Dutch Studies Commons^™

Under The Floorboards, Greg Sennema

Library Publications

My grandfather Theo Polman (1904-1965) maintained a daily diary for his entire adult life, recording both banal and dramatic events that occurred in and around his home in Groningen. In reading and rereading his diary – in particular the dark years of Nazi occupation – I have become intimately familiar with the quotidian details of his life as a tobacco-store owner, as a doting husband to his homemaker wife, and as a caring father to his son and daughter (my mother). Theo's descriptions of tangible objects including heirlooms or food items are easily detectable in my own upbringing as a …