{{Short description|Dutch journalist}} right|thumb|{{right |''1979''}}
'''Anet Bleich''' (born 2 September 1951) is a Dutch journalist, political commentator, author, columnist and writer.
==Biography== Ada Netty "Anet" Bleich's father was the journalist Herman Bleich (1917–1995), a refugee originally from Bochnia whose family had fled to Germany and then, after 1933, escaped to The Hague where, by this time, his sister Rosa was living, and which is where Anet Bleich was born in 1951 and grew up.<ref name=ABvolgensKR>{{cite web|title=Anet Bleich genomineerd voor PrinsjesBoekenPrijs|date=12 July 2018|author=Kemal Rijken| url=https://jonet.nl/anet-bleich-genomineerd-voor-prinsjesboekenprijs/| publisher=Jonet|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> During the postwar years Herman Bleich spent seven years as chairman Foreign Press Association in the Netherlands.<ref name=HBvolgensJD>{{cite web|title=Herman Bleich 1917 - 1995|date= 1 May 1995|author=Joost Divendal|publisher= Persgroep Nederland B.V. (Trouw)|work=De journalist Herman Bleich is zaterdag 29 april, tijdens een verblijf in Israël, na een hartaanval overleden. Bleich (77) was meer dan vijftig jaar buitenlands verslaggever in Nederland voor een aantal Duitstalige media in Duitsland en Zwitserland, onder andere de Frankfurter Rundschau en de Neue Zürcher Zeitung.|url=https://www.trouw.nl/home/herman-bleich-1917-1995~a2889e1a/| access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> For fifty years he was the Netherlands correspondent for mainstream national newspapers in Germany, Switzerland and Israel.<ref name=HBvolgensVolkskrant>{{cite web|title= Persoonlijk: Herman Bleich (1917) Journalist streed tegen schending mensenrechten|work=De journalist Herman Bleich is zaterdag in Israël overleden aan een acute hartstilstand. Hij werd 77 jaar. Bleich was sinds vijftig jaar correspondent in Nederland voor belangrijke kranten in Duitsland, Zwitserland en Israël....| date=1 May 1995| url=https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/persoonlijk-herman-bleich-1917-journalist-streed-tegen-schending-mensenrechten~b885e4ab/|publisher=de Volkskrant|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref>
Many years later Anet Bleich confided to a student-interviewer that when she was ten she had dreamed of growing up to become a "professional revolutionary, like Rosa Luxemburg".<ref>{{cite web| url=https://issuu.com/uva-alumni/docs/spui45_issuu/17 |publisher=Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) |date=February 2016| title=Anet Bleich: '...je moet de bereidheid hebben veel in je eentje te werken".|work=Spui: Biograaf worden aan de uva ... "Het is fijn om je zo lang met iemand te verbinden| page=17| access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> Subsequently, she attended the Gymnasium Haganum where she was at one stage "editor in chief" of the school magazine, ''Spectemur Agendo''.<ref name=ABvolgensSocialiter>{{cite web |title=Anet Bleich, oud-leerling|page=19|volume=20|date=2008|work=Socialiter - Vrienden van het Gymnasium Haganum|url=http://www.socialiter.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Socialiter20.pdf|publisher=Socialiter, de vereniging van oud-leerlingen van het Gymnasium Haganum, Rotterdam (Redactieadres)|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref>
She studied political science at the older University of Amsterdam. During 1969 and 1970, while still a student, she was a member of the Working Youth Group which had emerged through then university's left-wing student movements of the later 1960s. Another member of the group was her contemporary, Max van Weezel, who has also become a political journalist.<ref name=ABvolgensKR/> The two of them have subsequently then married.<ref name=echtgenotevanMvW>{{cite news|title=Journalist Max van Weezel: 'Ik geloof niet in het hiernamaals' |work=Interview Parlementair journalist Max van Weezel is ziek en krijgt tegenstrijdige berichten over zijn overlevingskansen. "Pas nu ik de dood in de ogen kijk denk ik: waar heb ik mij druk over gemaakt?"|url=https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/07/05/journalist-max-van-weezel-ik-geloof-niet-in-het-hiernamaals-a1608988|author=Danielle Pinedo |publisher=NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam|date=5 July 2018|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> Their daughter, born in 1986 has followed her parents into journalism.<ref name=MaxenNat>{{cite web|title=Max & Natascha van Weezel: 'We hebben dezelfde scoringsdrift'|author=Wiek van Gemert|date=5 June 2017|url=https://www.hpdetijd.nl/2017-06-05/max-van-weezel-natascha-van-weezel/| publisher=De Tijd|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref>
In 1972, like several of her university contemporaries Anet Bleich joined the Communist Party, remaining a member until approximately 1975. During the 1980s and 1990s, as Cold War tensions began to ease a little, her left-wing political convictions were seen to have become more nuanced.<ref name=ABvolgensLandgraaf>{{cite web| title=Anet Bleich (Den Haag,2 september 1951 ...| url=http://www.theaterlandgraaf.nl/pdf/flyer_literair_matinee_2017.pdf| date=12 March 2017 |publisher= Theater Landgraaf| work=30e Literair Matinee ... Programma| access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref>
