大象传媒

This is an interview with M.E. van der Hijden by Henriette Wood- Grossenbacher.
Els is my mother鈥檚 90 year old sister. She spent the war time in Heemstede near Haarlem in Holland at her parents鈥� house. The Interview took place in October 2005 at her flat near Arnhem where she has been living for about 15 years after living abroad for a long time. She gave her permission to add her stories to the 大象传媒 peoples war website.
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The only time that I was confronted with shooting was when I went out to find food on my bicycle. This was near the end of the war and a part of Holland was already liberated. We were still under German occupation (area around Haarlem). Branbant had already been liberated by the Americans. This was called the hunger winter and there was no food to go round. Some people, the older ones, that could not go out to find food died of hunger. In the winter there was nothing growing in the garden and food doesn鈥檛 go far, you have to have it every day. We ate tulip bulbs, but they were sweet and made you sick. My sister was working in the diphtheria barracks and she sometimes brought food home that the patients did not eat and that could not go to other wards because it was thought to be infectious. Occasionally we had a food parcel from friends in Switzerland that was sent by Red Cross. It was not very much. Once we were able to buy a bag of grain for 2000 Guldens from a farmer. To be clothed was not a problem. We might not have been dressed elegantly but clothes can last a long time. My sister was wearing a uniform at the hospital.
With two other girls we went on bicycles towards the German border to Zutphen as it was easier to get grain and rye there. There were so many people where we were living and hardly any food. My sister who was working in a Hospital (as a nurse) would sometimes have got a bottle of milk from a rich farmer in the Haarlemer Meer area. As she was working and it was my task to go out to find food. After my boss was killed I did not go to work any more.

I went on this heavy bicycle but we did not have tyres and so we had to put a hosepipe around the wheels instead. I can still feel it, it was the most terrible thing in my life, that I had to go on this horrible bicycle to get food in that remote area by Zutphen. All the way from north Holland to the German border on a bicycle with a hosepipe as a tyre. We got to Zutphen where the sister of one of my friends was a nurse in a hospital. We arrived late at night and she said that there was an empty room without patients and she let us sleep there. That was of course not allowed but we did the strangest things then. In the morning at half past six in the cold and dark we got dressed to go out and we met some nurses who said hey who are you but we ran as fast as we could out of the hospital.

I then went on my own from farm to farm to ask for food. In a poor area near the German border I asked for eggs and rye. The farmer said we have hardly anything ourselves but you can eat with us. They had 鈥渉utspot鈥� which is mash of carrots and potatoes. I hadn鈥檛 eaten all day long. I gave something for the boys鈥� piggybank, which they appreciated. It is very hard to go and ask for food, really terrible.

I went to another farm and when the farmer heard that I had come all the way from Heemstede/Haarlem he asked to see my papers. When he saw how far I had come he got a bag with rye and poured a scoop into the pillowcase that I had with me. The farmers gave this for free, it was their way of helping. Sometimes they gave eggs and once I was able to buy half a pound of butter. And then I went to the next farm and was questioned and had to show my papers. In the end I had a fair amount of rye and mother, she had a mill, made a loaf of bread like pumpernickel from it. On the way back I was dead tired and I was a bit light headed when I heard tick, tick like shooting. Suddenly this workman shouted at me:鈥漡irl get off your bike, come into the ditch, they are shooting at us鈥�. I had not realised what was going on. This was by Zutphen on a country lane. There were a lot of people looking for food, the Germans must have thought that they were troops or something, organised people with carts and bicycles and all sorts. They shot on us from aeroplanes with machine guns. There I was with the chap from the road besides me in the ditch, and then I continued homewards.

When I reached the area around Amsterdam somebody came cycling behind me. He said hello, do you have to go to Haarlem too and shall we go along together for a while. I appreciated that so he had to slow down and we continued together. When we got to Haarlem, by the Blue Bridge he had to go to the right and I had to go in the opposite direction. He said bye bye, we are like ships, that passed in the night. It was so bizarre and strange. Only lately have I wondered what had become of that man. The time of the war was really a bad time and having to go out to find food on that terrible bike.

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