After the declaration of war by England and France to the Germany of Hitler in September 1939, because of its attack on Poland, it became clear that war was in the making. The Dutch were hoping that they again could stay out of it, just as they managed in 1914 in WW.I.
In November 1939 there was a scare because of a border incident in Venlo. As the story goes, it was there that the brother of Prince Bernhard, the husband of the than Princes Juliana (the future Queen), leaked information to the Dutch authorities about an impending invasion of Holland by the Germans. From than on we knew in Holland that it was a matter of time before war would come and that we would be involved.
In 1939 I lived in Borne, a village between Hengelo and Almelo in the province of Overijsel, about 20 miles from the German border. I worked in one of the largest textile mills as an assistant plant manager. This mill was owned by the Spanjaard family and they were Jews. This made the situation during the war more difficult and for me even more so as Johan Spanjaard was a personal friend. I was married for about a year and there was one child, a boy, your uncle Hans.
In the night of May 9, 1940 we woke up because of explosions all around us. Later we learned that the Dutch army had been blowing up the bridges, large and small, in the area. When we woke up the next morning we heard the noise of airplanes and looking out of the window we saw German warplanes flying low over the countryside; it was clear that the war had started. The radio told the rest of the story although far behind the actual situation. I had seen the troop trains pass through the village, but the radio was still telling that the Germans were stopped at the border. It had never been the intention to stop the Germans at the border, only to slow them down. The terrain made it military impossible to stop the Germans there and moreover it would have cost thousands of civilian lifes. The plan was to resist at the rivers and that made sense. Furthermore it called for flooding of the central part of Holland (de Hollandse Water- erlinie, as they called it) in order to force attacking armies through a narrow corridor which could be defended better (de Grebbe Linie as it was called).
This was as it was done and it worked, but only for 6 days. Not only was Holland flooded by water but also by German paratroopers who landed behind the lines, disrupted communications and forced the Dutch army to spread their forces and weaken the defense. On top of that, there were the Dutch Nazzi's, the traitors. Not too many but enough to make life difficult.
The Germans had several military and para-military organizations:
-the regular Army, well trained and well equipped, non-political.
-the SS, the military arm of the Nazzi-Party, equally well trained and equipped, but political throughout. They fought next to the regular army to keep them in line, Nazzi lines; and also where there was heavy resistance.
-the SA, a semi-military organization, used mainly for the dirty work at home, most of them recruited from the lower levels of the population.
-several police-organisations of which the GESTAPO and the SICHERHEITS POLIZEI (Security Police) were the most infamous.
Before going on with the story, it may be the place here to explain that there were 3 distinct periods in the German occupation of Holland:
When the German Army (Die Wehrmacht) was in charge. The game was played by the rules, according to the standards of regular armies all over the world. German atrocities were few and the Jews were safe.
When the Nazzi Party (Die Partei) took over after about a year. That's when the dirty tricks and the elimination of the Jews began: the holocaust as the Jews called it, the final solution according to the antisemites. That's when reliable information became scarce and disinformation was the rule. This was the golden age of Joseph Goebbels, the information secretary and of Heinrich Himler, the man in charge of the SS and SA.
When the Germans knew that they had lost the war and the SS, SA and the Gestapo were bent on revenge. There were no rules anymore, not for the Germans, not for the resistance. This was the time that people were shot without due process, only on suspicion which was just as often founded as unfounded. Your grandfather was in so far lucky that they got him in stage 2, otherwise he would not have been able to give you this story. This period started with the invasion in Normandy, D-day, June 6, 1944.
However it must be said here that women and children ware safe during the whole war; there was no rape, no child molesting, none were ever attacked. No German would dare to do such a thing, punishment was severe. After the Soviet Union was invaded, the punishment for this and similar crimes was detachment in the so- called Death-Batallions. You got in alive but never out.
