Max Nord

Jacob Julius Max Nord (1 April 1916 – 28 February 2008) was a Dutch journalist, writer, and translator. He was one of the main editors of Het Parool, an illegal Dutch newspaper founded during World War II.

Biography

Before and during the war Nord studied political sciences in Paris, and from 1938 on worked as a reporter for the Dutch daily Het Vaderland. He had wanted to become a poet, but found himself, as he later wrote in his autobiography Achterwaarts ("Backwards", 1998), more suitable for work "in the background". With Menno ter Braak he translated Hermann Rauschning's Gespräche mit Hitler, which led to a charge of "insulting a friendly head of state", but before any trial could take place the Netherlands were already occupied by the Germans. working and becoming close friends with Wim van Norden and Simon Carmiggelt; the men and their families lived together in Amsterdam at Reguliersgracht 111, in the "nerve center" of Het Parool, never discovered by the Nazis.

After the war After the end of World War II he edited the paper's art section. When chief editor Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart left, in 1950, he acted as the paper's temporary chief editor, not deeming himself good enough to become the permanent chief editor. In 1987 he attended the two-month trial in Lyon at which war criminal Klaus Barbie was sentenced, and wrote about it in a series of articles for Vrij Nederland and a book, Klaus Barbie: een van ons (1989). He was instrumental in bringing the 1955 photography exhibition The Family of Man to the Netherlands.

Nord also wrote books on Albert Helman, Luigi Pirandello, and Josepha Mendels, and a great number of essays, Luigi Pirandello, Cesare Pavese, and others.

Max Nord was president of the Dutch voorzitter van de Vereniging van Schrijvers en Vertalers, the Dutch association of writers and translators. Amsterdam tijdens de hongerwinter (1947) Albert Helman; een inleiding tot zijn werk (1949) Alexander Cohen, een andersdenkende (1960) Luigi Pirandello (De Bezige Bij, 1962) De pijn om zo te leven en andere verhalen (1967; translation of short stories by Luigi Pirandello, with Jenny Tuin) De aarde en de dood (1989; translation of La terra e la morte by Cesare Pavese) /

Josepha Mendels: portret van een kunstenaar (1991) Verzen (1994; gedichten) Het grote avontuur (1994; translation of Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier) Achterwaarts: memoires (1998; autobiography)