1936 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Gerda Van de Bunt (neé Bakker)

1929

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Interviewed on February 16th, 2021

by Ali Van de Bunt

I was born in Holland in 1929. When I was 6 or 7, I remember travelling to Amsterdam with my mother and three sisters to see a Shirley Temple movie. We really wanted to see it after my father and mother showed us a picture of a small girl with curly hair in our local newspaper. My sisters and I had never seen a movie, or the girl before. We thought her picture was adorable. My mother told us the girl’s name was Shirley Temple and that she was a famous American actress. She agreed to take us to see her movie Bright Eyes at the nearest theater. We were too young to travel alone!

In the 1930s, I lived in a small town called Limmen, in North Holland, where there were two schools (one for Protestants and one for Catholics), cows and agricultural products. I attended a one room school with only 30 people. My older sister sat 2 rows further, 2 grades higher. In my town, there was no television or radio at the time, and the nearest theater was in Amsterdam. To get to the theater, we had to walk a few miles to a nearby town to board a train to Amsterdam. From there, we would walk to the theater. Getting there was quite difficult, but seeing the movie was an extraordinary treat for me and my sisters. When we saw the Shirley Temple movie, it was hard to imagine its glamour. We had never seen a screen before. I don’t think we ever saw a television until well after World War II. Television did not come to most people’s homes until sometime in the 50’s. TV certainly changed people’s lives!

I only vaguely remember the plot of the Shirley Temple movie. I did not know English at the time. The movie was shown in English with Dutch subtitles, and I read the Dutch subtitles to try to follow the movie. But I remember my theater experience. I had never seen such a large screen before! It felt like a technological marvel and new experience, to sit in a dark mysterious room and follow the story of a girl I did not know. The theaters used to show newsreels instead of the trailers you now see, and I remember seeing the news before the movie played! Very different these days. There were no ushers and no candy. I also remember Shirley Temple singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” While watching the other moviegoers walk around the building and make comments about the film, I felt involved in the movie. I remember thinking Shirley Temple was cute, lively, and talented and that she made me feel happy.

I did not see another movie for another 10 years or so. We moved to a larger town a few years later, but by then the Germans had occupied Holland. Once again, our town did not have a theater. If I remember correctly, the nearest theater was in Alkmaar, about 8 miles up the road. Most of those years we had a curfew at 8:00 PM. We could not venture too far from home and we could not go to Amsterdam. I suppose there were some German made movies in the city but we never went there. No one I knew would want to watch them. When we moved to Niskayuna, New York, in 1946, I must have seen Gone with the Wind and Good Earth but not much else. I still remember how odd I believed it was that people were going to concession stands and eating candy at American movies! In Amsterdam, it was seen as odd to eat candy during films. 

I do not think I have seen more than 25 movies in my long life.