CENTER FOR ORAL AND PUBLIC HISTORY CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON

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1 O.H.4761 CENTER FOR ORAL AND PUBLIC HISTORY CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON NARRATOR: INTERVIEWER: WOUTER VAN DE BUNT Jay Buteyn DATE: April 21, 2011 LOCATION: PROJECT: Unknown From Hitler s Europe to the Golden State Today is April 21, 2011 and I m Jay Buteyn and I m interviewing Wouter van, van de Bunt. Wouter van de Bunt. Wouter van de Bunt. Yes. For the-uh From Hitler s Europe to the Golden State Project. And we ll get started now. So-uh Wouter, where were you born? In Vianen in the Netherlands. What part of the Netherlands is that? Right in the center. Okay uh what year? Nineteen twenty-five. Uh, so tell me about a little about your childhood? Well I grew up in the small town of Vianen and there was only three thousand inhabitants, there was not even a high school. So when I became six or seven years old

2 Unk: No. my dad said, Hey, you want to go to high school in Utrecht? which is the nearest big town north of Vianen. And so I went there in 1932 I think, yeah thirty. Sorry, not 32, I went to elementary school in 32, so I went to high school, when I was Unk: 38. seven, yeah. Thirty-eight, okay, thirty-eight high school. And-uh two years into high school the war broke out. The Germans occupied the Netherlands and-uh the high school went on of course and I graduated from that high school in 1943 in the middle of the, of the war. I was already seventeen years old and as being of that age we were liable sometimes to be picked up by German raids looking for forced labor for German factories. You had to watch out. And every now and then our principle would come in, in the, in our class when we were in fourth or fifth grade of the high school (coughs) and said, Hey, you boys better go home but watch out. We knew enough that that meant leave the classroom and find your way home one way or the other by looking out for let s say big pickup trucks or so where the Germans would, would have a ra, a raid. I survived that and then after high school I was, I wanted to go to the university, but all students of university age in Holland had to sign a loyalty oath to the Germans which every Dutchman that red blood we don t sign. So then you had to sort of find a way to avoid having to work in German factory because the only alternative that the Germans offered was then, Okay, you don t want to go to the university, then you go to 2

3 work and you work where we tell you to. which is usually a German factory making wartime materials. Right, do you know anyone who-uh did sign those agreements-- No, I don t. --to the Germans? I don t know of anybody who did sign, never knew anybody. So, the consensus among most people they rather Oh yeah. --rather not go to university As a result, as a result all the universities virtually closed. And, and anybody who was already registered at the university probably worked surreptitiously with professors who wanted to do that. But that was, of course I wasn t in that age, so I, I registered for a, a course with a tutor who had on the side a little business uh, reading and, and teaching and in my case economics because I wanted to go study economics. And this was. This was after high school? This was after high school. So, you had a tutor uh, give basically get started you out on a college education? Yeah, but, but you know sort of on the side. It Right. --it was not official. Right, so could you have gotten in trouble for doing that with the Germans? 3

4 No, you couldn t as long as you stayed out of the, of the grasp of the Germans. Now there was a way, the Germans also wanted to register you for a labor service that was like domestic in Holland that was called Arbitsdietz where the, the boys were sort of trained to exercise with the, with agricultural utensils like spades and shovels and, and like in a military way. And you could avoid that if you worked for some industry that was deemed to be an execution for not joining and so the Netherland s Railroads took in people. And I was able to find a job with the Netherland s Railway s and at the same time I went, went to high school and-uh took my bike every day to that job and I was hired on as an third level administrative assistant in the Department of Statistics. Do you remember what year you were hired or you started working for them? Uh, it must have been in the fall of Okay, so this was-uh around the middle of the war? Yep, yep, and-uh but when the allied troops in 1944 launched their operation Unk: Market Garden? Market Garden. Market Garden, exactly in September Market Garden took place. The Dutch government in exile in London ordered the Netherland s Railways to go on strike presumably to try and prevent the Germans from sending troops to the, to the war zone. Right. They didn t know the Germans already had troops in place or it didn t work out very well. But anyway, the Dutch, everybody worked for the Dutch Railways went on strike and the railway stopped operating. And I lost my job. So, then I had to disappear from the scene because then everybody of course was another year older. I must have been 4

