大象传媒

When a road had been closed off and I saw a truck parked in the middle of the street and armed soldiers going in and out of houses, I froze, especially when people were being led to the truck. The only place I wanted to be was at home.

My parents were very well aware of the danger they let themselves and the family into. Believe me; it must have taken a lot of heart-searching. Once you got involved, there was no way back. They could not have lived like a good Christian without helping others in need.

Many years later I asked them if they would do it again, knowing what was to come? After some thought, their answer was still, 鈥淵es, we would鈥�.

Mr.S, had fallen in love with Matty and decided he preferred to live together at the same address and also moved to Lien and Jan Marijnis鈥� top flat. He wanted to leave his clothes at our house, behind locked doors. So now and then he would call in to change, but always after my bedtime. I rarely saw them.

Nobody knew about that impressive German officers-uniform or the revolver in his wardrobe. Who could have known? My mother certainly didn鈥檛. For her own protection, she was kept out of all the goings-on. She was incapable of telling lies, even white ones. Had she known about Wim, she might have been caught out, when people asked after him. Right up to the end of the war she believed he was in Germany, which worried her beyond imagination. She suffered in silence, rarely showing her feelings for Hans and my sake.
Neither my father nor Willy had told her that Wim was in hiding in De Bilt.

Nevertheless, stress took its toll. She was dissatisfied with her photo on her I.D.card and had another one taken, on which she looked so old and haggard, showing the strain, that she stuck with the original. There was worse to come!

Poor Matty! Her mother had been arrested and she was told that she would be released if she, Matty, could arrange a meeting with Mr.S. What was she to do? The advice, of course, was dead against it. The Germans were obviously on his trail and he would be a big catch! Whatever happened, I don鈥檛 know, except that they met on het Valkenbosplein and she kissed him, whereupon Mr.S was arrested and taken to the Gestapo Headquarters. Here he was spotted by an under-cover resistance worker, who heard that an address book with names had been found on him. Unforgivable!

Mr.S always carried a cyanide pill, just in case. Whether he was able to swallow it, is not known. His body was later identified by his teeth. Matty鈥檚 mother was never seen again, neither was Matty. All I knew, at that time, was that Mr.R had not come home that night. The next day started like any other. My father and Willy had gone to work. I was off to school and Hans and my mother enjoyed their time together.

At midday I hurried home for lunch, but nobody was in! I panicked. This had never happened before. I rang the bell, banged on the door and screamed. Lien found me sobbing at the bottom of the outside stair-case. I was frantic! She put her arms around me and explained that I would find my mother and Hans at Hedwig鈥檚 house at the end of our block of houses. Her husband, Toon, was at sea working with the Allies. He and my father had been friends since their school days. I sprinted the 100 meters, or so, because I was afraid that I might be too late back for school. Also, what about my lunch? I was hungry! My mother was sitting on a chair with Hans on her lap. She looked ashen. Perhaps she was ill? On this beautiful, sunny day she was wearing the terracotta dress she had just finished knitting the night before. What was going on?

Within minutes of Mr.S's arrest the members of this resistance group had been alerted by way of a jungle-drum method. The advice was to go into hiding immediately, with their family.My father had been warned at the office and he in turn warned Willy.
Dr.V. did one of the rounds on his bike and told both Lien and my mother,
鈥� Get out!鈥� and was on his way again to warn others.It took place quite early that morning, my mother wasn鈥檛 even fully dressed yet. She was too scared to go upstairs, so she put on her knitted dress, which she had left in the living room.
She may have taken her purse and maybe a toy for Hans, certainly nothing else.
She picked Hans up and left the house.
Lien didn鈥檛 think there was any need yet for such a hurry. Besides, she and her husband, Jan, relied also on a cyanide pill and they decided to stay put.

My father, meanwhile, was waiting anxiously at the station. My mother was waiting for instructions from him. Willy raced up and down on her bike to convey their messages. It would have been so much simpler if we had had a telephone in those days.

During Willy鈥檚 time of work experience at the Van Leer鈥檚 Vatenfabrieken, she had stayed for a few months with Mr. and Mrs.Mulder in Vreeland. He had given her their address 鈥� in case. Finally, the three of them, my father and mother with Hans left The Hague for Vreeland, where my father remained. After a couple of days it was thought safer for my mother to go to uncle Ab, her brother in Kampen.Willy moved in with distant relatives, Rein Lenghaus and his three daughters, on the other side of The Hague, het Bezuidenhout.

There were not many hours to spare before the start of the curfew.Where could I be taken to at such short notice? This was a big problem! Willy put me on the carrier of her bike and refused to listen to my whining. I wanted to go to our house 鈥� I wanted my mum 鈥� Where are we going to? Etc.
She probably told me to shut up. Understandable, of course. After all, she must have been under a tremendous strain.
At her wits鈥� end, she had decided to ask Ds. Straatsma for help.

He was the vicar by whom she had recently been confirmed, after attending his classes for the past year. Willy held my hand and rang the bell.

I recognised him straight away from the story-telling in church and as the man with the three moustaches. He had enormous black eyebrows.I was welcome, providing it would only be for few weeks or so.
They were a very kind, older couple with a different life style from ours. I was just in time to join them for dinner. I presumed that the finger bowl was for drinking out of. A good start! It must have been as difficult for them as it was for me. All I had were the clothes I stood up in, and that was it. No special
outfit for the Sunday. I sat next to Mrs. Straatsma in her pew. The church was over full. I heard her whisper to a friend, who wondered who I was, that I was a child of a family on the run.

