大象传媒

Part 2
I went to Auntie Jean鈥檚 in Nimagen one day 鈥� a few trains ran each week. I went to catch a train home and as I left Nimagen I could hear the noise of planes over the noise of the train. I looked out and could see hundreds of planes dragging gliders behind them. The train had to stop. When I looked out of the train I could see parachutes coming down hundreds and hundreds of them. That was when they were trying to take the Arnhem Bridge but they dropped them just too far 鈥� nearer to Nimagen. We didn鈥檛 know what was happening but we prayed we would soon be liberated. The train took 16 hours instead of 4 to get to Rotterdam. You didn鈥檛 know where you where, it just took you all ways round. Then we heard that the British had landed to try to make a wedge but had failed. In Nimagen, where Auntie Jean lived, the last two years towards the end of the war things gradually got worse. The whole population of Nimagen had to go to a sort of clinic to get tested for scabies. She had to walk for two hours with the children and Mia and it was pouring with rain and then stand in a queue waiting to be tested and then walk for two hours back home.

One day when I went home from work for lunch I bent over the wash basin and sneezed. I must have slipped a disc as my back was so painful. The doctor came and I had to go to hospital for treatment. There was no ways to get there as there were no ambulances and I couldn鈥檛 walk. So uncle arrived with a wheelbarrow and took me to hospital. He had to do this three times a week for two weeks!!

I had a boyfriend called Walter. His parents weren鈥檛 keen; his father was a civil engineer 鈥� quite high up. Walter was taken of to Germany but he jumped the train and found the resistance. Through them he got a little boat on the Zeiderzee and, along with several other little boats full of fugitives, they lived hidden between the bulrushes. His parents refused to support him with coupons for his food whilst he was engaged to me so we had to break it off.

I used to go twice a week to a sports club. It was a training school for boxing run by an Italian. Ten or twelve of us would go to keep fit, use a sun lamp and shower. Gerry used the facilities so he asked them if he could go to some islands near Rotterdam/Belgium as there was a group of Italians living there. Some were anti-Hitler, some were pro-Hitler and Mussolini. He got permission to go to the islands (which were closed 鈥� no one could go on or off without permission) to see the Italians and check up on them. He could often bring things back from the farmers on the islands. Also on the islands were some Italian prisoners of war who had opposed Mussolini. He could sometimes bring a group over to Rotterdam and they would have a dance. Then we got permission to go and visit them on the island and take cigarettes made of seaweed!!

We made arrangements with the resistance to free the Italians and one day they disappeared. Some were kept with other families 鈥� over 100. The sports club kept three. There was a bit of a ballyhoo but not too much as it showed up the lack of security on the islands. The three of them stayed at the sports hall until the end of the war and then went home. It was a bit of a risk. They lived in the double roof that was made into compartments for them to hide in.

Toward the end the British were allowed to drop food parcels to be distributed. The Italians had a child 3 years old who had never seen or tasted chocolate!! Chocolate came in the food parcels and she was delighted and every time the planes came over she would run out and shout 鈥淭hank you Tommy鈥�!.

At the end the Canadians came in rolling down the roads in their jeeps and everyone lined the streets waving, laughing and shouting. The Canadians had no visible weapons and the Gerry soldiers were still patrolling with guns and you didn鈥檛 know whether to cheer or not in case a Gerry shot you in the back.

The first day we heard it was over everyone who could found red, white and blue flowers and put them in vases in the windows and we hung out our flags. You did it with a lump in your throat, as you didn鈥檛 know whether you should or whether you would still get into trouble, even though you had been told the war was over. But remember we had been occupied for 5 years.

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