5 eighteen by that time and-uh, so then I was recruited by our local minister in Vianen to become a courier for the Dutch underground. Okay, so how did-uh, how did people feel about the railroad strike, all the people working? Were they happy to go on strike or was it something they, they--? Oh yeah, they, they were happy to do something because the, the, the allied operation looked promising enough to, to say, Well maybe in a couple of months the war is over. You know, but it got stuck at the one bridge too far Right. --in Emmen. And then we got the worse winter of the war was still ahead of us. Right. So called Hunger Winter, but-uh, uh, so you know you were, you were a red blooded Dutchman and when the government said, Hey you don t work for the Germans. And more over when the war left the offices were closed and-uh So do you say it was-uh kind of a universal feeling? Oh yeah. With the rail workers? Oh yeah, oh yeah I m sure. And you know and moreover we, we got a money order every month with our paycheck. Uh-huh. Which was came, came from an anonymous address and was cashable at the post office and so, whatever salaries we had they were meager enough but at least we got some money. Was this during the strike or--? 5

6 During the strike. Oh you were still getting paid? All the way through. You, you never found out where the money was coming from? No, there was an address on there that was not traceable. Oh wow! Do you have any idea where you, where do you think it came from? Oh, it, it came from the town of Utrecht which was the headquarters of the, of the Dutch Railways and then somebody must have undertaken it, undertaken it to, to, to get money and later on after the war I found out that there was an Amsterdam banker who was also active in the underground who was able to raise funds and pay these checks. Oh wow! Do you have any idea how they raised the funds? Was it just uh No, they can probably find it out in, in, in the history books or --of the Dutch War. Uh, well before we get to your work on the underground, uh; tell me a little bit about about your parents? My father had the bakery in Vianen. And-uh, that was one of several bakeries in the small town. But we had a fairly, not the largest but probably one or two of the two biggest bakeries in town and of course food was getting scarcer and scarcer. And more and more bakeries had to close down. And eventually ours was the only one that was still open, and, and produced what I could call bread which was made out of I think some grain stuff but also whatever they mixed in there was not very palatable. But you know it 6

7 was, it was food was rationed and you had to, besides money you also had coupons to, to obtain the food. And my father and mother worked hard in the, in the place. And we had to let go most of our personnel. We had three originally and there was only one left at the end of the war. And-uh until nine, in the spring of 1945 when some relief supplies came from Sweden and our bakery was again involved in producing the first real bread from the Swedish supplies. And I still remember the smell. Yeah? Of the fresh bread that was baked in our bakery even though we had hardly any fuel to, to heat up the ovens. But my parents worked hard and they were, my mother worked in, in, in the store and my father worked in the bakery. And we had, and we as kids helped out with the deliveries and things like that. Yeah. It s typical middle class family. So-uh, you mentioned that you kids. You had brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have, I was the oldest of four. And I was, I had one younger brother two years younger than I and he s still alive. And then a sister another two years down the line and then the, the junior came four years later. And-uh you all helped with the family business you kids? Yeah, I think, you know as we became big enough to work and make deliveries and do customers in town. Right, how, how did that work around uh I guess schooling when you were a child? 7

8 Oh you know you work, we had days, half days off at school and then we, we d work and then on the weekends. That is not Sunday because Sundays we were Dutch Reformed. Sundays everything was closed. So-uh what about your mother? Can you tell me a little bit about her? Well she worked in the, in the store also. She was uh, she, she ran the shop but, but retail was handled like bread and when available cookies and, and, and other things were typical probably of a Dutch bakery. And so she worked full-time. But she had a, a domestic helper in the, in the house who did the cleaning and what not. Okay, what were your-uh? Unk: As we were twelve you started doing the-uh bills, the bills. Oh, I helped out writing the bakery bills for customers. The people who paid out, who only paid once a week and their payments when they got paid so. Because they We sell on credit and then they got little slips of paper, little notes. They had regular orders like every week or No, we, we delivered. Our, our, the people that worked for us and my father and also delivered bread and whatever people wanted to their house and then they paid once a week so. When I got, 8