This was the end of my childhood!

It did not take the SS very long to turn up at Marijnis鈥� and our house. Armed soldiers ran up the stairs and arrested Lien and Jan, who were both at home. Jan was sentenced to death and executed, maybe something to do with being a policeman.
Lien was tortured, because they had found an empty holster in their house and they wanted to know the whereabouts of the revolver and the jewellery belonging to the Jews in hiding. Finally they let her go.

At the same time they were banging on our door, furious that nobody was in.
They sealed the lock, which meant that the contents had now been confiscated and ready to be collected.

The events of the last few days had been quite a blow to my mother and the fear for my father was choking her. Now she was about to lose her home, as well as the laboriously collected belongings. It saddened her deeply. Willy thought it a downright shame!

Besides, there was still that uniform and the revolver, together with a huge supply of cigarettes and expensive cigars, which my father was storing for a befriended tobacconist. Not to forget the stamp collection and the photographs.. Willy鈥檚 mind was quickly made up. It was worth the risk.

First of all, the seal had to be broken. That was a daring deed in itself!
There was no knowing when the SS would return to collect the contents鈥�
The first time the bell rang, Willy jumped out of her skin, but it only happened to be the milkman. It made her realise she had to have an escape-route ready.鈥榁ia the roof鈥�, she told me later.She packed for three days and three nights, as quickly as possible. To avoid suspicion from the outside she left the curtains behind. The vast amount of bottled food she handed to a neighbour to look after, until it could be picked up at a later date. She had even packed a separate suitcase with clothes for each of us. What a godsend that she had even thought of that!

She had ordered a removal van for 5.30 a.m. and when it drew up, she handed them the keys and she herself hid behind a bush in the park to watch it all going according to plan. Part of the contents was bound for uncle Ab in Kampen, who had a ware-house,
The rest was being stored in a garage in the Celebesstraat, which Willy had rented. One can only imagine how she must have felt when she turned the key in that lock!
After the war I heard how it had enraged the Germans when they found that the birds had flown and the house had been emptied. The indentations of the butts of their guns had marked the front door.

An all-out hunt for my father had already begun. At 1 a.m. the SS arrived at the house of his boss, Mr.Van Oortmersen, and because he could not give them any information, he was arrested and deported to a concentration camp in Germany, where he remained until the end of the war.
Opa could not tell them either where his son might be. He was taken to the Scheveningen prison, alias 鈥極ranje Hotel鈥�, together with Trijn, his wife, and Frits, where he was interrogated by the Gestapo.
My father was devastated and wanted to turn himself in. However, it was pointed out to him that that would not release them and that he would be shot, if he were lucky. 鈥楾here was still far too much to be done for so many others鈥�. There may have been inside help. After a week Opa and Trijn, including Frits, were free to go. Opa even asked for the return of the box with the silver guilders that had been taken at the house-search! I don鈥檛 know whether it ever was. My father had obtained a new ID card in the name of Swaagman, who had been born in Indonesia, which could not be checked, because of the war with Japan.
His present address was a bombed housing estate, somewhere in Groningen.

The most dangerous part was the taking of the legitimate photograph with your left ear showing. He decided to wear spectacles for this occasion. His picture showed his anxiety!

The Resistance had asked the RAF if they would bomb the Kleikamp, a large villa opposite the Peace Palace in The Hague, where the data of the population were kept, because they needed to be destroyed as a matter of urgency. This took place in April 1944. Only from then on could my parents, and everybody else with false papers, begin to feel a little more at ease with their new identities.

My mother did not really have enough to occupy herself with in Kampen. She missed my father and the distance between them made her feel lonely. On very rare occasions, she and Hans would travel to Vreeland to visit him for a weekend. Far from an ideal situation. As it was, uncle Ab and aunt Kitty, his wife, lived above the premises of his transport business with far too many strangers moving about the place. Besides, they had just become the parents of a baby daughter, Margreet.
My mother was concerned about the danger in which she was putting her brother and his family and she also realised their fear about her staying with them. When she heard Willy鈥檚 good news she was so happy and so relieved. Through contacts with Mr.Stoffels and his Jewish wife, Willy had managed to rent a large room on the second floor at the back of their old patrician house in the Joh.Verhulststraat. A quiet area in Amsterdam-Zuid. Our furniture from the garage in The Hague was moved in, including the piano. It happened to be a most welcome fall-back address in time to come!

As for me, my weeks at the Straatsma鈥檚 had come to an end. To my surprise I met up with Fred again at my next address. We were both delighted and hugged each other like long lost friends. A pity that I could only stay there for a week. Fred appeared extremely happy living with the family Landrok and not having children of their own they, in turn, had really taken to him. They formed a cheerful trio. I am sure I was jealous and felt left out.
They could handle Fred, but not me. I was mixed up and unsettled, even dramatically threatening with suicide if the war had not ended in three weeks. A week later Willy came to collect me. They were pleased to see me go!

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Theodora Coleman and has been added to the site with his permission. Theodora Coleman fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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