Anet Bleich

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Anet Bleich (born 2 September 1951) is a Dutch journalist, political commentator, author, columnist and writer.

She was born in The Hague. Her father, Herman Bleich, was a journalist who fled persecution in Europe and spent many years as a foreign correspondent in the Netherlands.

Bleich studied political science at the University of Amsterdam. As a student, she joined the Working Youth Group with fellow future journalist Max van Weezel. They later married, and their daughter Natascha van Weezel also became a journalist.

In the early 1970s she joined the Communist Party (she remained a member for a few years). Her views evolved over time, but she has remained strongly left‑wing and feminist in her writing. She spent about ten years as an editor at De Groene Amsterdammer, a left‑leaning weekly, and in 1989 became a columnist for De Volkskrant, a major Dutch daily newspaper.

Bleich’s work reflects her long‑standing involvement in antifascist thought and feminism, as well as her Jewish heritage. She has contributed to publications of the Anne Frank Foundation and to the Auschwitz Bulletin of the Netherlands Auschwitz Committee. She also wrote about racism in the Netherlands, including the book Nederlands racisme (1984), and wrote about fascism in Oud en nieuw fascisme.

She has been active in political and intellectual debates. In 1997 she argued that Nazism and Communism should be compared carefully, noting that the goal was not to treat them as the same thing but to understand their different forms and phases. She also believed that reform of communism would require ending it as an ideology.

Bleich spent ten years as an editor for the magazine De Groene Amsterdammer and later joined De Volkskrant as a columnist. In 2008 she earned a doctorate for a biographical study of Joop den Uyl (1919–1987), titled Joop den Uyl 1919-1987. Dromer en doordouwer, based on archive material and interviews. The work is considered a significant biography of the Dutch leader.

Overall, Anet Bleich is known for her clear, thoughtful writing, her commitment to antifascism and feminism, and her influence as a Dutch journalist and biographer.