TV-documentary about Brongersma

On Thursday, 5 October 2000, the Dutch current affairs program "Zembla" broadcast a forty-minute documentary on the late Dr. Edward Brongersma and the collection of materials relating to child sexuality and child-adult relationships that belongs to the Dr. Edward Brongersma Foundation. The collection, intended by the Foundation for scientific research but lately considered unscientific by a specially appointed committee, has been plundered by the public prosecutor’s office in Haarlem. Zembla started out with an emphasis on the "child pornography" in the collection. For a moment it seemed that the documentary was going to revolve around this term. But we were treated to a brief yet sympathetic sketch of Brongersma's life, while a boy sang in the background. The music was taken from the collection. (That's right, porn is not the be-all and end-all.)

Fortunately the program considered Brongersma's detention in the fifties after the discovery of his relation with a boy of sixteen. The arbitrary age line is a wee bit lower now, and today's society will have to admit that the "pedophile" Brongersma was incarcerated back then for something "we, the people" no longer deem punishable.

Th. Bot, LL.M., public prosecutor in Haarlem, reported that the Brongersma collection "contains a lot of information about offenders and victims. It's a nice lead for tracing them." We were shown a detective behind a computer carefully comparing documents in order to find as many offenders and little victims as he could. This kind of people are hostile to lust, and believe earnestly that masturbation, kissing, and you name it - other forms of physical intimacy, will always automatically cause gruesome damage... to the extent that we are considering the interaction between the young and the old, of course.

Strikingly, former minister Hedy d'Ancoda praised and defended Brongersma. She thought he was "distinguished, high-principled and brave". A former chairman of MARTIJN appeared briefly and spoke reverently of the late "grand old man of the pedophile movement". We applaud our former chairman for having the balls to appear on television as in the old days, be it that this time he was filmed from behind, which was sensible. For some reason or other Zembla did not mention our association's name. Brongersma himself last appeared on television alive only a few years ago, when times had already changed and we had all been transformed into Dutrouxs. His television appearance caused a stir among the public, and Brongersma was forced to go into hiding. Disillusioned and exhausted, he requested euthanasia in 1998. It turns out now that the public prosecutor's office begrudges him even that decision: it is fighting a legal battle to prosecute Brongersma's family doctor for having put an end to the grand old man’s life.

source: 'Zembla'; From rubric 'Snippers'; OK Magazine, no. 76; December 2000