Renate Rubinstein (1929–1990)

Renate Rubinstein was born in Berlin, Germany, to a Jewish father, Alfred Rubinstein, and his wife Marie Johanne Hamm, who was not Jewish. Following the rise of the Nazi regime, the family fled to Amsterdam in 1935, and from there to London, Switzerland, and eventually back to Amsterdam.
In 1940, when she was 11 years old, her father Alfred was arrested, deported, and murdered at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. This event would become a defining factor in Renate's life and work. She was allowed to attended gymnasium (high school) during the German occupation in World War II because of her non-Jewish mother, but did not complete her schooling. After the war, she worked at the publishing company G.A. van Oorschot, and lived with lawyer (and future mayor of Amsterdam) Willem Frederik van Leeuwen. She then worked at a kibbutz in Israel for three years, and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for an additional two years. In 1955, she was accepted at the University of Amsterdam, and studied political and social sciences for two years, then dropped out to begin her career as a journalist and writer, first for the Nieuw Israëlitische Weekblad (New Israelite Weekly) and Propria Cures. Later, she wrote for Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands, a weekly magazine), Avenue (a monthly magazine), Hollands Weekblad (Holland Weekly), and the literary magazine Tirade, among others. Her weekly column in Vrij Nederland, which appeared from 1962 under the pseudonym Tamar, focused on topics as varied as world politics, Dutch affairs, and her personal life; they were extremely popular. Her bold statements often provoked heated national debates. Namens Tamar, the first collection of her columns in book form, appeared in 1964. Her 1978 account of her divorce, Nothing to Lose and Yet Afraid, was a bestseller and is considered an international classic work. She published some 25 other books and was awarded the Multatuli Prize for literature in 1979.
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1977, which she discussed in her book Nee heb je (English translation Take It or Leave It, 1985). In 1982, she delivered the prestigious Huizinga Lecture in Leiden on "Left and Right in Politics and Life."
She was married to literary critic Aad Nuis and to psychologist and columnist Jaap van Heerden. Her posthumously-published memoir Mijn beter ik (My Better Self, 1991), revealed a secret liaison with the late Dutch writer Simon Carmiggelt. In 2020, 30 years after her death, an anthology of Renate's work was published containing her columns, lectures, and letters, under the title Bange mensen stellen geen vragen (Only the Courageous Ask Questions).