The Women of Anjum, Who Make Hard Men Humble

Hans Faber
Sep 5, 2020
13 min read

Updated: Nov 19

Late in the afternoon, December 28, 2018. One of the Frisian bastards arrives in the village of Anjum after a 30-kilometer hike along the coast, starting from Holwerd. It had been exactly 21 years since this quiet village was rocked by national news: the discovery of two male corpses buried in the garden of guesthouse Het Station. The killer? A woman—the guesthouse owner herself. Just to be safe, the bastard had booked a room at a different place: Hotel Wad Oars. But this hotel, ironically, turned out to be flooded with women that night. During his brief stay in Anjum, the bastard encountered just one other man. The question lingered: where were all the men? A report of One Night in Anjum.

Before we proceed, here are some key facts about Anjum’s history.

Anjum—or Eanjum in the Mid Frisian language—is a terp village located just east of the village of Morra, nestled in the far north-eastern corner of the province of Friesland. It has a population of roughly 1,100. The village is built on a terp, an artificial settlement mound constructed to protect against flooding. (Curious what these earthworks are? Check out the DIY guide: Making a Terp in Only 12 Steps)

The terp beneath Anjum is over 2,000 years old. The earliest known written reference to the village dates back to the tenth century, when it was called Annigheim or Annegum, meaning ‘homestead (heem or hiem) of a person named Ania or Aninga’ (Idema, 1977). However, a likely more accurate interpretation is Ane-inga’s heem—‘homestead of the folk of a person named Ane’ (Van Berkel & Samplonius, 2018).

In the Early Middle Ages, sheep farming was a primary livelihood for the people of Annigheim (Prummel & Van Gent 2010). Beyond wool, meat, and dairy production, it is likely they were also engaged in sea trade and peat cutting for salt production, particularly in the nearby peatlands southwest of the village—an area now known as De Kolken. Additionally, Anjum served as the stronghold of the Holdinga and Thoe Schwartzenberg families. While the Holdingastate, or ‘Holdinga castle,’ has been demolished—like nearly all of the hundreds of staten (also called borgen or stinzen, meaning ‘small castles’) scattered throughout the north of the Netherlands—the Holdinga family crypt has been preserved. It remains visible today in the vaults beneath the twelfth-century Saint Michael church of Anjum.

inland sea Lauwerszee, ca. eleventh century (www.landschapsgeschiedenis.nl)

Anjum is situated on the outer edge of the land, bordering both the Wadden Sea and the Lauwersmeer (Lake Lauwers). The Lauwersmeer was once an inland sea known as the Lauwerszee, until it was sealed off from the Wadden Sea by a massive dyke in 1969. For a time, it seemed the Dutch central government would not dam the Lauwerszee, despite it being part of the 1953 Delta Plan, as budget cuts were looming. However, after fierce protests in 1959—led especially by the Frisians under the rallying cry “De Lauwerszee moet dicht!” (‘the Lauwers Sea must be sealed off’) and backed by 135,000 petition signatures—the government relented and fulfilled its promise. The dyke was built, transforming the sea into a lake.

At first, there were no clear plans for the new freshwater lake that was created almost by accident when the Lauwerszee was sealed off. Today, however, Lake Lauwersmeer is one of the Netherlands’ national parks, teeming with wildlife—especially a wide variety of birds and plants, including the majestic white-tailed eagle. In hindsight, it proved to be a glorious accident.

National Park Lauwersmeer is also listed by the International Dark-Sky Association. The mission of the IDA is to preserve the night-time environment and protect dark skies through environmentally responsible outdoor lighting. It is a fantastic initiative. According to a newly crafted legend, Lake Lauwersmeer marks the starting point of the Milky Way galaxy—guiding pilgrims on their journey to Santiago de Compostela. This celestial glow begins at the Sea of the Frisians and leads travellers through Gaul, Aquitaine, Gascony, Basque Country, Navarre, and Spain, all the way to Galicia, where Saint James is said to be buried. All of this, as the story goes, was told by the famed medieval ruler Charlemagne himself. See also the blog post Legend of Esonstad. One of the Many Sunken Towns.

