The Shadow of war

In the meantime, it was now 1939, and the political world had started to rumble. Hitler was the big boss in Germany and pushed his Nazi program on his people and started to shout about “lebensraum” (room to live). In the fall of that year they walked into Poland and placed that nation under foot. Even though the newspapers cried murder and fire and made many promises, no one stuck out a hand in support. They all had neglected to have their defense systems good and ready. They’d sooner have butter than guns. he same fate befell Hungary and Romania.

Every surrounding country feared the same outcome, including the Netherlands. In 1940, it was Norway’s turn, and in a few days it was overrun. After that Denmark followed. The English prime minister, Chamberlain, a good softie, traveled to Germany off and on trying to persuade Hitler to make peace. Hitler promptly promised that he had no aggression in mind against the Netherlands, Belgium or France, but meanwhile had built up his armies and, in April of that year, appeared at our borders.

1940, Germany invades our country

Every thoughtful person had by now figured out that it was our turn next, and so on May 10th we anxiously awoke to explosions, aircraft and all the other things that have to do with making war. It was war, without any declaration of war or anything else of that nature—we were just overwhelmed. Anyone with a grain of sense had it figured out—the hated Hitler regime had invaded, and within 5 days it was a fait accompli.

The Netherlands had become a puppet state of Germany. There was no further discussion or thought needed—we had lost our freedom. How terrible it would all be we would still have to experience. They initially came with laudable promises. They would help the Dutch population to rise from the depression as long as they would refrain from aggressive counteractions.

We didn’t believe Hitler—how could we. He, who did not hesitate to eliminate his own army officers, who summarily executed or locked up in camps those who objected to his actions or dared to speak one word against his aggression, what would you expect us to believe from him? In England, by that time, they had come to their senses and gotten rid of Chamberlain and elected Churchill as prime minister in his place; a man of fire and steel, a man for whom the world can give a great deal of thanks. Had they only elected him much earlier, then Hitler would have had much greater resistance, and our defenses would have been in a much better position. But now, during the war years, everything had to be built from the ground up again. But so it goes in this world. They don’t see the danger until it is too late.

However I’m drifting off into politics here,  while I was planning to give my life’s story. But the political situation came with much change, also in our personal lives, although, to be honest, the occupying forces did not have much of an impact on our daily lives. Initially things continued as usual, here and there a mayor was replaced by a collaborator (NSB’er, as they were called), but for the rest, things remained as usual. For our Queen Wilhelmina, who had fled to England, the replacement became Seyss Inquart, who took over the governing chair even though he didn’t know front from back. He had to be informed by our civil servants, who tried very hard to provide as little information as possible and as much fraudulent information as possible to protect the general population.

We went back to our normal routines

Whatever there was to do, we did. The first two years, not much outside of the ordinary happened. But, the longer the occupation continued, the stricter the rules became and the stronger the resistance exhibited itself. Among the first set of rules to be implemented was one that all young men over 18 years of age had to register for the labour service. Immediately thereafter, a secret document emerged; don’t register but go into hiding. Many young men did so, but others did not have the courage and would sooner go to work to make money.

For those going into hiding, safe places had to be found, and so we received Cor Nikolay, brought to our farm by his uncle M. van den End. He would walk in and out but never to the road, except in the dark. He was a very kind, sociable young man. Off and on, his fiancé Gre Boven of W. Zuiderveen would come and visit. He played a lot with our children and did many small tasks for my wife.

Stiny and Harry were active little kids and walked all over the place. One time, Stiny ran along the path over the plank that crossed the ditch and fell head over heels into the water below—the ditch was three quarters full. She was totally under water. Fortunately, mother saw it happen and made a beeline for the ditch, while Stiny had managed to claw herself back onto the side of the ditch so that mom could grab her by the arm and pull her out. She looked like a drowned cat and was quickly put into a tub of hot water to be cleaned up. At another time, Harry had climbed to the top of the barn roof, just prior to the roof renewal. A piece of farm equipment had been stacked against the barn wall, which he clambered up, giving him access to the roof and soon he had crawled to the peak where he saw the neighbour lady and called out ”vrouw Kupel, vrouw Kupel,” who soon spotted him and went to warn mother. He was all of three years old at the time. And so you had your entertainment off and on.

A year went by with the usual changes and work activities. The next winter, there was another sale in Blijham from the local smitty Scholten, later smitty Jansen. Then one of the Bosker boys came by to ask if I had any interest in the 8 deimt (roughly eqvt. to 8 acres) of land adjacent to ours. We said yes, if you buy we will lease it back from you. They asked, are you coming to the sale, to which our reply was, of course we would. But what do you do? Are you bidding on it yourself? No, they said, but we will have D.Schuring bid for us.

