Woerden, Oudewater, Haastrecht

Herman de Man (Woerden, 1898-1946), was a well-known writer in the 1930s. 'De Man' was his pseudonym; his official name was Salomon Herman Hamburger. He was the youngest and third child of two Jewish parents. His father was a poor merchant. The family moved frequently, always looking for better living conditions. From the age of 3 the family lived in Polsbroekerdam, and from age 12 to 17 in Oudewater. Already in his adolescence, he appeared to have a restless character. He regularly ran away from home and at 17 he left for Amsterdam.

Never having a steady income, he scrabbled for a living and led a nomadic existence. In 1918 he was imprisoned for conscientious objection and in 1919 he fled to Belgium to escape a sentence he had received for swindling a company where he had worked temporarily.
In Belgium, he began writing as an independent journalist, but never earned a full income from it. For years he continued to wander, in France, Belgium and again in the Netherlands.

In 1923, he met Eva Jeanette Marie Kalker, seven years younger, whom he would marry. They had their first child in 1924, with six more to follow. With so many mouths to fill, he slowly began to lead a more settled life, which was also made possible by authorship, in which he became increasingly successful. In 1925, he broke through to the general public with his novel 'The Washing Water'.

In this novel, he describes the life of Gieljan Beijen, a farmer's son from the hamlet of Hoenkoop. This Gieljan manages to work his way up to become dike reeve of the water board and plays a heroic role when, in an emergency situation, he decides to allow the polders Lopikerwaard and Krimpenerwaard to be flooded. As a result, he saves the cities of Woerden, Gouda, Utrecht and Rotterdam from flooding. 'Het wassende water' gives a good picture of how water management works in the Netherlands, making the polders fertile and keeping the cities dry. In addition, in this, and also in his other novels, Herman de Man sketched an affectionate but critical picture of polder life: he denounced Calvinism and the great divide between rich farmers and poor farm workers. 'Het wassende water' was filmed in 1985 and broadcast as a television series in 1986.

Until World War II, Herman de Man led a successful existence as a writer and journalist. When the Netherlands was occupied by Germany in 1940, he found himself in France. He would stay there until 1942 and then managed to travel to England, where he went to work for Radio Oranje. When he returned to the Netherlands after the war, his wife and five of his children were found to have been murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz. In 1946, he himself was killed in an accident while landing a KLM plane at Schiphol Airport.

This premium cycle route has been compiled by our editor: Frans Glissenaar