Anarchist Archives: A story in two parts about Jina’s House and Villa Intifada-Verzet

This article is a collection of conversations. First, a conversation between two points in time: the present and the past. They talk to each other about two old squats that now belong to the past. These neighboring houses, Jina’s House and Villa Intifada-Verzet, were evicted from Krom Boomssloot 45 and 47 in early February of 2025, after over a year of occupation. Second, this is a conversation between an old and a new anarchist: one helped squat, maintain and love the house, the other lived temporarily in the guest room. We experienced the space with different sets of eyes. And third, our conversation is an exchange between momentary lived experience and broad political narrative. Merging them helps paint the background without forgetting the subject, combining long-term revolutionary politics with short-term everyday love and rage. This way, we and others create a new space, a new address, to preserve their memory. 

In the dimension of the temporary, documentation becomes celebration, especially when something is a labor of bare hands. Squatting is one of these things. In the city, every squat has a love-hate relationship with time. On one hand, the time spent fashioning a house into a home makes it feel like more than a pile of bricks. On the other, it is the bricks thrown to make you leave, that remind you that your home is always borrowing time. So, every squat lives in a perpetual state of time blindness, because care and effort make time bendable and elastic. At the same time, they live with extreme awareness of passing time because, barring legalization, most squats exist as the living dead behind an inevitable eviction. As an ill-fated consequence, the time passed in squats violates a universal space-time continuum. How do we reconcile the intensity but speed of the time spent, after the people leave and the homes go back to being houses? How do squats remain timeless? 

The following experiences attempt to sketch the answer. They come from someone who helped open the squat and was a resident of the squat until the bitter end. They have transcended the dimension of the temporary and have found their home in these words, having lost their previous home. 

*****

I’ve been separated from a family. We’re scattered throughout different places, and we were unable to find a new place. I’ve had the incredible luck of having a squat that lasted a little over a year in a city that has fought so hard to crush the squatting dream. A big part of that dream was being able to live and cultivate a family with a crazy cast of characters who all came together out of different, desperate needs and ended up becoming attached to our home and each other. Squatting to me is that ability to live your politics and live that care and kindled community that makes you feel warm inside. It’s a type of direct action that I experienced in incredible ways. I remember the starting days of us magically making our way inside, all the way to the day that we had to pack up and leave. Every step of the way was with people that, over time, became more important than the walls and roofs that protected us from these cold and cruel streets. They became my family.

Obviously fighting the absurd housing market was also very important to us. A city that has practically become impossible to live in unless you’re making some serious money. A city that has been slowly gentrified and turned into an expat haven. The cost of living is only getting worse, rent is astronomical (forget even owning a place!) and you have to constantly steal and occupy just to survive. There’s no dignity here unless you get the chance to make a space for yourself and your community. This was especially true for me as a non-binary trans femme who lived in a FLINTA (female, lesbian, intersex, nonbinary, trans, agender) space. I not only carved a space for my community, but made myself feel safe without having to live and share that space with cis-men. I wasn’t renting. I was goddamn occupying. And that meant that we had this incredible moment in time where we were surrounded by those we chose to be around in a space we could shape however we wanted, together!

I wasn’t renting. I was goddamn occupying. And that meant that we had this incredible moment in time where we were surrounded by those we chose to be around in a space we could shape however we wanted, together!

