In memoriam Jan van den Ende




On 19 October 2008, the well-known Dutch nature film maker Jan van den Ende died in his home town of The Hague, The Netherlands. He was 86 years old.

an grew up in The Hague in the nineteenth-century Bezuidenhout district. Together with friends, he went out often to study birds. In 1938 the well-known Dutch film maker of that day Jan C. Strijbos made him a member of the The Hague Bird Protection Society.

During the Second World War, Jan got involved in the Resistance Movement against the German occupation. The first time he got arrested, he was sent to prison in Kleef in Germany for six months. When he came back he continued with the Resistance and in May 1944, he got caught a second time. This time, he was questioned in Scheveningen prison in The Hague, then moved to the SS camp in Vught. From there he was deported to the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen which he managed to survive. After the war he started to work for the Dutch ministry for the Interior, where he continued until he reached the age of retirement.

In all these years, nature remained his chief interest in private life, and he started taking photographs with a 6x6 camera and filming on 8mm film. In the early seventies he met Bob Schrijvers, who persuaded him to buy a 16mm film camera. Together they made two nature documentaries, "Live and Let Live", and "Reedbeds in the Suburbian Area".

After Bob died, Jan found a new partner in Monique van den Broek. Together they produced many more nature documentaries for nature societies and government organisations. A highlight is the series of lectures Jan and Monique gave at het request of the National Audubon Society USA in 1984, based on the film "The Dutch Dunes". For their films, Jan and Monique received many awards at film festivals all over the world. In 2002, they were granted the Abraham Schierbeek Award, a prestigious Dutch nature award. Their most recent film SAND, WIND, WATER was first shown on 20 June 2008.

In July 2008, Jan was involved as an actor instead of a film maker in a documentary for the first time in his life. It concerned the documentary "Retourtje Sachsenhausen" (Ticket to Sachsenhausen), in which the transport from Vught to the concentration camp was relived. His was the main role, beside a modern school girl who had no idea of what such transports had been like. Unfortunately, Jan never saw the film presented to the public. He died, unable to complete all the plans he still had for films and lectures. He will be deeply missed.

We first met Jan at Wizna in 2000, at our First Festival. Together with Monique, he was presenting his "Nature at Your Doorstep", a film which won one of our Special Awards. For the second time we met at the Third Festival at Goniądz, where their film won an Honourable Mention.

We knew they were completing another film of their making...
And we were waiting to see both of them again?

Jan was a truly important person for us.

Jan van den Ende and Monique van den Broek: Premiere "SAND, WIND, WATER"

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