As a toddler I lived in Vlagtwedde. My wife was also born there! I remember little from that period in my life. Grandfather Blokzyl lived with us after his wife died. This was the time when there were few, if any, old people homes where older people could live in peace. Opa went from family to family it seems, and all these families loved to see him go again, for he wasn’t really a pleasant man. I remember that he ticked his fork against his plate, when we talked too much during a meal or were tardy eating our food. If we didn’t listen, his fork would shoot out and hit our hands. I remember I was very scared when our neighbor donned a mask when he worked amongst the beehives in the adjacent garden.

I remember an old woman visiting us. Her name was Betje and she was Jewish. During World War Two (WW2) she was gassed in a German concentration camp, while her son Herman lived because he didn’t have enough Jewish blood in him (his father was not a Jew).

In front of our house on the main street in Vlagtwedde ran tram rails. I was not to play between the rails, although the tram (‘Olle Grietje’ she was called) passed by only a few times each day, going from Winschoten to Ter Apel. But once, as I played there, that big monster was advancing, hooting with all her might. I was paralyzed with fear and could not move. Someone pulled me away from the rails and although I do not remember it, my mother must have given me a good spanking, for so things were done when I grew up. My mother did not use her hands when she spanked us when we were children. She used the ‘mattenklopper’, a Raton contraption to beat carpets with so the dirt would fly out. A cold stare, and a soft hissing “You’re gonna get it with the mattenklopper” was usually sufficient to turn us into more obedient children. At approximately the same time when our family left Vlagtwedde for Winschoten, my future wife Stiny was born (1934) only a few houses from where I lived.