I wanted to share some anecdotes about the space I lived in. Both good and bad. Little snapshots of what it was like to be there with us. The people I lived with weren’t always the same throughout but they each left a mark and took up a very cherished place in my heart. I don’t have full-on stories to share but a series of images I can type out that will hopefully pop into your mind. All of us gathered around a single floor because every other floor was absolutely full of hoarded possessions making it unlivable. Talking and playing chess and sleeping all together with the hope of what to do with the space. Having a private FLINTA meeting to separate the two buildings and getting wooden planks and hammers and making it official as we high fived each other with a job well done. Having meetings about occupying other spaces. Painting banners and planning strategies of resistance. Getting a late night chat and pep talk with a trans bestie living on my floor about being myself no matter what. Having people sign their names into my typewriter. Having neighbors and comrades sing their hearts out and share their stories during our open mics. Blink and you’ll miss something. Blink and a tear of joy and nostalgia leaves my eyes. Blink and you’ll have a cat, one of three in our squat, coming to get cuddles. Reminding me of how I slept in the same bed as a comrade to recover from something traumatic. Or having another comrade come to my bed because they had a nightmare. The same comrade who came to me to dance in incredible ways as we both realized how much art we would be making under this roof. Having a neighbor bring us wine, other neighbors telling us about the squatting history of Nieuwmarkt and signing a letter saying how much our squat means to them so we can take it to court. Running up the stairs for my first Ramadan meal with a table full of laughter, love and delicious food. I’m so full. Spilling even. And with the biggest hugs I gave to all those I had to say goodbye to, these bits and pieces of memory get squeezed out and land right on this page. Ready for you to digest.

Your head might be spinning. There’s so much to collect. So much more I could share. Living in a squat is messy like that. The messiness is trapped within and can even come crashing in from the outside world. We had several attacks. People threw bricks through our window on at least three occasions. Some hooligans breaking through the door and smashing our projector and harassing someone we lived with. There was also the fact that we could never have a doorbell because it kept getting ripped off as they added glue to our door’s lock for extra pettiness. We had a zionist cry in an open mic because her daughter started dating a Moroccan man. We had to kick someone out of our squat, the person to introduce me to my first squat. He had attacked multiple people, manipulated us and threw out misogynist words that would get yelled over any attempt to reconcile. Sometimes it’s hard to not have these memories shout their way into my head. Making me feel extra suspicious of living with others now. So many of my things and my partner’s things got stolen and treated like shit. Cis men constantly acting like they know better than you and lying to your face. Meetings about bouts of violence and people escalating until we walk away from a meeting feeling like nothing could ever be worked out. Having to sweep the floor and pick up broken furniture because people got into a fight and took it out on our space. The bricks from outside weren’t the only things destroying the squat. The threat could come from anywhere. Even inside. The FLINTA house also having to deal with cis women absolutely refusing to live with a trans man and having to put out fires ignited by their bigotry. Knowing that they’re better than this, hoping that they’ll change. That’s what speaks louder in my mind than the shouting. The hope. The constant hope that things can change.

It took a lot of hard work and luck to get to even write this retrospective. We empowered each other and the state once again reminded us that they don’t give a shit about people. They held within their hands the legal system backed up by threats of police violence. We got lucky to have won the first court case. The owner’s lawyer was half an hour late. Maybe that made a world of difference for the judge. Who took three weeks to eventually let us live in the squat without getting evicted. Because for the second court case, the owner’s lawyer was on time and the judge took half an hour to evict us. And what a world of difference that made for the twenty plus people that passed through the walls of Jina’s House / Villa Intifada-Verzet. Suddenly we had one week to pack our things, and all the refugees, queer people, queer refugees and others had to scurry to find a way to extend it. We negotiated outside of court for two weeks. And while we had to leave, our hearts stayed and our memories on this page remain. 

*****

So how do squats remain timeless?

The answer is simple. We embrace squatting as always a political exercise, as claiming space beyond just claiming houses. We respect the work done and the hands dirtied to make squats what they are, and commit to keeping them alive after their eviction, recognizing their importance as nuggets of resistance. While this is not an unheard idea, it is not always extended to documentation. Currently, squats largely remain timeless in the memory that forms from our experiences with them. They are not always given a more permanent and accessible place, on the bookshelves of comrades for instance. This does not mean we need to advertise squats to those outside the scene, only that those within the scene can channel their love for their past houses into art, into documentation. There are understandable reasons for why this is rare, as evictions come so quick that ritualizing and celebrating buildings for the beauty and joy they brought us can feel more defeating than simply turning the page and fighting on. This is the tension that lives in movements outside the system: shut the door and open another one, keep the door open and risk falling behind. However, this tension is never more powerful than autonomous action. So, we reject the idea that the material and the political must compete for space in the movement. There is autonomy and capacity for both in different ways: for example, allies and supporters of squats with more time on their hands can assist with archival. Essentially, a healthy blend of the material and the political keeps squatters on their feet and squats in our memory. The only catch is that, just like running a squat, documenting a squat must also be collaborative. 