The first day of the war was a crazy day, no work was done and all sorts of rumors were floating around. There were many people who said that the war would not last long and I even heard a fantast claiming that the war would end the same day. Very few had an inkling that the ordeal would last for 5 years and may be so much the better, it kept the hope alive. These were the haydays of soothsayers, handreaders, astrologers, stargazers, cardreaders. In that time started the story that the 'big bear' would be the Nemesis of Hitler; the notion that Russia would finish the Germans off in the future. Gradually we had to accept a new way of life, a new routine: food distribution, no radio's, no gasoline, little tabacco and less booze. Officially of course; when you had the money, knew the right people, there was always something under the table. To her everlasting glory, your grandmother knew a lot of 'right' people and we never went hungry. Moreover one could always exchange textile for corn, butter, chickens, even meat. Working in textile proved to be the right place. As a matter of fact, through the war years we had built-up a secret storage place in the mill where we stored the textile, yarns and such which we pillaged from the Germans. This was pretty safe because of the 1400 people which worked in the mill, only appr. 10 could not be trusted. In the end, in period 3 they proved to be the most dangerous element. We started to grow our own vegetables, potatoes, tabacco and seeds for cooking oil. Flower gardens disappeared. Again your grandparents were lucky, they lived in the midst of farmers and every farmer considered it to be his duty to do as much harm to the Germans and its economy as they possibly could.
The first war year, although not very happy, was uneventful. The Germans were winning and there were magnanimous, at least sort of. We knew that this would not last, the fingers of the Party members were itching to go after the Jews, exterminate them and take the spoils. In that period the underground organizations were built-up, when contacts were made with the Belgian en French underground (the Maquis) to establish escape routes, when the British Secret Service was looking for people who could inform them later in the game about what was going on. It was than that I became involved; as with so many others because we wished to see our children live in freedom. In this we succeeded but don't ask how many men and women paid for it with their lives.
In period 2, when the Germans became bogged down in Russia, the daylight flights of 1.000 British bombers and nightly flights of 1.000 American bombers became routine, everybody became short tempered. The daily flights you could at least see and enjoy but the nightly flights were something else. Borne was one of the checkpoints, at least it seemed that way, we missed not a single plane. Night after night, at 11.30 PM we heard them coming and your grandmother went with uncle Hans and your mother in the cellar for at least 2 hours. You can imagine what this did to her nerves, the more so as German fighters tried to do what little they could and no wonder that once in a while a bomb or a plane came crashing down with all the noise and fireworks one could expect. We came through but your grandmother's nerves had had it. Things got worse when, on June 13 1941, I was picked up by the Germans and imprisoned in the concentration camp in Haren, initially as a prisoner suspect of being a spy; later when they could not make it stick as a hostage just to keep me handy. One never could tell what would turn up.
Two of my friends, members of the same outfit as I, were arrested, transported to Germany, tortured, accused and finally in 1944 killed. They never said a word and maybe that's why I am still here. I will never forget Jan Helmers and his brother and I will never forget the meeting with their parents who lost all they had.
Haaren had been a catholic seminary in peace time, their library was still there. All in all there were some 400 people, all men, imprisoned, among them men from all walks of life. Lawyers, doctors, politicians, officers of the Army and the police, ministers, priests and ordinary men as your grandfather. Guided by the experts I went through a major part of the library; I learned a lot, met many intelligent, capable and first class men. It changed my outlook on life, but it did not change my basic philosophy. We were under control of the International Red Cross; they could not make us work, we were never attacked, there was always food but just enough. We could send and receive letters and the Dutch Postal Service became quite an expert in fooling the German rules on censorship.
But there was always the threat of being killed because somebody in the outside world committed sabotage. Having to live with that every day and having no control over it, one gets used to the threat and stops being bothered by it. It happened twice, in July and October 1941 and the second time it was somebody in my room. Just to illustrate how little one had control over it, the following. The man who was killed was a lawyer from Almelo, an important man in the socialist party who was married to a Jewess. A bomb was found on the rails on the border between Almelo and Borne. It took them a whole day to find out that the bomb was on Almelo territory for not more than 15 feet. Those were the most important feet of my life, it meant life for me and death for Jo Vrind. The first time it was revenge from the Dutch Nazzi party, de N.S.B., on three high officials from Rotterdam. The managing director of Rotterdam Lloyd, a big shipping company, the Chief of Police, a criminal lawyer who had been instrumental in the conviction of a high nazzi official for embezzlement.