9 was able to write and calculate I was recruited every week to, to assemble all this information and write the notes. Okay, so-uh, what, what did you do for hobbies when you were a child or when you were a teenager during the war? Well, during the war of course you couldn t go anywhere because you were vulnerable of being picked up. Before, just before the war when I just entered high school we went on a camping trip with our class and then in 1940 we were going to go away our second grade high school on a, on a boat trip to Norway. And that of course fell through when the Germans first occupied Norway and then occupied Holland. So in fact the, due to the German occupation our, our teenage years were I wouldn t say destroyed but at least severely impaired. Right. And you had to make, you had to just, what you could do was maybe go for walks and-uh and there s a river going by, by the town of Vianen so you could swim in the river. Anduh in the summertime and in the wintertime you know there was sometimes there was enough ice to go skating. Uh, did people go swimming oft, often? Did they do what? Did they swim often? Oh yeah, oh yeah we learned how to swim pretty early in life. I remember speaking to another women. She said everyone in Holland learned how to swim because of all the rivers. 9

10 Well, I wasn t able to, to fully swim yet when I got high school but the first time, the first grade in high school they had swimming lessons. And-uh then I was finally took the exam of swimming so many feet and-uh with and without clothes on. Oh wow! That was a part, the part of swimming. Unk: You used to go on the boats and on the Oh well yeah. When Unk: The. Now you re talking about during the war we didn t do that because you know the Germans were everywhere and you couldn t really expose yourself. But when you went swimming and there were boats going in the river, you know, you would try and hitch a ride on the side of the boat and-uh go upstream and then, and then float Yeah, yeah. --back with the current. But otherwise you know, and, and well and hobbies well we had, we had relatives in the country so you visited our aunts and uncles and-uh, and-uh cousins from time to time and stayed, stayed there for a time. But it was very much limited to what you could do. Uh-huh, was your-uh, you said you had aunts or uncles in the area. Was your extended family close? Yeah it was, and of course the country is small so in, in proximity we re close but the family was close knit. Uh-huh, what type, what types of things, did you stay in contact with them throughout the war or was that more difficult? 10

11 It was more difficult but you did. Uh, the mail was still going. The telephone just came into vogue but people didn t use the telephone much for, for social purposes yet. I remember our very first telephone coming, the three digit number that you had. Yeah. And-uh, it was only used for, for the business. Right, no you didn t just call up to chat with anybody. And, and there was no, no yakking about. You know for the phone of course you paid per minute, so you had to be economical about it. In the war things were all scarce. Uh-huh. Money was scarce and everything was scarce and increasingly so as the war went on, slowly and slowly it became almost unknown existent, the economy broke down. Germans robbed the country clean and-uh eventually when the last winter people were starving, literally starving. That s too bad. Well, while you were growing up, what was your sense of politics in Europe and the rise of fascism and Hitler and Germany? Do you have any; did you have any sense of what was going on? Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah our newspapers gave stories about the rise of Hitler and-uh, and in when 1938 Hitler occupied pieces of Czechoslovakia and you know the threat of, of war became more and more urgent. And in the summer of 1939 the Dutch Army mobilized in defense of a possible invasion by the Dutch Army was certainly no match for the Germans. But anyway, they, they did. And so we knew, we knew it was coming up. And, and we heard stories about that crazy guy Hitler and, and his buddy Mussolini in Italy. 11

