Hugo Pos (November 28, 1913 in
Paramaribo
Paramaribo ( , , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's p ...
– November 11, 2000 in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
) was a
Suriname
Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...
se judge, writer, and poet.
Biography
Hugo Pos was born in Paramaribo.
Raymond
Raymond is a male given name of Germanic origin. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷ� ...
was his older brother. In 1925, he left Suriname for the Netherlands to study at the grammar school and later
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...
, and continued his studies in Paris.
In 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, and because Pos was
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, he tried to escape. His second attempt was successful and Pos managed to reach
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
via Finland, Russia and Japan. He then decided to go to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
to enlist in the army. In 1944, Pos joined the
Netherlands Indies Civil Administration, and prosecuted "minor war crimes" for the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on 29 April 1946 to Criminal procedure, try leaders of the Empire of Japan for their cri ...
in Japan. Pos was back in the Netherlands in 1948,
however he decided to return to his native country of Suriname in 1950 where he was appointed as judge and attorney general.
Pos also taught at the Law School in Paramaribo.
Eddy Hoost, the first Minister of Justice of an independent Suriname, asked Pos to return to Suriname to head the
Constitutional Court of Suriname. Pos accepted the offer, however the court was not established
until 4 October 2019. Pos started to publish under his own name after his retirement .
Writer and Poet
He wrote poems under the pseudonym "Ernesto Albin" in the magazine ''Soela'' (1963-1964) and a number of plays, including the self-directed ''Vive la Vida'' (1957) and radio play ''Black and White''. He published several collections of
quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four Line (poetry), lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India ...
s, which were later collected in ''Een uitroep zonder uitroepteken ("an exclamation without exclamation mark") (1987) and various other collections.
In his 1982 play ''De Tranen van Den Uyl'' (English: ''The Tears of
Den Uyl''), Pos writes about the
December murders
The December murders (Dutch: ''Decembermoorden'') were the murders on 7, 8, and 9 December 1982, of fifteen prominent young Surinamese men who had criticized the military dictatorship then ruling Suriname. Thirteen of these men were arrested on De ...
.
Harold Riedewald, and
Eddy Hoost were not just former students of Pos during the time he was teaching at the Law School in Suriname, but also personal friends.
The play is about a fictitious meeting between the Surinamese reporter
Jozef Slagveer
The December murders (Dutch: ''Decembermoorden'') were the murders on 7, 8, and 9 December 1982, of fifteen prominent young Surinamese men who had criticized the military dictatorship then ruling Suriname. Thirteen of these men were arrested on De ...
and his Dutch counterpart Han de Graaf, in which the events after the
independence of Suriname are discussed. Pos did not write the play as a drama, but as a means of remembrance. Even though he lived in
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
, he mentally remained in his land of birth.
In his first collection of stories ''Het doosje van Toeti'' ("The box of Toeti") (1985), he looks back on his childhood years in Paramaribo and his crossing to Holland. The stories from his second collection, ''De ziekte van Anna Printemps'' ("The Disease of Anna Printemps") (1987) take place everywhere around the globe. This cosmopolitanism can also be found in the collection of essays and travel reports that appeared on the occasion of his 74th birthday, ''Reizen en stilstaan'' ("Travel and residence") (1988), in which he also reflects on the moral implications of the judgments he had to express as a representative of the colonial authority over colonized people.
Notes
Sources
* Bert Peene, 'Hugo Pos'. In: ''Kritisch Lexicon van de Moderne Nederlandstalige Literatuur'', afl. 46, augustus 1992.
*
Michiel van Kempen, ''Surinaamse schrijvers en dichters''. Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1989
*
Michiel van Kempen, ''Een geschiedenis van de Surinaamse literatuur.'' Breda: De Geus, 2003, deel I, pp. 528–530, 548-549, deel II, pp. 736, 923, 1116-1124.
Levensbericht in het Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde
References
External links
*
Hugo Pos at the Digital Library for Dutch Literature
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pos, Hugo
1913 births
2000 deaths
Writers from Paramaribo
Surinamese judges
20th-century Surinamese lawyers
Surinamese male writers
Surinamese people of Jewish descent
Surinamese poets
Prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Engelandvaarders