Presentation: Forty Letters – to Women in War
In 2024, the artist and writer Erik van Loon was a guest at Photobastei for the first time, presenting a curated film evening featuring three short films by the Swiss‑American filmmaker Robert Frank (1924–2019), who would have turned 100 that year. This time, he presents his latest work: Forty Letters – to Women In War. In forty short, carefully written personal letters to forty different women, Van Loon transforms the horrors of the Second World War into intimate, largely biographical testimonies of resilience, courage, and total helplessness. Although Switzerland remained neutral, Van Loon wrote three of these letters about experiences connected to Switzerland.
From World‑Famous to Overlooked
Forty Letters is the result of a hundred‑day investigation through newspaper archives, academic theses, books, museums, and interviews across Europe. The book is not a parade of familiar names but a deliberate blend of icons and forgotten heroines. Van Loon writes to world‑renowned American dancer Josephine Baker, but also to living English farmer Peggy Banham.
The letters guide the reader across Europe, beginning in the First World War, moving through the atrocities of the Second, and looking ahead to the world of tomorrow. In doing so, Van Loon restores the voices of women whose stories have long been overshadowed in traditional historical narratives.
Uncomfortable Truths
Van Loon does not avoid difficult questions. Why are the four priests murdered in Rotterdam on May 10, 1940, commemorated annually, while the four nuns killed that same day in Lafelt have been forgotten? Why did Dutch police so zealously round up Roma and Sinti people on May 14, 1944—only for most to be released in Westerbork due to unlawful arrest?
The book also exposes why people in six “essential” professions were spared, how entire villages of innocent civilians were burned to the ground, and how some Danish resistance fighters earned large sums ferrying Jewish refugees to Sweden. Van Loon names not only the victims but also the convicted perpetrators—some of whom went on to enjoy celebrated careers after the war.
European Book Tour
The European Book Tour starts at Photobastei 2.0 in Zurich on April 11 and then Van Loon will read at Altroquando in Rome on April 13, Shakespeare & Company in Vienna and Massolit in Budapest on April 15 and in Sense in Kyiv on April 17. After he will read in Warsaw on April 18, Prague on April 19, Berlin on April 20, Oslo on April 21 and Copenhagen on April 22 and between May 9 an 14 he will present his book in Paris, London, Brussel and Amsterdam as part of the 3rd international 14 May commemoration.
Stop The Bomb
Alongside the annual commemoration, Van Loon gathers hundreds of signatures each year for his Anti‑Aerial Bomb Treaty. The goal is to formally draft the treaty in Warsaw on September 25, 2039, and ratify it in Rotterdam on May 14, 2040. Inspired by Princess Diana’s Anti‑Landmine Treaty, the initiative calls on nations to cease producing, stockpiling, deploying, or transferring aerial bombs. More information: www.14mei.nl/anti-vliegtuigbommen-verdrag/