Anne de Vries

Anne de Vries (born May 22, 1904 in Assen , Netherlands , † November 29, 1964 in Zeist ) was a Dutch writer .

In the Netherlands, Anne de Vries became famous primarily for two novels about the Drenthe boy Bartje. In Germany he was better known for his children's Bibles .

Life

Anne de Vries grew up with seven sisters on an old, lonely farm near Assen. As a schoolboy, he wrote articles for a local newspaper, the Asser Courant , for which he received two kwartjes , 50 Dutch cents, for each . For a Christmas story written at the same time he only received a Rijksdaalder , 250 cents.

After attending primary school Anne de Vries tried his hand at various jobs, from the gardener to the typesetter in the printing of the Drentse Courant . On the recommendation of the local headmaster, he eventually attended a teachers' seminar. After completing his training, he first worked as a village teacher in Tweede Exloërmond from 1923 before moving to Zeist in 1926 and becoming a teacher at the local Bartiméus school for the blind .

On August 7, 1930 Anne de Vries married Alida Gerdina van Wermeskerken . There were five children from this marriage.

In 1930 Anne de Vries' first school reading book appeared under the pseudonym A. Nassau Evert in turfland , which was to be followed by many more until his death. In 1935 his first novel was published, Bartje , in which he described the youth of the son of a poor farm workers' family in his home country Drenthe.

Statue of Bartje in Assen

Bartje has been translated into German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Czech and Hungarian, among others.

After Bartje's great - also commercial - success , Anne de Vries began working full-time as an author. The sequel soon came, Bartje is looking for happiness , but it was not as successful as the first part.

In addition to Bartje and the school reading books, Anne de Vries wrote other prose for adults and children. In Germany, his children's Bibles were especially popular.

Anne de Vries was involved in the underground movement against National Socialism in the Netherlands occupied by the German Empire. He hid Jewish refugees and Christian resistance fighters. He was the first author to write and publish a life report of an Auschwitz survivor. Two of his books are devoted to underground work, one about the resistance fighter Johannes Post , with whom he was in contact, and a novel that shows the risks of underground work. Many compatriots resented him for revealing the names of those who belonged to the National Socialist Movement of the Netherlands ( NSB ). He also began work on a novel about the resistance fighter Frits Slomp , but his drafts were not carried out due to his untimely death.

On March 21, 1952, Anne de Vries took a trip to the Dutch colony of Suriname, ordered by the Dutch government, to research school-based reading opportunities and to develop school books. After the return journey (March 1953) Anne de Vries processed his impressions of injustice and slavery in Suriname in several children's books.

In the last years of his life Anne de Vries was chairman of the section for literature of the Bund Christian Kunstfreunde .

Afterlife

Anne de Vries only achieved national fame in the Netherlands after his death, after Willy van Hemert made a film for Bartje for television in 1972 . With the television series , in which only amateur actors from the region acted and which was only shown in Germany on the then GDR television , Bartje finally became a trademark for the province of Drenthe. A bronze statue of the character - dating back to 1954 - is now in the town hall of Assen.

Trivia

On March 21, 1964 the newspaper De Telegraaf de Vries reported the alleged death, whereupon two days later the message appeared in Trouw : “Anne de Vries: I am still alive”.

Works (selection)

• Boys from the street . ( Jongens van de straat ), 1934.
• Bartje . 1935.
• The poacher . ( De stroper ), 1935.
• Jaap and Gerdientie . ( Jaap en Gerdientje ), 1937.
• On the great heather . ( Op de grote heide ), 1937.
• The great bog fire . ( De grote veenbrand ), 1937.
• The great narrative book of biblical history . ( Groot vertelboek voor de Bijbelse geschiedenis ), 1938 (3rd edition from 2013 as PDF ).
• Christmas time stories . ( Verhalen voor Kersttijd ), 1948.
• One hundred stories from the Bible . ( Honderd vertellingen uit de bijbel ), 1949.
• The book by Hans-Frieder . ( Het boek van Jan Willem ), 1950.
• Travel through the night . ( Reis door de Nacht ), 1951-1958 (4 parts); German translation under the title In the shadow of violence or The hand for reconciliation in the shadow of the violence of the Third Reich , 1960 (several ed.).
• The Children's Bible (Old Testament) . ( Kinderkleurbijbel (Oude testament) ), 1961.
• Two girls in the tropics ( Twee meisjes in de tropen , 1964)
• Anne de Vries & Jan Fabricius : De ring van de profeet . 2nd print. Nijkerk, Callenbach, 1981. ISBN 90-266-2708-4 (1st printed 1952)
• Martina's book . ( Het book van Dietje Jansen ).
• Out and about in Suriname. Experiences of three children in the interior of the country , Constance 1977.

Audio bible

At the end of the 1970s , the nursery rhymer Margret Birkenfeld published four audio books from Anne de Vries' Big Narrative Book of Biblical History , read by herself and Jürgen Werth and accompanied by songs from the Wetzlar Children's Choir .

year	title	content	publishing company
1977	When God's time came	The angel announces the birth of John • The angel with Mary • Mary and Elisabeth • The birth of John • God works his miracles with simple people • The birth of Jesus • The shepherds with the baby Jesus • Simeon and Hanna • The wise men from the east • Herod kills the children • The flight into Egypt	Gerth media
1978	See, this is God's Lamb	The childhood • The child in the temple • Jesus leaves Nazareth • John the Baptist • John preaches and baptizes • The baptism of Jesus • The fight with Satan • The first disciples	Gerth media
1978	He is the Messiah	The wedding in Cana • The purification of the temple • Jesus and Nicodemus • Jesus and the Samaritan woman • The people are happy • If you don't see signs and wonders • Jesus heals the son of the royal official • Jesus in Nazareth • At the edge of the mountain	Gerth media
1979	follow me	Evil spirits go out • He bore our disease • The fishermen of men • The calling of the 12 disciples • Of the new kingdom • The Sermon on the Mount • Be cleansed • The centurion in Capernaum	Gerth media

literature

• Anne de Vries jr .: Een Zondagskind. Biography van mijn vader . Kok, Kampen 2010, ISBN 978-90-435-1787-4 .
• Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Anne de Vries (1904–1964). Full of passion for the Bible and books . In: Yearbook for Evangelical Theology (JETh), vol. 28 (2014), ISBN 978-3-417-26771-6 , pp. 131-167.
• Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Portrait of Anne de Vries. Children's Bible author , in: BiblioTheke. Journal for Catholic Library and Media Work , 2015, Issue 1, pp. 23–24.
• Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Anne de Vries - Children's Bible bestseller author . In: ethos - magazine for people of our time , Schwengeler Verlag, Berneck, vol. 32. (2015), pp. 28–29.
• Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Anne de Vries . In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL), Vol. 37, Nordhausen 2016, Sp. 1395–1414.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Anne de Vries. He didn't just write a popular children's Bible . In: Idea Spezial , 2/2014, 26f.
2. ↑ Dick Kaajan: Kampen: einpunt van tournee over geestelijk verzet . In: Kamper Almanak , vol. 2003, pp. 176-195, here. P. 195.
3. ↑ Jan van de Plasse: Kroniek van de Nederlandse dagblad- en opiniepers . Otto Cramwinckel Uitgever, Amsterdam 2005 (Dutch).
4. ↑ https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?query=anne+de+vries+schulte&method=simpleSearch
5. ↑ http://www.hood.de/angebote/41658488/anne-de-vries-als-gottes-zeit-gekommen-war-mc-kitty-hsw-margret-birkenfeld-j-werth.htm

Web links

• Literature by and about Anne de Vries in the catalog of the German National Library