That’s the way it went, and they ended up buying the land for 1,000 guilders/deimt. So the farm continued to grow. The Bosker family remained a mystery to the neighbourhood. A year later the farm of the Heeres family came up for sale. The land would be sold in parcels; the farm with 18 deimt of land, a parcel adjacent to the farm and another parcel behind the front section. Bosker was the highest bidder for the farm with 18 deimt of land, but altogether the bid was not high enough and the sale was retracted. Later on, the farm with land was sold in one piece and so we were locked out.

But I had an aversion to the business

You had to take almost everything to the main road. The fertilizer you had to haul in, and then bring the grain and the straw, the potatoes to the barges—a larger ship half full with two barges behind—, then shovel from the barges into the ship—everything twice the work and expense. We were used to it being different. Sometimes, we muddled along till late in the evening, in darkness and rain. We came home soaking wet often, so that mother had to do the milking and other chores, what a misery. But we continued on with a sense of purpose and found encouragement in our marriage and our dear children.

In 1942, Co was born, of which I don’t have much of a memory. I do remember that mevr. van Bruggen came as midwife and Dr. Peet handled the baby, for which he did not need me. He was a big boy, but soon it was noticed that he had a congested chest which eventually morphed into significant bronchitis, which made him quite ill at times and difficult. Cor Nikolay, who, off and on, still came to our farm, was crazy about Co and played a lot with him. But the problem remained and made him quite difficult at times. Screaming when he was eating, O man!

A raid in the Church

In the meantime, the Germans became increasingly more strict. One Sunday, in the church in Winschoten, Rev. Hommes was preaching and Rev. Berghuis was sitting in the pew when they received a warning that a raid was imminent in the Catholic and the Reformed churches. Suddenly, the caretaker received a signal that the Germans were coming. He gave Rev. Hommes a signal, who then jumped over the edge of the pulpit,ran to the council chamber door, out the backdoor, over the fence and into the garden of the bakery of Mr. Vegter and then into his house. A few seconds later the church was surrounded by German troops.

Rev. Berghuis, in the meantime, had jumped onto the pulpit and very calmly had the congregation sing from the psalms. The boys of 17 to 18 years of age ran up the stairs and hid in the organ loft. Mr. Enter, a painter, knew the situation well and, according to plan, haul the boys back down, send them up the tower of the church, up the two staircases, then, by means of his long ladder, took them to the next level, hauled up the ladder, closed the trap doors and stayed with those boys to make sure they made no noise and simply wait silently.

After the boys were well hidden, the caretaker opened the main church doors so that the congregation could leave the church where they were awaited by the Germans and a few of the NSB police. Every male had to show their personal ID (a document that was issued during the war by the occupiers) but, unfortunately, I had left mine at home in another pair of pants. My wife had quickly moved to get her bike (I had whispered in her ear where she could find my ID).

Shortly, it was my turn, so I told them that I had forgotten my ID and so I had to go along in a truck where there were already about 10 teenagers under sixteen who were not yet required to register under the new labour laws. Also, an older brother of about 70 years old, who had also forgotten his ID, sat with the younger boys in the truck. All looked very nervous, as did I initially, but soon the fright abated and I began talking in order to encourage those captured. But soon the soldiers standing behind the truck told me to not do so.

In the meantime, mother (my wife) had arrived back with my ID, so I jumped off the truck and she handed me my ID. But the police grabbed it out of my hand. I had to restrain myself from hitting him in the face, for I could not afford to do that. After all the people had left the church, they searched all of the building, including the tower, which they could only access up to the fixed stairs level, and found nothing. Then we all went back into the truck, the anxiety reappeared as before, and soon disappeared again as we were hauled off to the police station. “Everybody out” and the interrogation was begun, along with the ID checks, but all were released one after another, including the old man, Mr. Haan.

Then it was my turn; name and first name and year of birth, where I was born and current address. Mother had come along to the police station. We were in the rear of the building. After a long wait, she too came to our section of the building and the surprise was palpable. I didn’t know what I saw and told her to go on home, to the children, I will be there later. That was the moment that the traitor policeman looked at me threateningly—his name was Timmer.

After my interrogation, another person was next, someone I didn’t know. They questioned him for about 15 minutes and when he came back he whispered to me that he came from the city of Groningen and worked for the A.Jager firm, where his wife also lived, and asked if I was willing to warn them of his situation. The policeman had already warned us a few times to keep our mouths shut but I understood what he wanted me to do.

So now they gave me another turn. The same questions as to why I was not carrying my personal identity card. I had to tell them exactly where I lived and they released me. I straight away walked back to the church in order to pick up my bike. Rev. Berghuis already met me on the way. I told him that everyone had been set free except the man from Groningen, the one who worked at Jager’s, who had a false passport. Rev Berghuis promised that he would immediately send one of his sons to his wife in order to make her feel more hopeful. I took the bike of Mr. Ploeger, the church caretaker, and rode home.

