The Girl in the Grass The tragic fate of the Van den Bergh family and the search for a painting
Can parents ever overcome the loss of their children? Theirs was a happy family: Jaap and Ellen van den Bergh and their two daughters, Rosemarie and Marianne. Then the German army invaded the Netherlands in May 1940 and everything changed. The family was of Jewish descent and they were no longer sure of their lives. By selling a serene painting by Pissarro, The Girl Lying in the Grass, they funded the expenses of their hiding place. Jaap and Ellen van den Bergh survived the war. For a long time they searched for their daughters – a futile feat, as the girls had been betrayed and were murdered by the Nazis.
The war-time sale of the painting, which was meant to keep them safe, made the work unobtainable for the family after the liberation and it eventually ended up in Germany. After the liberation, a third daughter was born. She honoured her sisters by posing for Anne Frank’s statue on Amsterdam’s Westermarkt. Of a painting by Pissarro, she had no knowledge. Until one summer day in 2016. An unexpected letter turned her life upside down.
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Annelies Kool
Expert Centre Restitution
Within the NIOD, Eelke Muller is affiliated with the Expertise Centre for Restitution (ECR), which conducts independent and impartial research, both independently and on commission, into the loss of cultural goods under the Nazi regime and into restitution. Read more about the ECR.