大象传媒

On 24th of May 1944 my mother returned home from Haaren Polizeigef盲ngnis where she had visited her fiancee for the very last time. At Tilburg-railwaystation her father was waiting for her to take her home. This was very unusual she noticed. I took care of my mother the last years of her life and once in a while she talked about the war. She died last summer. After the funeral family and friends met each other . A very old niece told me this story about my mother during the war when she was about 20 years old. After the death of her fiancee she became a courier and she was told to bring a message to a farm in the country.
The German patrol leader ordered her to get off her bike and asked her what she was doing there all alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere. She answered the man that she was looking for her white rabbit. The niece remembered that after the war my mother was still astonished at the reaction of the patrol-leader who believed her and let her pass by.
After the war my mother met my father and she remembered his younger brother whom she had known before the war ; he once took her for a ride on the backseat of his motorbike. I knew that my mother always kept the R.K. Missal('De Godslamp') of her first fiancee near her in her writing- desk. Several pages of the missal have burning holes in it that exactly burned away the dates of the holy day's of the Saints. The first date that you can read again in the missal is the 26th of May.

The bookmarker is on the page with 'Prayers for the dead and the dying '; Offertorium. Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae

An article in the newspaper 'Het Nieuwsblad van het Zuiden'- dinsdag 13 mei 1975 - p.9 ,says that the deputy-commander of the Polizeigef盲ngnis Haaren , Herr Otto Blankenagel standing 120m. away from the place of execution, the dunes near Loon op Zand, a few hundred meters behind the restaurant 'Bosch en Duin', could hear R.v. Spaendonck jell ; 'Long live Wilhelmina ' immediately after the commander of the firing-squad had jelled 'Take aim'.[Wilhelmina is the name of the Duch queen. When Germany invaded our country and The Hague came under attack, queen Wilhelmina and the government escaped to Great Britain.]
I remember there was a bit of commotion in our family in the year 1975 because our mother received articles from the newspapers from her friends to inform her that 'they' were about to dig again behind the restaurant in search of the 14 shot in the early morning of 26th of May '44. 'Probably there are 16 buried here' said the former member of the resistance-group. 'Two policemen who had helped people into hide were probably killed here too. Cleared away on the authority of commanders that are still in function.' Three Germans who served during the war in the Ss and Sd came to the Netherlands under a safe-conduct issued by the Dutch Minister of Justice. No corpses were found during the investigation but last year when I visited the museum in the former 'Polizeigef盲ngnis Haaren', I was informed that a monument had been placed near the restaurant in May 2005 and probably the corpses of the men that were shot had been taken to the crematory of KZ Vught. I remember that my mother used to say that they could easily recognise the physical rests of her fianc茅e because he was wearing a ring with inscription of name and the day they became engaged.
p.s.
I noticed that there is a book called 'The white rabbit' written by Bruce Marshall . I wonder what it is about. I think that it is certainly not about 'Alice in wonderland'!

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