In September 1939 the second World War started. I remember that many people were recruited for the army, the number of unemployed started to decline sharply and the economy picked up so at first we didn’t worry much about the war. We were confident that Holland could stay out of the war. I remember there were many rumours at the time but we had heard rumours before.

However, early Friday morning, May 10th, we woke up to hear large formations of planes flying overhead and soon shooting could be heard on the ground. There were also a few small Dutch planes in the air. We were surprised how much faster these small planes were than the heavy German bombers. About 9:30 that morning the first bomber was shot down in our village. We saw him coming, losing height fast. One farmer who was in the field dove to the ground. The plane flew over him but he got a whole lot of gasoline dumped over him. The gas tank was damaged or they emptied it to avoid an explosion. It looked as if the plane would fly right into some houses but just behind the houses it touched ground and the nose bore into the ground.

I jumped on my bike and raced to the place where it had landed. It was much further away than I had expected, more than ¾ of a kilometer. When I arrived the occupants were just being taken out and driven away in a Dutch army truck. Five soldiers were inside, two were wounded and the other three too dazed through the sudden stop to defend themselves.

Then we rushed to look inside the plane. I have never seen a plane from close by. I remember how surprised I was that it was so big. It didn’t look very damaged. Soon such a crowd surged around it that we couldn’t see very much anymore. Then the police arrived and we had to leave while the plane was cordoned off. Some pieces of steel or other parts were pulled off as souvenirs but I didn’t think to do that.

Friday afternoon and Saturday evacuees started to arrive who had fled from the battle. An elderly couple with 4 grown up children, between the ages of 18 and 27, came to stay with us. Cattle also arrived and we got another ten milk cows. It was a beautiful weekend, like summer already. Sunday was Pentecost which was a holiday in Holland. It was sunny and warm.

At first we didn’t see much else but there were lots of rumours. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, around 2:30 or 3:00, we could see a very dark cloud rising from the west which appeared to be a severe thunderstorm coming in our direction. We smelled heavy smoke and pieces of paper and all kinds of material were drifting down and then we heard that Rotterdam was on fire. Rotterdam was almost 20 kms from our place as the crow flies. The smoke was so heavy that it was almost dark.

Then early Tuesday evening we heard that Holland had capitulated. The Germans had threatened to bomb a few more cities if Holland did not surrender within 24 hours and General Winkelman thought the situation was hopeless and felt that he should avoid more bloodshed. We couldn’t believe it. We were upset, bitter and angry.

There were several reasons Holland lost the war so quickly. First was the surprise attack. There had been enough warnings but those were never taken seriously. Secondly the army didn’t have enough materials and what they had was badly outdated. The liberal government had never seen much need to spend money on army resources, especially in the depression years, and had spent as little as possible.

The army was not well trained in modern warfare either. They thought stopping invaders at the border would be enough but Germany with its many airplanes, parachutes, gliders, etc., just passed over the army on the ground. The airports were bombed before many planes could get off the ground. Vital ports were immediately taken over by parachuters, and thirdly the Germans had infiltrated Holland with traitors, particularly in the army.

The Dutch army had put dynamite under several important bridges but when the button was pushed to stop the Germans coming over, nothing happened as the lines had been disconnected. Much of the artillery was useless because small but important parts had been removed, etc.

As soon as Holland surrendered the Germans did all they could to make the damage as minimal as possible. Large modern firetrucks from Germany and from other Dutch cities were rushed to Rotterdam to stop the huge fire. The army were put in camps but soon sent home. We didn’t see many German soldiers at first.

The Germans tried to win us over. We were told that the invasion was necessary since the English were ready to invade Holland so the Germans came to protect us, etc. In general a lot of people were more in favour of the Germans than of the English. Germany was always better for our exports than England and historically there was a long-standing rivalry between England and Holland, at sea and in the colonies.

Holland went through four wars with England in the 1500 and 1600s, and close to the turn of the century when the English took South Africa from the Boers, this was seen as a great injustice. History classes in school were quite often anti-English and many books were published about the English wars and the Boer war which created a lot of anti-English sentiment.

Additionally, the Germans tried to prove that they meant well with the Dutch invasion. The standard of living increased drastically, unemployment disappeared almost at once and products became more valuable as overproduction disappeared, so economically everything seemed to be straightened out. 

