大象传媒

I lived in Rotterdam in the Paul Krugerstraat just around the corner from a harbour, the Maashaven. German bomber planes pounded the harbours at the beginning of WW2 and I remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs for days, warmly wrapped in a blanket, whilst the bombs rained down not far away.

The German occupiers' punishment was quite severe when the Dutch underground resistance movement killed a German soldier. They would choose twelve people at random, women, men, children, put them against a wall and shoot them. The bodies were left on the pavement for a few days. I was lucky enough to escape such a punishment. I was walking on the street when I heard gun shots, when I turned the corner I was just in time to see the German soldiers get into a vehicle leaving the bodies on the pavement.

The 1944-5 winter was an extremely cold one. Food provisions were minimal. The German authorities decreed that bakers had to provide 200 grams of bread per person per week. The bakers did not have enough wheat and simply made up the weight by adding water. The 'bread' stuck to the palate and had to be scraped off with finger nails. Sugar beet soup was on the menu and, I was told, tulip bulb soup.

The Red Cross arranged with the German authorities to alleviate the hunger by a food drop. I recall the sky littered with bombers dropping food parcels attached to parachutes. An unbelievable sight.

My mother received one can of food, a loaf of bread and margarine. The can was a beautiful copper colour, I can see it to this day. It contained finely mashed potatoes, finely mashed carrots and finely mashed meat. Specially formulated for stomachs that could not digest properly. It was the greatest meal of my life. Then my mother, sister and I ate half of the loaf of bread. The other half my mother put away, 'For tomorrow', she said. Came tomorrow, the bread was mouldy and not edible. Many years later I learned that the bread was baked in Canada weeks before the drop and put into deep freeze. I learned a lesson at the age of 7: Don't put off till tomorrow that you can enjoy today!

I remember a German soldier walking down the street with a loaf of real bread under his left arm. He gave a slice of bread to each child he saw. I suppose he must have been distressed by the hunger he saw around him.

Water and electricity supplies were for a limited time each day. Illumination at night could only be had by those lucky enough to possess a bicycle (the Germans had been confiscating metal for a year or so). The cycle was put on a pedestal in the living room. Each member of the family would in turn pedal away, free wheeling, with the dynamo on the front wheel producing just a little voltage to power the 6 Volt head lamp on the bicycle.

In the hunger winter my mother and the neighbour, Mrs Hontele, a devout Roman Catholic with eight children, decided that food had to be obtained somehow. My mother volunteered to cycle to Zeeland with two sheets and pillow cases to exchange for food (paper money had no value). On the way she hid from German soldiers who were confiscating anything made of metal. The journey took days. My mother got one bag of potatoes in exchange, half of which was stolen from her on her return journey by equally hungry fellow Dutch people. The two mothers decided that they would eat the boiled potato skins, the children ate the potatoes. They were very sick, their stomachs just couldn't digest the potato peels.

My father was a member of the resistance movement, caught and sent to a sort of concentration camp. My uncles and most other men were ordered to work in German labour camps. There were thus not many men about from 1943/4.

We lived on the second floor. My mother and Mrs Hontele were looking out of the window overlooking the street when Mrs Hontele exclaimed 'There goes Mr Williams, the piano tuner. He's going to Mrs Johnson. But she hasn't got a piano'. My mother looked at the neighbour, hissed 'Shhhhhhhhhhhh' and then shook her head in my direction. I didn't have a clue what it was all about at the time but many years later I realised the man was having a very good time. He probably wished the war would never end. I guess he was a Dutch collaborator. On liberation day, 5th May, 1945, his head would have been shaven clean and a swastika painted on it.

On my father's return he received a letter thanking him for his contribution to the resistance movement. It was a printed letter, simply addressed to 'Dear Sir' with the printed signature of Prince Bernhard (of German descent, husband of Juliana both of whom spent most of the war years in Canada). My father was extremely angered by the callous letter. He tore it up proclaiming 'I'd never do it again, if that's what they think of what I've been through'. It was the one and only time I saw him in anger.He never spoke of the war again.

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