Ode to the humble washhandje (little wash hand, aka washing mitt).
This is the setup in my bedroom, it shows an early 20th century washing set, lampetkan as we cloggies call it and it's how most people washed every day for centuries.
It's a bowl, ewer and containers for soap etc
The ewer would be filled with water and in the morning you'd pour the water in the bowl and wash yourself with it.
From experience I can tell you that starting your day in the winter by breaking the thin layer of ice on the water to then wash yourself with it is quite something!
Before you get worried, I've only used the washstand a few times for historical experimental reasons and when I lived in a house with no running water for a few days.
My farm now has a fancy bathroom with bath, shower and two sinks, two!
Flashy, I know!
Anyway, besides washing like this people also used bath houses, this dates back to Roman times but was still common as recent as the 1970s when more and more people got bathrooms in their homes.
These were near where I lived in Amsterdam, sadly they now have different functions.
Anyway, about the washing mitt.
Daily life of common people in the 1920s-40s is one of my specialities as a historian and I've been collecting stuff related to it for decades.
Here's a gem from my collection; an old dirty raggedy washing mitten;
I don't know how old it is, but it was handmade and used several tiny bits of leftover coloured material, so perhaps it was made during the war, in times of shortage.
After the war the market was flooded with cheap goods and making some things yourself was no longer needed.
But I will probably never know who made it or when, it may just have well been an annoying 1970s hippie teenager forced to make it at school!
But as it's one of those things that was a big part of Dutch daily life that was rarely saved or treasured, it's kind of rare, I love it.
The washing mitten is great, I was a bit surprised to find out they're not being used by everyone everywhere, they're very practical, not just by the wash basin but also in shower and bath.
As unmissable as the long handled brush!
Anyway, this ends my presentation on the humble 'washhandje'.
It had everything, war, half naked ladies, suffering and the blessed relief of being clean.
Conclusion; the washandje is swell.
Oh PS; here two lovely illustrations from "Health Stories, Book Two" (1933) in case you need some instructions:
The book even comes with some interesting life advice and tips;
The 1930s folks were obsessed with hygiene, it's like they just lived through a pandemic or something...
I had no idea about this, thanks Wikipedia, and hello Korea and Iran!
Of course our wash mitt is superior to the wash cloth, it even sounds better ;) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_m…
Just adding these lovely paintings to the thread;
The Child's Bath (or The Bath) from 1893 and Woman Bathing (La Toilette) from 1890–91 by American artist Mary Cassatt. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cass…
These pictures were taken by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s-1880s.
I turned them into a gif :)
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I'm getting a lot of questions about these photos, so here's what I've found;
The photos show Евгений Степанович Кобытев (Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev) and yes, it's the same man in both photos and yes, before and after his experiences during WW2.
But there's more.
Thread;
Kobytev was an artist, writer and teacher, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union he became a private gunner of the 821st artillery regiment.
Wounded in battle he became a POW in the Khorol concentration camp where 90.000 POWs and civilians, often Jews, were murdered.
Danylo Lavrentiyovych Shumuk described the German POW camp as a 'pit of death with prisoners dying like flies from hunger, exposure and epidemics.'
On this day in 1945 a brave Danish Dutch diplomat drove his car into a Japanese concentration camp and saved my grandmothers and thus my life.
A thread.
It is August 15th 1945, my grandmother and her daughter (2 years old) are prisoners in Japanese concentration camp Lampersari.
When the Japanese invaded the Dutch Indies families were separated, men and women in separate camps, the situation there was atrocious.
Not enough food, terrible treatment and lots of abuse.
Not as bad as in most Nazi camps, but still inhumane and horrific.
You may have seen the film 'Empire of the Sun', made in 1987 by Steven Spielberg with Christian Bale.
Although not without its flaws it still has a few familiar scenes to the situation my family was in.
'Paradise Road' is a film with a similar theme you may have scene.
Did you know Hitler was attacked in London in May 1933?!!
Well technically... it is the max model of him from Madame Tussauds that someone threw red paint at. ;)
I assume they put that sign on him as well, not Madame Tussauds.
Addendum; the photo shows the statue being taken to Marylebone Police court as evidence against the attackers; three men and a girl.
More pictures, but we don't know the names of the vandals yet, so we can't buy them or their descendants a drink.
Is this a Helmet of a German flame-throwing soldier, WW1?
Not quite.
According to the Memorial de Verdun it is a breathing apparatus originally used by firefighters and modified, maybe as an experimental model, to protect wearers from smoke, but was never used on the front lines.
A few pictures of similar helmets as used by firemen;
Maybe they experimented with it as a flame-throwers mask but it's all a bit vague so claiming it was a flame-throwers mask is iffy.
Maybe people just assumed it because in the museum it hangs next to a flame throwers kit.
As pic 3 shows they don't seem to have needed it.