When my dad opened the store in Rotterdam, it was just before the war started. Hitler was saying he would never invade Holland, and with the river between Germany and the Netherlands, and all the bunkers along them, the Dutch were fairly sure they could keep them out. The store in Rotterdam was my dad’s 5th store, and the first one outside of the Province of Limburg. The other 4 were in Hoensbroek, run by my brother Scra; Lutrade am Geleen, run by my brother Sjef, Heerlen, run by my brother Jan, and 1 near the German border near Kerkrade, run by a family friend. My dad expected Rotterdam to be safer, and just he and my sister Mia went there.
The car that he had while in Rotterdam was a Buick. When it wasn’t in use, it was hidden in various garages and farms. I don’t remember exactly which ones. The Germans would confiscate any vehicles they found and use them for themselves, and actually took many with them as they withdrew. After the war, the Dutch government confiscated the Buick for the use of the Mayor of Bussum. They only gave a little compensation, and only after a lot of arguing by my family.
This is a picture of that car:
Every 2 or so years, dad would get a new car – he liked having the newest and best.
Late in the Spring of 1943, after school, which let out around 4pm, I would ride just over 2 hours to the farm of my Tante (aunt) Marie in Haele, she had coupons from the bakers that she had received in exchange for flour. The coupons were good for loaves of bread. After getting the coupons, I would ride my bike to the bakery and pick up 5 long loaves, 2 whole wheat and 3 white. From there I would bike over to my cousin Harry Vestjens in Neer, to scrounge whatever I could. Harry had a big farm, and I would usually get between 100 and 200 eggs, some bacon, and various other goodies. From there I would head home, going first to Roermond, and from there following the highway home to Heerlen. The Highway had on both sides, a bicycle path. One day, with a full load, I could see the NSB’ers and the Germany sympathizers at a road-block they had set up along the highway and the bicycle paths. They had old guns and riffles. An old man was in front of me on a bike, who looked very nervous. He had a small package. They stopped him, took the package and opened it and confiscated whatever it was. They then took his bike and chased him away on foot. There was no way for me to get around them, so I went up to them as nonchalantly as I could. One of them asked “what have you got?”. I told them the truth – “200 eggs, 5 loaves of bread…” They didn’t believe me and chased me away, letting me keep my bike and all the food!
My brother Jan was an electrician by trade, besides working the store. Around the corner from our house (see the map in a previous post) was a Wholesale Grocery, and the building it was in had the only elevator in town. The Germans took over the store because they wanted to confiscate all the food. This was near the end of the war in 1944. The owner of the store had sabotaged the elevator to make things harder for the Germans. The Germans came to our electrical store and asked Jan to come and fix the elevator. Jan warned them that he didn’t know much about elevators, but they told him to come and try anyways, so he did. He went from floor to floor and ripped out the wiring from the elevator at each floor, pretending to try to figure things out, and ended up on the roof. While up on the roof, some British bombers flew overhead, and the Germans yelled up at him to come back down – his reply was “why? They aren’t my enemies!” Finally he did come down and told them he just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the elevators, so they told him to go home. In order to take all the food from the grocery, the Germans had to carry all the boxes out by hand, up and down the stairs, since the elevator didn’t work. Every time they were inside getting the next batch of boxes, the neighbours who were watching would run over to the truck – take out whatever boxes there were and run home with them.
One day my scout patrol (there were 5 of us including me) were looking at deer tracks near the Dutch/German border. A border guard came up to us and asked what we were doing. We told him and he looked at the tracks and made some comments, but his Dutch was very poor and we made fun of him. This mad him angry and he started chasing us. We split up, and he decided to chase me, maybe because I was the smallest and he might have thought he’d be able to catch me. However, I was a pretty fast runner and got quite a bit ahead of him. Then I ran into a sand pit, a sort of sand quarry, that had 8-10 foot high sides at the far end. I was trying to figure out how to get out, when he came to the pit, knelt down and took his riffle to shoot at me! The next thing I knew I was at the top of the pit! A few weeks later, my patrol went back to the sand pit – none of us, myself included, could make it to the top no matter how hard we tried!
Several members of my family were involved in the war in various ways. My brothers Jan and Leo were in the Dutch army. After the Germans invaded, they said that anyone who had been in the army, who could prove they were indispensable, could get documents stating they were allowed to stay. Everyone else would be taken away. Jan got forged documents from the underground. Leo went underground. Now, the Netherlands is a very Catholic country – Sundays, everyone goes to church. The Germans quickly figured this out and would surround the churches on Sundays and capture the men as they came out. Leo got caught twice this way, but both times he managed to escape by jumping off the trains they were transporting the prisoners on. My brother Sjef was a fencing instructor for the Dutch federal police. The Germans took him to the SS Headquarters where they asked him to train the SS officers. He refused, saying he would not train his enemies. The SS officer said he could understand that, and sent him home! Later, during the General Strike (where the Dutch workers went on strike to protest the German’s treatment of the Jews), he was taken hostage along with all the other prominent citizens. The Germans took 10 hostages and shot them, threatening to keep killing more if the workers refused to return to work. They went back to work. The Germans kept the hostages though. After about a year of being a hostage, Sjef complained to them that he had very bad stomach pains. They took him to the hospital in Heerlen. When he was on the gurney, in a hospital gown, and while the guard was standing at one door, he jumped up and ran out another door to the outside and disappeared, staying underground until the war was over. Near the end of the war, my brother Piet finished technical school and went to work in the coal mines as an electrician. The Germans let him stay, because they wanted the coal that was coming out of the mines.
You asked about sling-ball. If the opposing team caught the ball, they could take 3 huge steps forward toward the goal line before they had to “sling” the ball back at their opponents. If they didn’t catch the ball, they had to “sling” it from wherever it landed, and were not allowed any steps forward, which meant they’d be farther from the goal line.
You also asked about Lourdes… that will be in the next post.
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