dutch Navy, but he did not show up in those records either. In short: every maritime educational facility I consulted had never heard of Jan Eldermans. We have to consider that public records, especially from the time before World War II, are unlikely to have survived. Some of the records are lost by the institutions themselves and some are subjected to a destruction policy where the records are destroyed after a number of years. Meanwhile, things changed around the Eldermans family. Hendrik was promoted to second class head conductor on April 25th 1912 and sworn in at Rotterdam on 3rd May. 33
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The Silent Listener The promotion came with a salary of 235 guilders a month. This raise must surely have been welcomed, since a third child was born on 5th January 1913. Jan Eldermans was almost nine years old. His little brother was named after his father, Hendrik Willem (Henk). As the youngest child, it appeared that Henk was favoured by his mother. The work at the Dutch Railroad Service was not free of danger as Hendrik Eldermans experienced in May 1912. The train from Visé to Maastricht had a malfunctioning brakesystem and slammed into a train standing in the yard. Hendrik Eldermans was with conductor H.Visser in the luggage-van, right behind the engine. The luggage-van was squeezed so tightly in the collision that Hendrik Eldermans and Visser had to be cut out. Neither Hendrik Eldermans, nor Visser was physically hurt but they were both extremely lucky.16 As mentioned before, the family moved quite a few times around the city of Rotterdam. The family chart of the city of Rotterdam shows us various addresses like Mauritsweg 2b and on 6th September 1909 they returned to the Nicolaas Zasstraat 25a. After that, they moved to the Mathenesserlaan 313a, Duivenvoordestraat 67b and finally Pieter de Hooghweg 120. This last adress was above the Economische en Handelshogeschool (Economic and Trade Academy), where Hendrik Eldermans worked as a beadle, and they would live there until 1938.
The Great War
These were strange times for everyone in Western Europe. Conflict was brewing and coming from a military family, the chance that Hendrik Eldermans could well be shipped off to war was ever present. The tension in Europe was caused by imperialist and nationalist politics of all the great nations in Europe. It culminated in the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which caused Austria to declare war on Serbia, backed by the German Empire, who united themselves as the ‘Central Powers’. The Netherlands declared themselves 34
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A Military family neutral. However, the invasion of Belgium led the Dutch government to make the decision to mobilize the Dutch army. During the entire Great War about 500 000 soldiers were mobilized and the conditions in the army were not favorable. 17 During his career at the Dutch Railroad Service, Hendrik Eldermans had a military service for twenty eight days, from 23rd August to 20th September 1904. But the scare of the Great War in the Eldermans family became imminent when Hendrik was drafted for nine months from 1st March to 11th December, in 1915. And, although the Great War brought uncertain times to The Netherlands, Hendrik Eldermans chose to take an honourable discharge from the Railroad Services on 25th September 1916.18 He got a job as the first beadle of the Nederlandse Handels Hoogeschool (NHH; Economic and Trade Academy19), which would evolve into the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. The NHH was located at the Pieter de Hooghweg. In a newspaperclipping from Het Vrije Volk (The Free People, a local Rotterdam newspaper) of Friday, 8th November 1963 we get an idea when the Eldermans family moved to the Pieter de Hooghweg, as Grada Eldermans was also working at the NHH, in the coffeeroom: One of these characters was Mrs. Gerharda Christina (Grada) Eldermans-Hekkers, the widow of the first beadle of the Academy. […] For 22 years –from 1916 to 1938- she ruled the coffeeroom of the academy with loving but steady hand! 20 It does explain a few things. We finally get a timeline for the Eldermans movements through Rotterdam, which must have taken place between the years 1907 and 1916 before settling down at the Pieter de Hooghweg, where the family lived above the Academy: During my time the exams were held on Thursdays. Before I ‘descended from my living quarters to the coffeeroom’, [my 35
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The Silent Listener emphasis, W.T.] I heard the students calling. ‘Mrs. Eldermans! Come down please. We need coffee!’ 21 With Hendrik leaving the Railroad service and Grada Eldermans running the coffeeroom of the NHH (where she is mentioned as a ‘housekeeper’), it might be safe to assume that they apparently both applied for jobs at the NHH. Gerda and Els van Zuuren describe Hendrik Eldermans as an easy-going man, who sometimes needed to be motivated. A newspaperclipping from 1942 actually gives another account of how things went down: From the ranks of professional petty-officers mister Eldermans succeeded to function as a beadle with dignity, soon after the opening of the Academy in 1916, in a way the shy first year students approached him with confidence.22 Surprisingly, Hendrik Eldermans’ career with the Dutch Railroad Services is not mentioned at all, despite having served for sixteen years with the State Railways. His stint with the Dutch Army may have been four years, on and off, but the switch from railway conductor to beadle of an academy was a big step up the social ladder. In 1920, the Eldermans family still living in Rotterdam, saw their oldest son, Jan, choose another career. Probably Jan had difficulty with finding his own way in life and he left his school not for a career as a sailor but as a soldier. As a youngster, he was very interested in martial arts and it seems he trained as a boxer in Katendrecht. Katendrecht was a peculiar neighbourhood. In those days, it was quite a dangerous neighbourhood, with high crime rates and rampant prostitution. Jan Eldermans was fascinated by Katendrecht, as a lot of drawings would remind him of Katendrecht with its bars from where prostitutes operated to find their clients. During World War II, Katendrecht would become the centre for the jazz-loving citizens of Rotterdam, as German soldiers were not allowed to set 36
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A Military family foot on Katendrecht due to the ‘perverted character’ of this part of the city. This ‘fighting’mentality might be a factor in his up-and-coming choice but there is also another reason. As we will learn, Jan Eldermans had a problem with authority. I suspect he was withdrawn from school and sent to the army for disciplinary reasons. He left on 22nd October to start training as a petty or noncommissioned officer in Kampen.
Hendrik Eldermans as the first beadle of the Economic and Trade Academy in Rotterdam to the far right. Photograph courtesy of Els and Gerda van Zuuren.
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Body, Mind & Spirit / Witchcraft
The Richel-Eldermans collection is one of the most enigmatic sexual magic collections in the world, and can be found in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle, United Kingdom. The collection consists mainly of works by J.H.W. Eldermans, a former civil servant who lived in The Hague, The Netherlands. His skills are of an undeniable high quality, and his works are not only made on paper, but also in metal, wood and bone. Who was J.H.W. Eldermans, and why was he interested in sexual magic to a degree that borders on obsession? Was Eldermans acquainted with Cecil H. Williamson? Was he a member of an occult lodge called Ars Amatoria? Was J.H.W. Eldermans an unknown magister in the occult art? The Silent Listener. The Life and Works of J.H.W. Eldermans answers these questions and shines a light upon the remarkable life and works of Johannes Hendrik Willem Eldermans, a fascinating man with an outstanding collection. Wilmar Taal MA (1969) is a cultural historian specialized in sagas, myths and the occult sciences. He works at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, lives in Koog aan de Zaan, The Netherlands, with his wife, two daughters and two cats.
$24.99 US ISBN 978-0-7387-6586-0 52499
9
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