Invited in 1997 to compare Nazism and Communism, she accepted the validity of the question, "but what I do not appreciate is the painful party-game that asks which is the worse of the two". She insists on the need to differentiate between different forms and phases of communism, asserting that communism ceases to be viable if you democratise it. At the end, the only way to reform communism was to abolish it.<ref name=LeninofHitlervolgensAB>{{cite web|title=Was lenin erger dan hitler?|work=Niet alleen in Nederland wordt aan (ex-)communisten gevraagd rekenschap af te leggen over hun verleden. De discussie die Bolkestein hier op gang probeert te brengen, wordt in het buitenland op het scherpst van de snede gevoerd. Met name in Frankrijk is de afrekening met het communisme de laatste jaren een hot item.|author1=Max Arian| author2=Sander Peters| url=https://www.groene.nl/artikel/was-lenin-erger-dan-hitler|volume=49|date=3 December 1997|publisher=De Groene Amsterdammer|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref>
Bleich spent ten years as an editor with ''De Groene Amsterdammer'', a long-established left-leaning weekly news magazine produced in Amsterdam. She later said that her journalistic identity had been largely formed by that experience.<ref name=ANbijGroene>{{cite web|title="zwaarmoedigheid was ons geluk"|volume=43|author1=Max Arian|author2=Peter de Bruijn| date=25 October 1995 |url=https://www.groene.nl/artikel/zwaarmoedigheid-was-ons-geluk|publisher=De Groene Amsterdammer| access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> In 1989 she joined ''de Volkskrant'' (a daily national newspaper) as a columnist.
Much of her work reflects her long-standing involvement in left-wing intellectualism and feminism. Her writing is also informed by her Jewish provenance. She contributes articles to publications produced by the Anne Frank Foundation.<ref name=ABvolgensLandgraaf/> She has contributed to the "Auschwitz Bulletin" of the Netherlands Auschwitz Committee (NAC).<ref name=ABvolgensLandgraaf/><ref name=LinderenindeOorlog>{{cite web|title=Kinderen in de Oorlog, vervolgd en daarna|date=1 January 2014|url=https://issuu.com/nederlandsauschwitzcomite/docs/auschwitz_bulletin__2014__nr._01| work=Auschwitz bulletin |author1=Anet Bleich|author2=Natascha van Weezel |pages=4–5|access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> Her work reflects a powerful commitment to the Dutch antifascist movement. One example among many is an article she co-wrote with Rudi Boon in the book ''Nederlands racisme'' (1984). She also addressed the topic directly in the book ''Oud en nieuw fascisme'' from the Anne Frank Foundation.<ref name=ABvolgensLandgraaf/>
On 21 February 2008 Bleich received a doctorate for her biographical study of the political leader Joop den Uyl: it was published under the title "Joop den Uyl 1919-1987. Dromer en doordouwer" (''loosely "... dreamer and persister"'').<ref name=JdEvolgensAB>{{cite web|title=Joop den Uyl 1919-1987 : dromer en doordouwe|author=Bleich, A.|url=https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=4ae73f51-bf12-4173-9fb0-5e0e019d9c6d|publisher=University of Amsterdam|date=February 2008|access-date=2 April 2019}}</ref> The work was supervised by Piet de Rooy and can be seen as the first biography of Den Uyl based on archive material and interviews with individuals involved.<ref name="ANvolgensde Witte">{{cite web|title=Historische Tafel .... Anet Bleich|url=https://www.societeitdewitte.nl/nl/agenda/2019/05/historische-tafel-80/|date= April 2019|publisher=Sociëteit De Witte, 's-Gravenhage|access-date=2 April 2019}}</ref> It makes extensive use of personal papers not previously released to researchers. It also featured on the front pages of mainstream newspapers in the Netherlands because of disclosures in it concerning the covering-up by Den Uyl of Prince Bernhard's involvement in the so-called Northrop affair back in 1976.<ref name=ABvolgensHS>{{cite news |title=Hoe de rode premier de kroon redde|work=Koningin Juliana was Den Uyl dankbaar voor zijn discrete aanpak van de smeergeldaffaires rond prins Bernhard. Dat blijkt uit een politieke biografie over de oud-premier.|date=21 February 2008|url=https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2008/02/21/hoe-de-rode-premier-de-kroon-redde-11491042-a674407 |publisher=NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam|author=Hubert Smeets|access-date=2 April 2019}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|35em}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bleich, Anet}} Category:Writers from Amsterdam Category:Dutch columnists Category:Dutch women columnists Category:Dutch political journalists Category:20th-century Dutch journalists Category:21st-century Dutch journalists Category:Dutch biographers Category:Dutch women biographers Category:Living people Category:1951 births Category:21st-century Dutch women journalists Category:20th-century Dutch women journalists