EN

Cursus Zelfontwikkeling

Institution for correspondence courses.

Location

Amsterdam

52.36553 N 4.875403 E

Bosboom Toussaintstraat 46

Amsterdam

Nederland

Address: Bosboom Toussaintstraat 46, te Amsterdam.[1]

Cursus Zelfontwikkeling (Self-development course) was an institution that offered correspondence courses used by the people in hiding in the Secret Annex to learn shorthand. Since at least 1916 Zelfontwikkeling offered correspondence courses in modern languages, bookkeeping and shorthand, among others[2] The institution advertised for years in Dutch and Dutch-Indonesian newspapers. The most last known advertisement is - as far as known - from May 1946.[3]

Early 1940, the shorthand course cost sixty-five cents a month.[1] In September 1943 it cost eightyfive cents per month.[4] Before the end of that year, the price had risen to one guilder per month.[5] Bep Voskuijl arranged the course for the people in hiding in her own name.[6]

Footnotes

  1. a, b Herstel. Algemeen Katholiek Weekblad, 16 februari 1940.
  2. ^ Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 22 april 1916.
  3. ^ Limburgs Dagblad, 22 mei 1946.
  4. ^ Dagblad van Noord-Brabant, 3 september 1943.
  5. ^ Dagblad voor Noord Holland, Schager editie, 3 december 1943.
  6. ^ Anne Frank, Diary Version A, 15 October 1942, in: The Collected Works, transl. from the Dutch by Susan Massotty, London [etc.]: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.