So, when the bastard arrived late in the afternoon—at that time of year when darkness falls early—he quickly learned that in Anjum and its surroundings, it does not just get dark. It gets wickedly dark.

One Night in Anjum

It was around 5:00 p.m., when the bastard stepped into Hotel Wad Oars and was greeted by a woman. The name Wad Oars is a clever play on words. Wad refers to the Wadden Sea (or Waddenzee in Dutch), often shortened simply to Wad, which happens to sound identical to the Dutch word wat, meaning 'what.' The Frisian word oars means 'other' or 'different.' Together, Wad Oars loosely translates to 'something different' and/or 'what else.'

The building on Dorpsstraat Street has a long history of hospitality. About a century ago, it was known as Het Logement (see image below). Over time, it changed hands and names: Hotel Visser, Hotel Minneboo, Hotel Pestman, Hotel Vogel, and finally Hotel Lauwersmeer.

Before the Lauwerszee was closed off in 1969, the ferry to the Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog departed from the nearby hamlet of Oostmahorn. Spending a night in Anjum was, therefore, a practical choice for travellers heading to or returning from the island.

Hotel Wad Oars before (check out the roof)

Hotel Wad Oars also has a restaurant. Naturally, the bastard asked the the staff if he could have dinner that evening.

“That’s possible,” said the woman managing the restaurant, “but I’d like to ask if you could eat a bit early. We’re hosting bingo tonight. It starts at seven.” She added, “The whole restaurant will be packed by then.”

An early meal posed no problem for the bastard. He was shown to his spacious room on the second floor. After a quick shower and a change into less sweaty clothes, he was seated at a table in the restaurant by 5:30 p.m. sharp—cutlery in hand, ready. He was the only diner. In fact, possibly the only guest in the entire hotel. The bastard published a post on Facebook that he had checked in at Anjum. Immediately he received a reply:

“Be careful there, with the killer women!”

It was pitch dark outside. Should he worry?

In the year 1996, a piece of mentally distressed driftwood ran aground at Anjum. Her name was Marianne. She had drifted along the southern North Sea coast for years—from, among other places, the city of Amsterdam, the town of Den Helder, the Wadden Sea island of Texel, and a hamlet with the charming name Moddergat, meaning ‘mud hole.’ Until she finally washed up at the northeast corner of Friesland, at the village of Anjum. Carried to this backwater by the prevailing west-to-east current of the North Sea, as it were. A stranger she was.

Once in Anjum, Marianne opened a guesthouse in the former train station on Skeanewei Street, naming it Het Station. As mentioned, this was the old train station of Anjum and the terminus of a railway line to the provincial capital, Leeuwarden. Het Station would become Marianne’s final destination for much of her remaining life—and especially for two men connected to her story. The former railway line was known as 'It Dokkumer Lokaaltje,' a local branch that was discontinued in 1998. Incidentally, the Anjum train station itself had already closed in 1935 because the last stretch of the line was unprofitable. After all, who really wanted to go to Anjum?

guesthouse Het Station before – beginning of the twentieth century

On Christmas Day 1997, the remains of two adult men were discovered in the garden of guesthouse Het Station. Marianne was arrested and, a year later, convicted by the court. She was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by compulsory psychiatric treatment (known in the Netherlands as TBS) due to diminished capacity. In 2014, she was released. To this day, Marianne maintains her innocence. Some people question whether she was the main perpetrator, suggesting she may have been merely an accomplice (Crombag & Israëls 2008, Brandsma 2022). Regardless, it remains a horrific and tragic story.

Het Hounegât – In the vaults below the tower of the Saint Michael church is Het Hounegât. Translated it means something like ‘hound pit’. It is a small room that according to tradition initially was used as a place where dogs were put when people visited the church on Sundays, or any other day. Later, around the year 1700, it was turned into a primitive prison cell with a heavy door. Here tramps, thieves, vagabonds, drunks, robbers, and other criminals were held up (Idema 1977). It is still there to see. And no, it is not being used anymore, not even then in 1997.

