Prominent Dutchmen
Prominent Dutchmen were held prisoner in the camp in Sint-Michielsgestel, such as Jan de Quay, Niko Tinbergen and Max Kohnstamm. It was not a harsh camp and the prisoners undertook all sorts of activities to kill time. On Thursday 24 June 1943, for instance, a lecture was held about the famous British composer Willem Spark, who had died a hundred years earlier. The audience was treated to all manner of stories about the composer, who must surely have been a great man: after all, a street in Amsterdam had been named after him. The gathering was a success and the stories went down a treat.
A fan of Spark
That the gathering was such a great success is all the funnier because this Willem Spark never existed. The composer is an invention, born out of criticism from a few prisoners, Tinbergen in particular, who thought the standard of earlier lectures was far too low. To prove the point, Spark was brought to life. A few listeners are even said to have claimed to be great admirers of Spark's work. Impossible, of course, because the composer never existed.
A street for Willem Spark after all
The story has a happy ending, because Willem Spark did manage to get a 'street of his own' after all. And close to the place where he first saw the light of day: in Sint-Michielsgestel. There is a wood there that has come to be known locally as the Duitse Bos (German Wood), but an official naming met with objections because the wood was planted by prisoners. In the end it was decided to name the street after Willem Spark: never lived, yet existed.