A third emotional affair was that of the Polish spy who was imprisoned in the attic of the main building. She was a young woman of about 24 years, very beautiful. The doctors in the camp had established that they had to take care of everybody in custody, hostages as well as prisoners and the Germans in those days did not dare to challenge them. And so a lot of food, spiritual support found their way to the prisoners. Than they found out that the woman would be interrogated again the next day and if necessary would be tortured in a way only a woman could be tortured. For that reason a special Gestapo gang was expected. Don't ask how we found out, we had spies even in the German quarters. They had imprisoned communists and used them as domestic help, craftsmen, even office help and secretaries. That's how we found out. The long and the short was that the girl died that night peacefully in the knowledge that she once again had fooled her enemies, the 'Herrenmenschen'. When the butchers came there was nothing for them to do. By that time the whole camp knew and we lined up at the camp exit to cheer the departing gang. It was 1941 and you could still do that. But don't think that we were heroes always and all the time. Some of the men completely broke down and strange as it may be, those were the men we thought who could take it. A famous shrink,one of the best known comedians and even a pastor.
In October we were transferred to another camp, St.Michels Gestel, also a former seminary. Here I lived in a small cubicle on the attic. Life was more difficult here, the war was not going well for the Germans, the commandant was a SA man and a small, miserable, vindictive bastard. We were constantly harassed in small ways. An example: your grandmother was allowed to visit me for reasons which had to do with the children. She was allowed half an hour. She had to come by train and than had to rent a bicycle, all in all a trip of some 6 hrs. When we finally net, every 3 minutes a German came in the room and was telling us that she had to go. That was the way the Germans behaved in nearly every respect. Somehow we got back to them. The only radio we could find was the one in the car of the commandant. With the help of communist prisoners the commandant was pinned down in the office while I was listening to the news. After that I went to the hall where a large map of the western and eastern front was hanging, which I had made. There were maps in the library. On the map I drew the positions on the western and eastern front. both from the BBC and the German radio. Crazy as it may seen, the commandant always came to see how the front had developed and you could hear him mutter: How the hell did they find out. Well he never did. We had a dysentery epidemic and there were not enough medicines. So when the man who was in charge of all the camps came, the doctors managed to put in his head that he was very ill and unless he allowed them to take care of him, they didn't give a dime for his life. He believed them, the only medical help he could get was from medical students; most doctors were at the front. He came to stay in the camp and from than on there was a steady flow of medicines.
Of course all this was only the outside; all of us lived with the constant fear that something might happen to our families, wondering how they would cope.
Just before Christmas I came home and had trouble adjusting to normal life again. Once a week I had to report to the local police and they kept an eye on me. This lasted for about a year. Things did not get easier. After D-day there was a whole lot more sabotage, he underground became organized on a West-European scale, there were more droppings of saboteurs from the other side of the English Channel. We were forced to patrol the railroad, the telephone cables of the Germans. More and more downed Allied fly'ers had to be shepherded back to the Allied lines. The underground tried to take over the food distribution which meant that the Germans would get nothing. They retaliated and more and more people were killed without due process. Normal was abnormal and reverse.
After D-day the Germans started to pick up the officers of the Dutch Army which they had sent home in 1940, apparently afraid for sabotage behind their lines. At the same time they really went after the Jews. All of a sudden there was a general strike in Holland and the Germans went in a frenzy. The strike lasted 4 days and at the end 3 men were dead, shot in the open field behind our house. Kees Brasser the plant manager, Minus Neurdenburg head of the Spinning department and a third man who had nothing to do with the mill. But all of them, not because they had anything to do with the strike, only revenge for what a few people thought had been a too strict discipline in the past and because of jealousy.