Back to the restaurant of Hotel Wad Oars and the bingo evening.

Around 7:00 p.m., the bastard had just finished his quick dinner accompanied by a few glasses of wine when the room began to fill with people coming to play bingo. They were all women, ranging in age from about 18 to 70. The bastard estimated there were around fifty of them. One of the women approached his table with a hearty laugh and said, “We’re the killer women. Saw your post on Facebook!” She then explained briefly that the whole murder story from 1997 actually gave the village a rare moment of distraction and fun. “Nothing ever happens here in remote Anjum,” she said. “We loved seeing our friends and neighbours on national TV, speaking terrible Dutch—because, really, we only speak Frisian properly. Hilarious!” she exclaimed.

It occurred to the bastard that if Marianne was not guilty after all, the real killer—man or woman—could very well be sitting here playing bingo tonight.

The place was packed, so the bastard moved to a corner near the bar, leaving the tables to the women for their bingo. You do not want to upset the women of Anjum—especially when you are so clearly outnumbered. Once the game began, everyone grew dead serious. Silence settled over the room like in a church, broken only by the calling of numbers and the occasional sharp “BINGO!”

In a low voice, the bastard ordered a whisky and asked the waitress behind the bar—who, like him, was from the port of Harlingen and did not speak Frisian—if these bingo nights were for women only.

“No,” she said, “it’s just that men don’t come to these bingo nights.”

“Oll righty then. What's up with the men? Where on earth have I landed?” the bastard thought.

At the bar, there was just one other man besides the bastard. After a while, they struck up a brief conversation. Like the waitress, this man did not speak Frisian either. He was a stranger too, from the town of Arnhem in the east of the Netherlands. That might explain why he was the only male in the room. He worked at the big, old windmill called De Eendragt (‘the concord’) in Anjum, in the small museum and tourist office.

“I help villagers when they need to write official letters in Dutch,” he explained.

The bastard thought to himself, "The Dutch language really is a problem in Anjum."

The so-called miller noticed the book the bastard was reading: De Traanjagers (‘the train-oil hunters’) by writer Anne-Goaitske Breteler. The book tells the stories of many young men from northeast Friesland who became whalers after World War II. Breteler had documented several personal accounts, a history that later became taboo once whale hunting was condemned.

Pointing to the book, he said, “I know her father—Anne-Goaitske’s father! Both are from this region,” and shared some stories about what they had experienced together.

"What a coincidence," the bastard thought, enjoying the evening and his whisky.

Still, he remained a bit on guard, surrounded by so many potentially killer women.

Around 10.00 p.m., bingo ended and all the prizes were handed out. The women lingered for a few more drinks, but by midnight everyone had gone home. No more women around. Feeling safe, the bastard went to bed as well.

Two hours later, he was jolted awake by loud blasts. He heard a dog barking inside the hotel—strange, since he thought he was the only one there. Soon he realized the source of the noise: a group of men outside were busy with carbidschieten—firing calcium carbide, likely using large iron milk churns. It was too dark to see much, thanks to the strict dark-sky conditions in the area. Carbidschieten is a familiar countryside tradition, especially in the north and east of the Netherlands around New Year’s Eve. The Frisian bastard soon fell back asleep.

Early in the morning, the bastard had breakfast. Today, he planned to continue his walk to the old fishing port of Zoutkamp in the province of Groningen, about 20 kilometers away, at the mouth of the River Lauwers. Rain was forecasted. Weather forecasts are often wrong—but not this time.

A different woman served breakfast that morning. The food was excellent. She asked the bastard where he lived. “The Hague,” he replied. She responded hesitantly, “Aren’t there a lot of, uh, non-Dutch people living there?” The bastard worried the conversation might turn awkward. “Yes, about fifty percent of the city’s population is of foreign origin,” he said.