Another factor was that the Queen, with the whole House of Orange and the government leaving for England during the first days of fighting. This was a real shock to most people who couldn’t understand it. We thought they had abandoned their responsibility and were cowardly to leave, just looking after their own well-being. It didn’t take long, however, and the mood changed again. People started to realize that the Queen and the government had left for the good of the country. In England they could do much more than they could have had they been taken captive. They had also taken the treasury along to keep it safe and out of Hitler’s hands.

News travelled much more slowly then than now. There were no computers or fax machines yet and no television. Few people had radios and the newspapers were controlled by the Germans. At first it was so subtle that many people didn’t realize this. Most people didn’t have telephones and not many people traveled much, mostly just on bicycles for short distances. Very few people had a car or truck either. But slowly scarcity set in.

One of the first things that became scarce was gasoline, so buses couldn’t ride anymore or went less frequently. Some overhauled their motors and started burning wood chips instead of gasoline. Driving a car became too expensive. Many articles of clothing and food products became scarce, and we were given coupons for those products. We also had to carry personal identification cards with us with our picture, address, and fingerprints. Slowly more new laws came into effect that curtailed our freedom and people started disappearing, taken into custody at night or going underground.

One of the biggest changes was when all the Jews had to wear large yellow stars on their clothes and lost their jobs and many freedoms. In our area we thought there were no Jews but then we saw people with those stars whom we had known all our lives but had not realized were Jewish. We had never seen a Jew before who could not be recognized by their haircut or clothing.

The man who hit me with his car was a well known and respected veterinarian from Schoonhoven, a city about 15 kilometers away. He came by once after the accident to inquire how I was doing and brought some cookies. We were very surprised during the war to learn that he and his family were Jewish. His family was picked up and taken to a concentration camp early in the war and none of them returned.

Still in the first few years changes came slowly and subtly and in the countryside many people didn’t know what was really going on. Before the war, anyone aged 19 or 20 was called in for a medical examination to be drafted into the army for one or two years. This was abolished in the beginning of the war which many people really liked.

Then advertisements started to come luring people to sign up for the German army along with lots of promises, but later in 1943 people were called up to work in Germany for half a year. In the beginning most went, even if they didn’t like it at all, but it was an order and was obeyed. It took quite a bit for our law-abiding people to openly rebel. Later when our distrust and hatred of the Nazis increased and we heard about the working conditions in Germany, the promised half years ended and they were not allowed to return home, more and more people went underground.

In many rural areas we operated under three different time zones. There was the ‘daylight savings time’; the ‘farmer’s time’, for the farmers who refused to adapt to this imposed regulation, and the ‘German time’, because of the mandate that they move half an hour to sync with Germany’s time. When meetings were announced off the pulpit, three different times would be announced.

The Netherlands’ Reformed church strongly believed and taught submission to authority, any authority, including the German occupation. They were taught they needed to submit and that defying orders was against God’s will. I didn’t feel comfortable with that teaching and very much admired and even felt jealous of the courage and daring exploits of members of other reformed churches who were involved in the underground.

Adam and Jaap were recruited sometime during the war years and worked in Germany. One time I was with four or five other young men in the town center with three German guards. All of a sudden, one of the boys dashed off. Two of the German guards immediately pursued, which left the rest of the boys with only one guard. After a few minutes, they also scrambled. None of them were caught except the first courageous lad, in effect paving the way for the other’s escape.

Toward the end of the war the Germans were capturing younger and younger boys to work in their munitions factories and my parents didn’t want Henk and me to be sent there as well. The last winter or so we both had to spend many days in hiding and could only go outside when it was very dark. There was always someone sitting at the window to keep watch for anything suspicious.

We weren’t sure which of our neighbours could be trusted as the Germans offered rewards for information and some people were in such desperate situations that you never knew who might betray you. When there were visitors or German patrols in the area we had to hide in a hole that was only 16 inches high which had been dug under the floor boards under the kitchen table. The family would gather around the table and act as if nothing was wrong. Henk and I both learned how to crochet during the long hours we had to stay inside. . Once when some Germans stayed with us for several days we could only come out in the middle of the night to use the washroom and Oma brought us some food.