Oh man, how happy everyone was to see this wonderful outcome and we together thanked the Lord for His protecting hand. They took the Groninger to his home. He had to open the door for them and then they ransacked the house from top to bottom, which including throwing all the closet/cupboard contents onto the floor. Nothing suspicious was found, so they left him with the chaos to sort out by himself. But he was free, happy and joyful. So the whole raid was for nothing and no incriminating evidence was found. (From time to time we would have NSB agents come to the church services to listen, i.e. a son of R.van der Wal, who lived behind us on the Bouwte.)

Elder J.Koning had taken my bike to the police station, which I hadn’t known. A number of church members from Blijham were already at our farm when I came home—everyone had been very worried. So we had coffee together and a meal and after that I went back to Winschoten to exchange my bike. I already wrote that Cor Nicolai stayed at our place with another boy named Willem. They kept being moved about from one place to another.

Albert and Alie come live with us

A few weeks later, came the invasion from Southern France and the Battle of Arnhem, which was a total failure. Dina’s brother Albert and his wife Alie lived near Arnhem, in Oosterbeek, but decided to travel to the north of the country, since the situation locally had become very dangerous. Also, food supplies were failing and there was not enough to eat. We frequently sent bread vouchers, bacon, beans and oil in wooden crates that we built ourselves. So they came, with their daughter Frieda, to stay till the end of the war.

Albert biked all the way back one time and found his house bombed, open to the elements and to anyone who decided to walk in. Much of their furniture and other possessions had been looted or damaged. He gathered up the more precious personal belongings that he could carry on his bike and took that back with him to our farm in Blijham. This took him several days, with stopovers at night at friends and sympathetic farmers along the way. Most likely the trip each way would have been a little over 200km.

Hiding those who go Underground

Our London based government encouraged all railway workers to go on strike and so stop all rail traffic. This meant that all of those workers had to go into hiding and find safe addresses to stay. Within days, we were asked to consider hiding the station manager of Winschoten, the city just to the north of us. Aunt Alie at that time was with her daughter in the town of Drachten, visiting her Mom. The station manager who came to our farm to hide, Mr. Meijer, was very nervous and had no appetite for going underground or in hiding, and had continued to live at the train station. The underground armed forces, however, forced him to leave, even though he was scared stiff. His Dad had moved to a neighbouring village, Bellingwolde, and his son had found work on a farm in Blijham as a volunteer labourer while his daughter stayed with her Mom.

But after a few weeks, he could no longer sustain his position when, on his wife’s birthday, he received a short letter. It instructed him to come to the parsonage of the church in the east end of Blijham. The pastor of that church was a member of the underground, but was considered a weak member who let too many things slip through his fingers. I took Mr. Meijer, that evening in the dark via backwoods trails, to the cemetery adjacent to the church and parsonage and sent him on while I returned home. It was January 1945.

The following afternoon, shortly after lunch, my wife called me to say that Mr. Evellens, an evangelist of the Reformed church had come for a visit and she had invited him in. He told her, casually, that the there were German soldiers in the parsonage of the Reformed church where I had brought Mr. Meijer. He then quickly got up to leave, knowing that we had gotten the message. We knew this was an awful risk should Meijer be picked up, interrogated and spill the beans, so to speak, and implicate our participation—which could result, summarily, in execution without trial. While we were discussing the options and strategies available to us, lo and behold, there he came, walking to our home with his daughter. We couldn’t believe what we saw but soon learned from them what had taken place.

They told us that the German troops had stopped in front of the parsonage and that their son, having seen the troops, gave them warning. He then jumped out the open kitchen window into the back yard, across a plank over the ditch, into the cemetery. The Germans came into the parsonage and interrogated the pastor. He told them that Mrs. Meijer and her daughter were guests at their home since they were good friends and that their son, who worked on the farm next door, was visiting for his Mom’s birthday.

So they then went to the cemetery to find Meijer, who then had to show them his identity card which showed he was the station master in Winschoten, which they knew to be on strike. He then told them that, no, he was not on strike, was still living in the station manager’s house and that he was just visiting his wife and daughter since it was her birthday. Fortunately, they believed both stories and had no idea as to what really the story was. We of course were very happy with this outcome. The Germans came back later, but by then everyone had moved away.

However, we did not feel very comfortable, since there was obviously an informer who had betrayed the network. With Mr. Meijer gone, the underground then brought in another person to stay on our farm, who again left after a few weeks stay. A few days later we again received a message form Vlagtwedde asking if we could hide another person and could we bring a book to the tram station on such and such date at a certain hour. Which we did, but we never did hear who that person was, since he was heavily sought after by the occupiers.

