´óÏó´«Ã½

The winter had made its entree with a vengeance and much earlier than usual.
When I woke up I noticed the inside of the windows covered with patterns of pretty frost-flowers, which meant that it was bitterly cold outside.
Willy had come to Vreeland to take me to Amsterdam. We would definitely have travelled by train, if they had still been running.Neither Willy nor I was looking forward to a journey by bike in this weather and hopefully this would be my last long jaunt on the back of one.
The Mulders were quite concerned. After hugs all around, they double-checked that I was well covered up with even my head wrapped in a scarf, leaving just a slit for my eyes. My hands and feet felt like blocks of ice when, after several hours, we finally arrived at Willy’s rented room in the Johannes Verhulststraat, where I was going to be with my mother and Hans.

Willy was cold and tired and decided to go straight home to the Uitweg, to aunt Elisabeth’s home, where she was staying at present. It was also the only safe place to keep the bike and besides, she had to be in before the curfew.

I had been here only once before on a very short visit. All I remembered was that the Joh. Verhulststraat had a long row of beautiful big trees in the middle of a wide road.

I was overjoyed to be re-united with the family and I couldn’t wait to run up the stone steps. I dashed up the stairs to our room at the back on the second floor to surprise my mother and Hans.
I was home! We had a lot to talk about, but once I had warmed up it didn’t take me long to fall asleep in one of our own beds. Whatever the outside world, this room with its familiar furniture was our sanctuary!