Our gaze falls now to the Nieuwmarkt, Jina’s and Intifada. It goes without saying that squatting has always been prominent in the neighborhood’s ecosystem. Not only have many a squat come and gone, the Nieuwmarkt is a historic core for the flourishing of the movement. In 1975, the entire area became the base of operations for the riots against the construction of the metro, which evicted lifelong residents. During this period, recently radicalized students and activists turned to squatting as a way of preserving the historic area and making use of the open space. Actions were planned, municipal meetings were disrupted (“evicted”), and “the mansion of transport minister Westerterp was plastered over with posters. When the minister attempted to intervene, he got a splash of wallpaper paste in his face1.” As old houses were emptied, new squats crystallized to assist and fuel the riots, and all of Nieuwmarkt became a squat. Some of these still exist today (like Fort van Sjakoo on the Jodenbreestraat) and every new squat becomes a temporary companion of these living and breathing histories. It is here that Jina’s and Intifada come into the picture. Having painted this picture of the past and present, they were important for two reasons. First, in sticking with the tradition of the neighborhood, they assisted activists during the protests for Palestine in May 2023. At their height, these protests formed a bridge between the squatting community and the student activist community. While never a perfect relationship, this fusion rehabilitated some lost faith in the possibility for the radical left of Amsterdam to meet halfway and organize during times of crisis. They also helped integrate students like me into the squatting scene. Furthermore, such willingness to collaborate with the protests indirectly led to the emergence of new squats and organizing centers, such as the first and second People’s Universities. So, Jina’s and Intifada find timelessness as a piece in the domino chain of connected movements, a free space defending a free Palestine. 

Second, in sticking with the tradition it helped evolve the tradition. Jina’s House, the three-floorer on Krom Boomssloot 45, has been one of the only, if not the only, FLINTA squats in the Nieuwmarkt’s history, and the most recent. Like every movement, the squatting movement needs spaces for those oppressed by patriarchy to exist and express. FLINTA spaces fit this bill. Not only do they create a pocket of safety in a world that is unsafe for non-cis men, but they assist in the transformative journey of finding oneself outside of patriarchy. The salience of this mission cannot be understated. No movement is completely outside the system until the system is abolished. All resistance exists on a gradient until it is no longer resistance. Hence, like every movement, patriarchal patterns and dynamics emerge and need the right care to dismantle. But this care cannot emerge without a roof over its head. This is why Jina’s House especially is a historical artefact. As a FLINTA person, I cannot understate what it meant to feel safe in that way, even if temporarily. 

In this momentary relapse, we have mapped the scene and scenery surrounding Jina’s and Intifada, their position in the history of the neighborhood, the squatting movement, and anarchist archival. For the squatting movement to exist as a political being, narrative is central. And narrative cannot be totalitarian. For an autonomous movement with an autonomous base, narrative is the stew of individual expressions. It is the compendium of voices more powerful than any party line or doctrine. But narrative does not exist without experience. To understand squatting, soaking up the narrative and tasting the stew is never enough. Squatting is just as much political as it is material. Narrative does not exist without experience, and experience is temporary, every memory an instance that we steal from fleeting time and turn into our space. In that sense, all experience is squatted. Our experience is squatted. 

References: 
1. Spookstad. Take Back Mokum: Squatting and the housing struggle in Amsterdam. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2024.