Every month, Annejet van der Zijl saves an almost lost story from oblivion.She received the fourth story, of loved ones who have passed away and anewfound church, by letter.
Annejet van der ZijlDecember 31, 202203:00
The year trudges wistfully to its end and as always I think of the people whowill not make it to the next. Because no matter how long or short the actualelapsed time is, someone who died last year always feels just a little moreand more definitively dead than someone who was still here this year. The turnof the year is, at least for me, a psychological fault line. We the livingmove on – they, our beloved dead, are left behind in the year that willforever be their year of death.
Among my stragglers of 2022 is also singer and composer Henny Vrienten. Notthat I knew him that well now – really just a little bit from when he composedthe music for the film based on my book Sony Boy. But just like most of mycontemporaries, Doe Maar’s songs are an inseparable part of the soundtrack ofmy life and Vrienten is therefore also part of my history. And that’s why itfeels empty and a shame that he’s gone.
In addition, I recently received such a beautiful Amsterdam orphan story, inwhich Vrienten appears indirectly. The letter came from the daughter of theArmenian Derward Kinébanian, who fled from Constantinople to the Netherlandsas a twelve-year-old boy in the early 1930s. After her divorce, his mother sawno future for herself in her home country. So she sewed all her money andjewelry into the hems of her skirts and traveled with her youngest children toAmsterdam, where her eldest son was already part of the diaspora because hehad refused to enlist in the Turkish army.
The day the bishop came
During the Golden Age, when Amsterdam was still the undisputed center of worldtrade, the city had a thriving Armenian community. The many carpet and fabricsellers, book printers and coffee and raisin traders who had come to theprosperity and liberal climate of the city on the Amstel, even founded theirown Armenian Apostolic church around 1700 in a building on the Kromboomsloot.But by the time Derward and his mother and sister moved into a floor on theJacob van Lennepkade, that community was virtually gone. The former churchbuilding had meanwhile been taken over by the Catholic Augustinian Sisters,who ran a primary school for girls there.
The Armenian church on the Kromboomsloot during a service (1783).ImageAmsterdam City Archives
But even though Derward built a beautiful life in Amsterdam – he found workwith Perez Persian carpets on the Rokin, married a Dutchman, had threechildren – his heart continued to draw to the world of his youth. It was notuntil the 1950s that he became naturalized, mainly because he wanted toprevent his sons from being drafted into the Turkish army, and he obtained hisswimming certificate. But in the meantime he regularly visited the AugustinianSisters on the Kromboomsloot, in case they no longer needed the former churchbuilding.
In 1985 the time had come. Derward, now a successful businessman, dideverything he could to buy back the building and restore the ArmenianApostolic Church on the Kromboomsloot to its former glory, together with themany compatriots who had come to the Netherlands as guest workers. “I willnever forget the day the bishop came from Paris to consecrate the church,”writes his daughter Anita. ‘There we all stood on the stairs, the bishop, myfather with the key, us behind it and the Augustinian Sisters, wiping awaytears. It worked. The Church was alive again.’
Homesickness
From that moment on every Sunday morning the choral songs of the easterndenomination in Amsterdam sounded again. Whoever witnessed this was HennyVrienten, who lived opposite. Years after her father’s death, Anita Kinébanianonce ran into him. ‘He said that whenever the windows were open on Sundays inthe summer, he enjoyed the fragments of singing of the choir so intensely thatblew over the canal.’
I think the best way to remember the deceased is at a time in their lives whenyou think they were very happy. So I don’t remember Henny Vrienten so much asthe singing idol on stage in front of an audience of screaming and swooninggirls. But simply, like an Amsterdammer on a quiet, sunny Sunday morning bythe canal – raising his head, straining his ears to catch some of theoriental, homesick chants that managed to bridge so many centuries anddistances.
Do you have an orphan story? You can send it to Annejet via her website