All the other rooms were let, including the basement. Once or twice we passed the occupants of the front room, but we never saw the others. Our room looked out on the large back gardens of the houses around us and where, at regular intervals, a tree was being chopped down for fire-wood.
Since the 9th of October, North-Holland had been the first province without electricity and a few days later the gas was disconnected too. People had to resort to emergency stoves. Ours was a Majo, which looked like a large coffee tin with a small opening to draw the draught and it would only burn very small pieces of dry wood. It was placed on the original stove for safety. My mother never got the hang of it and would rather leave it to my father.
It was quite an art. It needed continual blowing into the vent to keep it alight.
However, since the rations had been reduced drastically and the food became so scarce, there was little use for the majo, except for boiling water.
The room in the Johannes Verhulststraat was mainly used by Willy or my parents for an occasional break. As a rule, they all lived together at aunt Elisabeth’s and as from now, I was going to stay there as well.
It was a long way, much too far for Hans, whose feet had not quite healed up yet, so my father decided to collect him. With each trip you always ran the risk that your bike might be confiscated, especially in the city, but Hans’ feet could give him a valid excuse, in case he was being stopped. Besides, a bike without tyres was less in demand.
Not so long ago, the city-tram would have taken us as far as Sloterdijk, a small village on the fringe of Amsterdam-West, but since the electricity cut and people making off with the sleepers for fuel, no more trams meant that my mother and I had to go on foot. Fortunately we were good walkers.
We had so much to talk about on the way, that I was not aware of either distance or time. My mother told me that Annamie was back - I didn’t know she had been away! My aunt thought, her daughter would get better fed if she went to stay with an uncle in Bergen, but she was home-sick and had returned a week later. Good, otherwise I would have been without her company. We were about the same age and we got on very well together.
I heard about their fun on St.Nicholas’ Eve, albeit without the usual goodies.
Nothing could possibly have broken the tradition of writing poems, even without any presents. However, there was a surprise! A bunch of carrots each!
A pity, I had missed all this, as I was still in Vreeland.
Before I realized, we had reached Sloterdijk and the end of the built-up area. My heart sank!! Ahead of us was an enormous expanse of sky, right down to the horizon, covering a never-ending, flat landscape of empty fields and a few isolated farms. How much further? Where was the house?
We kept following the main road alongside the Haarlemmer Trekvaart, the oldest canal in Holland, until we came to a windmill where we turned left into a narrow road, appropriately called, the Uitweg ( the Road To Nowhere).
At last we could see the house, about another half a mile away.
Before the schools closed down, my cousins had to walk this distance every day in all weathers. I could not believe that it took them only half an hour.
It was the only house in the Uitweg, standing all by itself. The nearest neighbour was a farm a bit up the road. We crossed the hump-bridge, past the large willow-tree by the side of it, towards the front door.
It was a big place. It had to be, because we were now with thirteen!
Five of us, five of aunt Elisabeth’s and three more ‘lodgers’. I knew about John, Fred’s brother, age-wise between Hans and Wim, my other cousin. On the way my mother had told me about tante Hans, who apparently was an excellent cook and old opa Johannes. And he was old! When I met him, he was fast asleep in a chair with a hanky over his thin face and a cap on his head. He was annoyed when we poked fun at him, but we resented to have to be quiet for so long. I didn’t know at the time that they were Jews in hiding.
There had been no point in objecting when a decree was issued to billet twelve German soldiers in the attic. After a few weeks, the men convinced their commander that the house was too over-crowded and got him to agree that the soldiers could move into the shed instead, provided they had free access to the bathroom. This was a much better arrangement under the circumstances!
The family’s big advantage was a 50 cm. metal pipe , the ‘gas-bell’, suspended in the willow tree. This indicated the presence of Germans and therefore, when a raid took place, this house was left alone. We were safe in the lion’s den!
Just as well I was warned that I might suddenly bump into a soldier on the stairs or in the kitchen. The first time it happened I felt ill at ease, they carried a gun everywhere, even to the bathroom! We didn’t really meet them very often.
All day and every night the continuous drone of heavy bombers on their way to Germany was a reminder of war-time. During the day we saw them coming over in large formations. (Americans by day and British by night) Across this part of Holland they tried to fly high enough not to get within the reach of anti-aircraft guns. If a plane had been damaged during their mission and was trying to return to Britain, it was an easier target to be shot down, even using rifles!
In case one crashed, Germans and Resistance alike would be on the look-out for a baled-out pilot. It was essential to get rid of his parachute first, so he stood a better chance to be rescued. At night the sky was lit up by search-beams. When an aircraft was pin-pointed inside two or more crossing beams, a strong battery came into action, but they were still flying fairly high. We had a good view from the attic-window! It was as if they played the game: Catch me, if you can!
Although without heat, we lived in a nice, big house and had plenty to do.
Before all else, each day somebody had to go to the farm across the road and buy a litre of milk. I didn’t like it when it was my turn, because of the rats.
I was petrified of them. They scattered in all directions as soon as I opened the back door. Whenever I had to cross the bridge towards the house, I would first pick up a stone and throw it on the path along the side of the house, to make sure they had gone. I wondered if they lived in the ditches ….or in the shed?!
My cousins had their daily music practice. Annamie played the violin and Bep the piano, like my aunt, whose ambition it was to form a trio when, in a year’s time, Wim should be old enough to take up the cello.
The teacher, who came once a week, was difficult to please and the lessons invariable ended in tears. I felt sorry for them. It was lovely when they played pieces together since we all liked hearing the sound of music.
