Max Nord
{{Short description|Dutch journalist, writer, and translator}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}
Jacob Julius Max Nord (1 April 1916 – 28 February 2008) was a Dutch journalist, writer, and translator. He was one of the main editors of Het Parool, an illegal Dutch newspaper founded during World War II.
Biography
=Before and during the war=
Nord studied political sciences in Paris, and from 1938 on worked as a reporter for the Dutch daily Het Vaderland. He had wanted to become a poet, but found himself, as he later wrote in his autobiography Achterwaarts ("Backwards", 1998), more suitable for work "in the background".{{cite news|url=http://vorige.nrc.nl/necrologieen/2008/article2063862.ece|title=Max Nord (1916-2008)|last=Gelder|first=Henk van|work=NRC Handelsblad|language=Dutch|access-date=7 July 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150708063338/http://vorige.nrc.nl/necrologieen/2008/article2063862.ece|archive-date=8 July 2015}} With Menno ter Braak he translated Hermann Rauschning's Gespräche mit Hitler, which led to a charge of "insulting a friendly head of state", but before any trial could take place the Netherlands were already occupied by the Germans. During the occupation, Nord was one of the editors of the illegal newspaper Het Parool,{{cite news|url=http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/2304/4-EN-5-MEI/article/detail/3995951/2015/05/03/De-angst-van-Paroolmannen-van-het-eerste-uur.dhtml|title=De angst van Paroolmannen van het eerste uur|date=3 May 2015|work=Het Parool|language=Dutch|access-date=7 July 2015}} working and becoming close friends with Wim van Norden and Simon Carmiggelt; the men and their families lived together in Amsterdam at Reguliersgracht 111,{{cite web|url=http://www.onsamsterdam.nl/component/content/article/15-dossiers/432-het-amsterdam-van-simon-carmiggelt|title=Het Amsterdam van Simon Carmiggelt|last=Gelder|first=Henk van|publisher=Ons Amsterdam|language=Dutch|access-date=9 July 2015}} in the "nerve center" of Het Parool, never discovered by the Nazis. Nord noted later that the Sicherheitsdienst (the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party) was housed next door, and found that safe enough.{{cite book|last=Carmiggelt|first=Simon|editor=Henk van Gelder|title=Dwalen door Amsterdam met S. Carmiggelt|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BQlbAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT7|year=2013|publisher=Singel|isbn=9789029592178|page=7}}
=After the war=
After the end of World War II he edited the paper's art section. When chief editor Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart left, in 1950, he acted as the paper's temporary chief editor, not deeming himself good enough to become the permanent chief editor. He then became a correspondent in Paris.{{cite news|url=http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4324/Nieuws/article/detail/1235492/2008/02/29/Schrijver-en-journalist-Max-Nord-91-overleden.dhtml|title=Schrijver en journalist Max Nord (91) overleden|date=29 February 2008|work=Trouw|language=Dutch|access-date=7 July 2015}} In 1987 he attended the two-month trial in Lyon at which war criminal Klaus Barbie was sentenced, and wrote about it in a series of articles for Vrij Nederland and a book, Klaus Barbie: een van ons (1989).
He wrote extensively on the Netherlands during World War II, including an illustrated book on Amsterdam during the Dutch famine of 1944 (the Hongerwinter), and edited a catalog called Thank You, Canada for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec.{{cite book|last=Hitchcock|first=William I|title=The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QN8FvYWr29AC&pg=PT456|year=2008|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781416594543|page=456}} He was instrumental in bringing the 1955 photography exhibition The Family of Man to the Netherlands.{{cite book|last=Roholl|first=M. L. |editor=E. O. G. Haitsma Mulier|others=L. H. Maas, Jaap Vogel|title=Het beeld in de spiegel: historiografische verkenningen: liber amicorum voor Piet Blaas|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ACCKEAnLmFEC&pg=PA143|year=2000|publisher=Verloren|language=Dutch |isbn=9789065504357|pages=133–53|chapter=De fototentoonstelling Wij Mensen--The Family of Man in het Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam: een Amerikaans familiealbum als wapen in de koude oorlog}}
Nord also wrote books on Albert Helman, Luigi Pirandello, and Josepha Mendels, and a great number of essays, and translated work by André Gide,{{cite book|last=Stone|first=Harry|title=Writing in the Shadow: Resistance Publications in Occupied Europe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdqZAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA152|year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135213220|pages=151–2}} Luigi Pirandello, Cesare Pavese, and others.
Max Nord was president of the Dutch voorzitter van de Vereniging van Schrijvers en Vertalers, the Dutch association of writers and translators. He died at age 91. His obituary in NRC Handelsblad noted that he was "a modest and thoughtful man, who gladly shared his immense knowledge of journalism and literature. With increasing frequency he became the last one who had experienced it all himself and had known the big names from history".
Selected bibliography
- Over Duitschland (1945, translation of Refléxions sur l'Allemagne by André Gide{{cite book|last=Dewulf|first=Jeroen|title=Spirit of Resistance: Dutch Clandestine Literature During the Nazi Occupation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nUQmsfyctPcC&pg=PA30|year=2010|publisher=Camden House|isbn=9781571134936|pages=30, 160}}
- Amsterdam tijdens de hongerwinter (1947){{cite book|last=Ziegler|first=Jean|title=Betting on Famine: Why the World Still Goes Hungry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RnARBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA264|year=2013|publisher=New Press|isbn=9781595588494|page=264}}
- Albert Helman; een inleiding tot zijn werk (1949)
- Alexander Cohen, een andersdenkende (1960)
- Luigi Pirandello (De Bezige Bij, 1962){{cite web|url=http://www.depapierenman.be/blog/2008/2/29/Auteur-en-criticus-Max-Nord-%2891%29-overleden|title=Auteur en criticus Max Nord (91) overleden|last=Leyman|first=Dirk|date=29 February 2008|publisher=De Papieren Man|language=Dutch|access-date=7 July 2015}}
- De pijn om zo te leven en andere verhalen (1967; translation of short stories by Luigi Pirandello, with Jenny Tuin) {{ISBN|9021497190}}
- De aarde en de dood (1989; translation of La terra e la morte by Cesare Pavese) {{ISBN|9071855058}} / {{ISBN|9071855066}}
- {{cite book|title=Klaus Barbie: een van ons|year=1989|publisher=Kwadraat|isbn=9789064810824}}
- Josepha Mendels: portret van een kunstenaar (1991) {{ISBN|9011919556}}
- Verzen (1994; gedichten) {{ISBN|9069752662}}
- Het grote avontuur (1994; translation of Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier) {{ISBN|9025301622}}
- Achterwaarts: memoires (1998; autobiography) {{ISBN|9029057475}}
Literature about Nord
- Hans Renders: 'Levensbericht. Jacob Julius Max Nord'. In: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, jrg. 2013-2014, pag. 146-155<-->
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- {{Digital Library for Dutch Literature|id=nord001}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nord, Max}}
Category:Journalists from Amsterdam
Category:Resistance members from Amsterdam
Category:World War II resistance press activists
Category:20th-century Dutch poets
Category:20th-century Dutch male writers