The Germans started to round up all capable men and shipped them to the factories in Germany, Poland and to the coast to work on the fortifications against an invasion from England. We had a boiler house with 6 boilers of which only 2 were working. In each of the other 4,10 men were hiding and the Germans went on a search for them and others because all of a sudden they were left with only old men. On such moments the whole village was one and the Germans did not have a chance. However after the affair was over they could not go home right away and so we started the central kitchen and they slept between the cotton bales.
As I said, we had to patrol along communication cables and railroads. Two incidents from the patrol duties stand out in my mind. The first was during what was called 'cable-watch'. A lot of men were strung out over a 10 mile stretch. While on 'duty' I heard whispering behind me and looking back I saw a wounded pilot huddled in the shrubs. His plane was shot down and he was the only one of the crew who more or less made it. The men next to me in the line took over my stretch, we hid the pilot in a haystack and I went to the factory to get the truck. Getting away took some doing because the engine ran on wood-gas and firing up could take 30-40 min. I made it, I picked up the pilot and brought him to the next checkpoint of the underground, 5 miles away. I never saw a German. I later learned that he made it safely home via Lisbon. What a trip and what an organization.
The second incident was far more shocking. While on watch along the railroad a freight train went by coming from Germany. All of a sudden I saw a figure jumping out one of the freight cars. I went looking and found a girl, 20 years old, a Hungarian Jewess as I later learned. She was hurt and unconscious. I brought her to a farmhouse half a mile away and the farmer and specially his wife took her in. No German would ever touch her again. The story was that for three years she had been used by SS officers for their sexual needs; she was a Jew and therefore not a human being. She was handed down from the top to lower ranks and had now been sent to Holland to satisfy some German animals there. She had a chance to jump preferring death. A month later I got the message via the underground that she recuperated, was brought to England and was now treated for the emotional shock. I never heard from her anymore which was as it should be. But I wonder if she ever has been able to lead the life that a normal woman would like to live with a family of her own.
I got a request from the underground to supply a map of the factory marked for the most vulnerable spot, where a bomb would do the most harm. We had just been forced to start working for the German Army. A week after I delivered the map, a single British bomber, a Mosquito, appeared and dropped one, only one, bomb on exactly the right spot. All electrical cables and all the fire lines were cut and the store rooms burned for a week. When the fires stopped all the stuff the Germans brought in was gone. I spent 20 hrs a day at the fire to make sure that the fires spread as they were supposed to spread.
We had a central kitchen with which we were able to feed a lot of people. But because we were feeding more people than we were supposed to do, we ran short of food. We loaded the truck full of textile and went to the farmers in the most northern part of Holland. Coming back with a full load of corn, meat, chicken, oil, etc., we were chased by the Dutch Nazzis on a bicycle for most part of the trip and we barely made it. You could not expect to get much speed out of wood gas with an overloaded truck. But we made it home and for many days the menu was superb.
To the end of the war, when all was lost for the Germans the Gestapo really went on a rampage to destroy all those who in their eyes were guilty of treason against 'Das Reich'. That a man had the right to be loyal to his own country never entered their warped minds. They started to round up everybody they ever had suspected in the 5 years they had been around and killed them on the spot, some of them only 5 minutes away from freedom. I was warned and that last month, April 1945, I never spent a night in my own bed. Every night I left the house and slept wherever I could find a safe place. Some life and I made it, but don't ask what it took out of your grandmother.
And than the war was over and the days were dull. There was the rounding up of the traitors and among them quite a few I had never suspected, which I had trusted. Than started the infighting between the director who fled and the one who stayed. Back came the Spanjaards who had made it through the war and they joined the arguments. After 5 years of war, dangers and such, this came as a shock. I was fed up and when I got the offer to join Shell and go to South America your grandmother and I jumped on it. That's how we finally got to the States.
The war has left me with a certain distrust of the human race. I have seen the bestialities it was capable of committing, I also saw people offering all they had left, their lives, for a basic right, their freedom. I do not believe that the human race had learned a lesson and the years after 1945 have proved that I was right. They will do it again and again.
This story is not complete, much more has happened but I was not always part of it and I decided to talk only of my own experiences. I hope I gave you an idea. Good luck.