大象传媒

I lived in Holland before the start of the war and worked for a drapers store in the Haigh.
I went for an interview for the job there, and was successful. They asked me to start immediately, I said I'd just left school and wanted a holiday. Eventually I agreed to start at the beginning of September.
My mother was absolutely livid, that I'd told them I wanted a holiday first.
We lived near the seaside, so everyday we went to the beach, she considered that a holiday!

The war started for us in 1940 we were invaded.
It was a terrible, a terrible feeling of having lost your freedom.

The first year of the war was not too bad, but the Germans were all over the place.
Later on they began to take an interest in the Jews.
At that time we lived in the Jewish quarter. That was very dramatic.
They told the Jews they were going to work in camps, and started to ship people out.
We all know what happened next.

Then the curfew began. We were not allowed to be outside after 6 o'clock.
Before the war we used to go dancing, but that was forbidden, all the halls were closed.
We used to go to a school, where the first half-hour were lessons, and the rest of the time dancing - it was a way round the problem !

During 1943 the war got very bad, in 1944 there was Arnhem.
This was supposed to be the start of the end of the war, but it wasn't.
After that it was dreadful, it got worse, and worse, we had no food, no gas, no electricity, telephone, nothing.
Where we lived in The Haigh was one of the last towns in Holland to be liberated.

My brother got picked up and sent away, we didn't hear from him for over a year, and we feared the worst
My other brother was hidden in the local Catholic church next to the British embassy, which at that time was under the protection of the Swiss Government.
The local police helped to hide the local boys in the attics.

I lost my first husband during this time. I will never forget the misery of his mother and father.

We had local communal kitchens, although our family didn't use them.

There were miracles.
Next door to where we lived was a jeweller, he was very friendly, and of German descent, but he was stateless. Germans used to go there regularly. He used to sell jewellery to them but he would ask for bread and potatoes as a part of the price. When they were delivered he would go round to his neighbours delivering these extra rations.
I would go out on my bike, because boys couldn't, they would probably be picked up and sent to Germany. I visited the local farms to barter for food. Money was no use.
It was very hard but we survived.

We all had identity cards with our fingerprints, but the Jews cards had a big J stamped on them.
I remember there was a central office before the war had been an art gallery, where all copies of these identity cards were stored.
Eventually this information became known to the British, who soon bombed the building,
The bombing was a masterpiece. The bomb went in the front door, and blew the building to bits, unfortunately it killed all the staff working there, but it did destroy all these hated records. There was no warning. I think it was probably the Resistance that organised the raid.
That alone made life much easier as the Germans couldn't trace anyone after that.

We had no food for a very long time, but Operation Mama was launched which dropped food, supplied by the British Red Cross.

After the liberation there was no rejoicing, just relief.
I will never forget those dreadful times.
Because we'd not had much food for such a long time, when the war ended and food became easily available, my family all sick, they were not used to regular food.

The war took away the best years of my life but I have no regrets, and I did learn from it.

Now -
I'm over 80 and I still help out locally, with Wheel Chair

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