She continued, “In our village, we have a foreign family too—Somali refugees. I drive them to Groningen every Friday because we don’t have a mosque here. But sometimes I wonder if the gap to Dutch culture is just too big for them. I even tried to help them with their integration exam questions once. They were really hard. And believe me, I’m not stupid—I completed HAVO (that is, higher secondary education) when I was young.”

The woman and the bastard talked about 'the world and all that.' She also mentioned her son was in the military and currently stationed in Iraq.

The bastard could not help but notice the clear disconnect between the city—the urban world—and the countryside. In the city, people decide and debate about war, yet it is the sons of villagers who actually fight those global battles. People from rural areas think in terms of community: mutual ties, shared values, and traditions. From this perspective, they question not only how to integrate newcomers from distant cultures, but also what it means for the ‘strangers’ who settle within their close-knit communities. Concepts like ‘global community’ or ‘world citizen’ feel too abstract and theoretical to them—sophisticated ideas detached from everyday life.

In a way, her simple, grounded way of thinking was correct. The global challenges of world politics do not pass the villagers by unnoticed; there is no ignorance there. Instead, the countryside is actively involved in these challenges, but from a different angle and with a unique perspective.

The bastard was happy to be out of the city bubble for a while. A reset button.

‘carbidschieten' (igniting calcium carbide)

Just as the bastard was nearly finished with his breakfast, two more guests arrived. He was not the only one staying after all. It was an elderly couple, accompanied by a small dog. “That must have been the dog barking that night,” the bastard thought to himself.

When the couple sat down near the window and the woman asked for their breakfast orders, they began to complain about the noise from the street the previous night. Their accent clearly marked them as city folk. They said the dog had been distressed and that they had seriously considered calling the police.

The woman, speaking in a calm, almost matter-of-fact tone—as if chatting about the weather with her forgetful mother—remarked that it was very wise not to call. “The boys would have loved that. You’d have given them exactly what they want. It’s a local tradition here during the short days,” she said, without a hint of apology.

Then, shifting gears, she asked, “So, fresh orange juice and fresh mint tea with ginger slices, right?” and moved on.

The couple seemed a bit rattled, struggling to reset after the conversation. They began petting the little dog frantically, which only seemed to stress it more than the blasts from the night before.

The bastard settled his bill and left the hotel, ready to drift further along the coast. Where Marianne’s journey had ended, he continued his own, following the prevailing eastward sea current. On his way out of the village, he passed the old church perched on the solid terp and the historic windmill De Eendragt. Both were closed this early in the morning.

Just before leaving the village, at the crossroads with Skeanewei Street where guesthouse Het Station once stood, a woman appeared. It had begun to drizzle, and the world had turned calm, gray, and hazy. Once again, the bastard wondered, “Where in heaven’s name are the men of Anjum?” The woman was with her little daughter, pushing a baby carriage. She paused at the crossing, keeping her distance to let the stranger pass. No traffic, no noise. No greeting either. Somehow, it felt clear that any greeting would have been out of place. Except for the soft drizzle, there was a deathly silence.

In the wheat field just outside Anjum, the bastard spotted a solitary deer in the distance. This time, it was not the usual brown—this one was black. Or was it a demon goat? Had he managed to leave Anjum just in time? Quietly and humbly, he continued on his way.

"♪ I can feel the devil walking next to me ♪"

Note 1 – Briefly the book De Traanjagers of writer Breteler about the whaling after the Second World War was mentioned in this blog post. Frisians have had a long and much too prominent tradition in hunting the whale. See our blog post Happy Hunting Grounds in the Arctic. The Way the Whale's Doom Was Sealed.

Note 2 – In the meantime the Hotel Wad Oars has yet again a different owner and name, and is now (2023) known as Hotel Toxopeus.

Note 3 – If interested in photos of this two-days hike, check here.

Suggested hiking

There are eleven – the number of fools – hikes in the Netherlands in the area around mental institutions. Often these institutes were located in remote, hence, beautiful natural areas. These can be found in the book with the title Te gek om lost te lopen ('too crazy to walk around freely'), written by Ruud van der Loo and Rutger Burgers (2000).