So the house was once again empty except for Albert, Mom’s brother from Oosterbeek. Two days later, in the darkness of night, we received a father and son, who were on strike from the railroad. Our oldest children will remember them well; Mr. Schonewille and his son Jan, who were the most thankful pair we ever had, and stayed with us till the end of the war. They always were ready to help, never complained, never went outside in the daytime or complained about being so cooped up. They were always cheerful and encouraging us as a family, which we so much needed during these most challenging times.

Hiding grain in the Attic

We tried as much as possible, in every way, to make it difficult for the German regime in our country. When the threshing machine was done with threshing the grain in the barn we would register, typically, less than half of the yield, and so, every year, the output diminished That would trigger inspections, but then, mostly, the inspectors were solid, patriotic citizens and no issues would arise, which then allowed us to help those people that came from far and wide looking for much needed food.

In the last year of the war, 1945, we recorded 200 mud (about 400 bushels) short of the actual output. We initially placed that in our neighbour’s (Mr. Middel’s) barn, who had rented out his land. But, we were not quite sure why, he came to complain that he had so many mice in his barn, which was an indicator that he no longer felt comfortable storing our illegal grain. We then moved it back and hoisted all that grain up into our attic (zolder). A little while later we had a control inspection.

It was early afternoon when he came and  announced that he was here. “I have come for the inspection,” he said, “since you seem to have threshed so very little, and I will need to see the threshing machine results from the volume tickets.” We had no option but to do so, but didn’t trust the guy. “So this much was threshed and this much delivered and this much was kept for seed grain,” I said. “Well then, let’s go in the barn and check,” was his reply. So we went, and there was still about a grain bag and a half lying there as I recall. He had a long steel rod with him and started poking into the straw and hay bales stacked in the barn but found nothing. “Now let’s have a look in the attic.” (zolder) he said and proceeded ahead of me on the ladder. When he stuck his head above the zolder floor he shouted, “now what is this?” “Yes,” I said, “Have a good look.” The bags of grain all stood in a row, 200 bushels of wheat and 200 bushels of rye. He just walked from bag to opened bag. “So,” he said, “and these are all designated for the black market!”

I suddenly became extremely angry at the guy and his accusation. I stood right in front of him and said, “are you a good patriotic citizen?” to which he had no response. Then I said, “well, now I know, and you can do as you like. Pass this on to the Germans, and I’m toast, but take this from me, that not an ounce of this grain will leave my house on the black market, but will go to those in need, who come to my door and buy from me at market price—or less, if they have no money. But one thing I’ll warn you about—if you report me, then at the end of the war, which is not far from now, I’ll make sure you will be held accountable and I’ll guarantee this personally now.”

He counted the bags, made notes and then left. Our underground people were hidden behind the rapeseed stored in the barn, where they hid as well as slept at night, and they had a good idea as to what had happened. Mother was in the kitchen, and the “onderduikers” came out of hiding so we could caucus. I shared

all of the event with them, to which they replied, “Oh well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. That guy wouldn’t have the courage to betray you at this late stage of the war,” which ultimately proved to be true.

While we were having dinner, he actually returned with another inspector whom I knew. He came to the front door and opened it. He said well either you found the right one or he did. He said, “yes I’m convinced of that and could you come to the office this afternoon for a new threshing permit” to which I replied “of course.” So I went to the office that afternoon to meet the office manager, but he was not in and one of the clerks came with a big smile to welcome me and said “you did a good job.” I asked him what he meant by that and he explained “well, that inspector always has a big mouth, but, coming from your place, he had very little to say upon his return. What’d you tell him?”  “I just warned him,” I said.

The clerk said, “now, you know what we’ll do then? We’ll come tonight with a German army truck and take half of your unreported grain and get it sent to the west of Holland to help alleviate the shortages there. The rest is for you to keep and distribute. I will guarantee the payment for our half.” However, that evening it rained very hard and he probably did not want to risk coming up a very long, muddy lane. We never heard back from them again.

Refugees come to buy Food

From far and wide, streams of people came to our door for grain and often also received an additional portion of brown beans and sometimes even a midday meal, since my wife Dina was equally ready to help and feed the hungry. We took advantage of every opportunity we had to feed those that were hungry, as did many of those that could in the cities. With old gas generator powered trucks and whatever else they could muster up for transportation, they roamed the countryside looking for food, since it was simply too far to walk.

Some people, though, did walk 200 to 300 km to find food for their children and families,  all the way from west coast cities like Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. I still remember, just prior to the railroad strike, a train machinist came to us from Rotterdam asking for grain, explaining that it was not for himself but for friends in need and he would like to get them two bags of grain.

If you loan me a wheelbarrow then I can take it to the highway and somehow find a way to the train station and then I can get it to Rotterdam. I suppose he could have duped us and sold it in the black market, but I decided to give him the two bags, for which he paid promptly.