Relative absence: Dutch memory culture and monuments of the hunger winter of 1944-45

The Dutch famine of 1944–45, popularly known as the ‘Hunger Winter’, is one of the canonised stories of the German occupation of the Netherlands and has featured centrally in museum exhibitions, documentaries, children's books, and educational materials since the country's liberation in 1945. Yet nowadays, only a few inconspicuous memorials commemorate the famine. This chapter raises the question of why the Dutch Hunger Winter has left few visual traces, such as objects of commemoration, in the Dutch landscape, while other disasters are abundantly present. This issue is investigated by situating the memorial culture of the Hunger Winter in the broader context of Dutch memory culture and by comparing this memorial culture with that of other European famines as well as with earlier episodes of famine in Dutch history. Furthermore, this chapter analyses all memorial objects of the Hunger Winter that are currently present in the Netherlands in public spaces. We argue that the paradoxical absence of famine memorialisation in the Netherlands stems from a culmination of several factors, which include Dutch war memory politics, the regionality of commemorative initiatives, and the absence of engaged diasporic communities.