Yvo Verschoor – Onderduik en dan? Een zoektocht naar mijn moeder. – Theater na de Dam

• 4 May 2026
  • 21:00

This new production, also in the form of a film concert narrative, is based on the story of Yvo’s mother, Julieke de Levie, who, like her entire family, had to go into hiding as a 13-year-old girl and, after various addresses in Friesland, finally ended up on Schiermonnikoog. She survived the war thanks to teacher Martha Karst, who took Julieke in. Upon returning to Amsterdam after the liberation of Schiermonnikoog in June 1945, it turned out the family had indeed survived the war, but a happy ending doesn’t always mean that everything goes smoothly afterward.

When Yvo was 13, Julieke fell into a deep depression and took her own life. Julieke was 50 at the time.

Was it a choice, or was she forced to? Was it menopause? Did it have to do with the events of her childhood in Amsterdam, with how Jews were viewed, or with the silence surrounding everything after the war? Did it have to do with her father, or with not being allowed to be there, with compensating for that feeling, or perhaps with excessive or disappointing expectations?

How do you cope with the loss of a loved one whom you only knew as a child? How do you still get to know her through others?

Questions, questions, questions, and more questions, and every answer seems to raise new questions.

A personal quest for identity, a recovery of love after sadness, anger and pain.

And how do you translate all that into music?

We’re working on it! 🙂

Composition and music: Yvo Verschoor