In the series This week in… we look back at historical events or important news items in Drenthe. This time: in March 1918, the first people worldwide succumbed to the Spanish flu. In our country, Drenthe in particular was hit hard.
In the autumn of 1918, widow Geertje Pieters (57) from Hollandscheveld experienced an ink-black personal drama. The mother of nine children lost three sons and a daughter to the Spanish flu in a week. “Incomprehensible,” says historian Eric Mecking, who wrote a book about it: The drama of 1918.
Death notices
At the time, newspapers in Drenthe were half full of obituaries and the church bells rang daily for yet another funeral. Mecking: ,,The then mayor of Emmen, Gauke Kootstra, was distraught. He begged the University of Groningen to send medical students to assist doctors. Because there was a great shortage of nursing staff.”
The estimated number of Spanish flu victims worldwide is staggering. It is believed that at least 50 million people have succumbed to the virus, including a striking number of people between the ages of 20 and 40. To illustrate: the recent corona pandemic demanded, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) about 15 million deaths worldwide.
Pneumonia
In our country, about 50,000 people died from the effects of the Spanish flu, which raged for two years. Especially the combination with pneumonia was fatal for many. Drenthe stands out in those figures. In the Netherlands, an average of 4 people died per 1000 inhabitants, in Drenthe this was 9 per 1000 inhabitants: more than double and the highest percentage in our country.
No other epidemic in history has hit the world so quickly and so hard. The first patient was registered in March 1918 in the United States. Initially it was unclear which disease they were dealing with. It resembled the flu, with symptoms of sore throat, cough, muscle pain, insomnia and fever.
The name Spanish flu is misleading, because the virus did not come from this country. The fact that the pandemic was called that had to do with journalists from Spain who were able to report on it because that country was neutral during the First World War.
Havoc
In his book, Mecking also pays attention to the devastation caused by the Spanish flu within families in Drenthe. But why exactly there? “A combination of factors,” he says. “There was poverty and the food, housing and hygiene were downright bad. Ideal conditions for the virus.”
According to the historian, migration also played an important role. Because of the First World War there was a fuel shortage. Although peat was actually an expiring business, many workers went to Drenthe to cut peat. Especially in the Emmen area.
“They ended up in emergency facilities or sometimes sat with ten people in a sod hut in bad conditions. The disease could spread quickly there.”
Grafdelvers
In many families the suffering was incalculable. Grave diggers were not to be envied in those days. For fear of contamination, hardly anyone dared to bury the unfortunate.
At the height of the outbreak, many Drenthe gravediggers were working in a drunken state. Out of self-protection, according to research. “People fled in alcohol,” says Mecking. Alcohol purifies, it was said.
Regional historian Albert Metselaar, who researched the Spanish flu in the municipality of Hoogeveen, said about this: ,, People drank a few drinks, picked up bodies, drank a few drinks again, etcetera. With several funerals in a row, they had so much that they no longer knew who they had buried where.”
‘Pain and misery too great’
As with the persecution of the Jews during World War II, it was no longer discussed after that. Eric Mecking: ,,The pain and misery was too great, too comprehensive to talk about. People just couldn’t. The people collectively pushed the inky black period out of their memory and went on with the order of the day. It was a silent disaster. Often the first stories about that time only emerged decades later.
In 2009, a memorial stone was unveiled at the old cemetery on the Zuiderweg in Hoogeveen to keep the memory alive of the large number of victims who died in 1918 from the effects of the Spanish flu. In Hoogeveen there were about 150, of which 90 in a few weeks.