Uncle Arie, who was in the merchant navy, liked to tinker with the radio, constantly trying to improve the reception of the receiver, which was hidden behind a switch in their bedroom. He had devised a method to supply electricity with a bicycle-dynamo. When it was time for a ´óÏó´«Ã½ broadcast we took it in turns to pedal the( upside-down) bike, whilst the others were on the look-out to give a signal in case a German needed the bathroom.
The banister got polished so often, it could function as a mirror!
We all lived in harmony together, trying hard to avoid misunderstandings.
My uncle could be very grumpy at times. By a stroke of luck he happened to be on leave when the war broke out. He missed being at sea on his ship, but most of all he missed his tobacco. He even tried smoking dried oak-leaves! It cheered him up no end, when he and my father went scouring the neighbourhood for pieces of wood for the cooker. They enjoyed thinking up useful projects together. The low-lying garden was most unsuitable for growing vegetables, even if seeds had been available. It was quite boggy, hence the idea of peat-cutting was worth a try! It might have worked, if they had found a way of drying out the blocks, which was difficult in the middle of winter!
Another time they were planning how to build a sort of kiln in the garden for baking bread, but first someone had to go out and try to get hold of some grain. The manual coffee-mill had proved to be an ideal item for grinding.
The food situation had gone from bad to worse. Most people looked gaunt and many started to die of hunger. We were not the only ones calling on farmers.They received an ever-increasing number of people asking for food and some of the farmers got fed up. Most wanted a lot of money, while others preferred goods, like linen or jewellery. You do anything when you are hungry!
So now and then Willy and aunt Elisabeth went together and it could take them all day to cycle from one farm to the next. Each time they had to go further and further afield. They were only too happy to return with a small amount of potatoes and a little bag of grain.
When my aunt started to feel unwell, uncle Arie helped out. My mother felt it as her duty to do her share and travelled as far as the farms across the big rivers. After all, they were not occupied anymore, so finding food might be a bit easier. Passing the German guards on the bridge presented no problems, they knew she would return. She managed to fill her bike’s carrier-bags, but on her way back was searched by the guards and all her arduously gathered food got confiscated.
When my mother arrived home, empty-handed, she cried.
Feeding a large family like ours was no easy task! Our piano in the Verhulststraat was sold to the farmer opposite. He was so pleased, that he made sure we were a little better off for milk and occasionally we got a few eggs.
The milk for the soldiers was delivered every day and put on the work-top in the kitchen, a jug for each of them. It was as tempting for us as it was for the Prussian, minor aristocrat, Freiherr Von Sietzowitz. He jumped out of his skin when my aunt caught him spooning the cream from the others’jugs into his own. Only the day before, when he swept a path, had she told him that a broom was for sweeping not caressing a pretty girl! He grinned and didn’t argue.
When it was bitterly cold we would share our beds and stay there all day, draping a blanket around our shoulders. We played games or read a book. Willy took the opportunity to study for her short-hand exams.
The adults would take turns to get up and make us all something to eat.
The sweet and sickly smell of sugar-beets would waft through to the upstairs.
After the horrors of Kristall Nacht in 1938, tante Hans had fled from Nazi Germany and taken refuge with one of her relatives in Amsterdam, where she should be safe, or so she thought. When the persecution of Jews also started to take place in, meanwhile occupied, Holland, her relatives had to go into hiding and thus tante Hans ended up at aunt Elisabeth’s as one of the family.
We all loved this motherly, chubby lady in her 50’s, who spoke Dutch with a strong German accent. She joined in with everything, but took charge of the cooking. It was remarkable what she was able to concoct with so very few provisions. Food was everybody’s main topic of conversation when meeting with friends or neighbours, always happy to suggest some different ways of preparing anything from tulip-bulbs to stinging nettles. Instead of potatoes we had sugar-beets and however difficult it was to vary, either diced or mashed, they were still sugar-beets, which made poor Hans cry at every meal-time. Nobody liked to eat cattle fodder by choice, except when starving-hungry!
In the mornings everybody had to fulfil a task in the house, necessary or not. I could not see the point to polish furniture again when it had already been done the previous day, but the main purpose was to keep us busy and warm.
Tante Hans was about to hang the washing on the line, when this arrogant, young German officer showed up. Only a few weeks ago he had scared everyone when he boasted that he was an expert in rounding up Jews and people in hiding. While she was pegging out the sanitary towels, he tried to be funny by asking her what they were. ‘You mean, the caps for the cookery-school?’, she retorted, sharply. With this, he had overstepped the mark and broken the billet’s code of conduct. Being indiscreet was not tolerated and after lodging a complaint, he got posted elsewhere. We (and the soldiers) gave a sigh of relief to be rid of him at last. The rest of the others were less convinced of winning the war and behaved more amiably. They liked to talk about their families ‘bei uns zu Hause’ and Bauer spoke mostly of his concern about his farm’s future in Bavaria, since his two sons were fighting with the army.
I could not understand all they said, but when he was told that both had been killed, he cried bitterly. He threw his gun away and screamed, cursing Hitler for causing nothing but death and destruction. That needed no translation!
As daytime offered our best available light, the afternoons were the ideal opportunity for reading. It did not take long before many were absorbed in a book and downstairs fell silent. The boys often went upstairs to play, Old Opa Johannes had his face under his hanky,as usual, and before anything else, my aunt would nod off for her regular (exactly!) twenty minutes.
On one of the tables was a jigsaw puzzle, at hand all the time and whoever fancied to add a bit, could assist tante Hans, who loved to do puzzles. So did I!
Just before dusk, aunt Elisabeth would play a few piano-duets with Bep, or she played well-known songs so we could join in.
Uncle Arie was good at telling, increasinly better, stories about far-away lands and his sea-faring life. Fascinating!… but really true??

This story was submitted to the People’s 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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