12 How did-uh, how did your parents, what was their opinions on it? Did they think it was going to something that would blow over? Were they uh Well --nervous that They were increasingly nervous. You, you, you knew that it was not, during World War I the Dutch were able to stay out of World War I. Right. And-uh because of, of, of what they thought was their defensive position. My father was, was mobilized in the Dutch Army in World War I. And they thought well that it would happen again in World War II, the Dutch mobilize and the Germans might again bypass Holland. No such thing happened of course and-uh Did, did-uh most people think that s what would happen? That it would just be a bypass like in the First World War? Well you know you re always hoping but of course we were, we were youngsters of about thirteen or fourteen years old so, you really didn t go too deep into this. But we were aware of the fact that a war might be, might be coming. But what was it going to be like we had no idea. What did your parents, what if you asked them questions about what was going on? What would they tell you? No, no I, I think you just tried to avoid getting too involved and too nervous about it. And I think they probably wanted to protect us from worrying too much also if they had an opinion. So, it wasn t talked about too often 12

13 No. --just because it was No, no. --not something you wanted to address? No, not in advance. The first thing that happened was on May 10 th, 1940 when all those German planes came over low over the country and started, strafing and doing things all of a sudden. That must have been frightening. It was very frightening yeah and it took five days for the Dutch to, to go under capitulate. Uh-huh. It was. Those, those days stay in your memory forever. Uh-huh, do you remember uh, what do you remember about the-uh, the German invasion? Well-uh, it came, the, the first thing of course was early in the morning of May 10 th when those planes were coming low over town and-uh, and Dutch soldiers were coming in and some of them took shelter in our house and-uh there were refugees coming in from the east ahead of the, of the invading forces. And the, I remember the Dutch queen, Queen Wilhelmina coming on the radio protesting this brazen invasion of the Netherlands and you know the, the violating the sovereignty of the country in great protest. But you know, as the days went on there were more and more retreating Dutch troops coming through town and, and every now and then the German planes flying over and looking for, for targets. Uh-huh, was your town ever uh attacked, were there bombings or strafing? 13

14 Not, not in the first five days. No, during the war itself uh one bomb fell on November 29, You remember the exact day? Oh yes, that was the evening nine o clock. So that must have been, it must have been a big event? There was, there was a curfew. We had, the Germans had a curfew then. You had to be in, inside from let s say eight at night until six in the morning. But at nine o clock one evening all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion and-uh when you went to look outside. And one of the Germans in town that I, that was preventing us from going outside and we saw this, this, the three houses in ruins on our street. Uh-huh, was-uh, was anyone hurt? I think a baby, was, was, was killed. That s terrible. And so that, that, that was the only bomb that fell in town. And then on January 1 st of 1945 uh the big traffic bridge over our river was bombed by the allies and fell into the water to block the German. How did you, do you know if the, the bomb that-uh destroyed the three houses if it was an ally bomb or a German bomb? We all thought it was an ally bomb because it, it was; there was a hotel there that had just, a couple days, until a couple of days before that had been used by German troops. So, but we, we never heard any, anything explaining why this happened. How did you feel about uh, allied bombs you know destroying bridges and--? 14

15 Oh as long as, as long as they hit the enemy. (Laughs) kind of I guess then it was necessary is that how you d describe it? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely because there was some, some bombings in the Netherlands that hit large parts or big, big cities by accident and, and there were many victims because of mistaken bombings. Uh-huh. And The Hague had a big one and Nijmegen had a big one and there must have been others as well, too. Yeah, well during the, the rise of Hitler and during the war and German occupation, did you ever see any anti-semitism or--? No, our town had probably no more than five Jews living among us who seemed to be gone one day from one day to the other. And of course there was no publicity given to the Germans taking away all these people in Amsterdam and other big cities. That was not in the paper. You know, you heard rumors and-uh but not even the Dutch radio from London said much about it. There was, there was, there was no big awareness of that except for rumors. So we were not aware of, of anything in, in our town. We, you noticed at one time that some people all of a sudden seemed to have little children among them that were never known to be there before. And-uh, when we asked our parents about that they said, Oh well, maybe they have some relatives from the cities that needed to be fed out, fed a little bit better in the small towns. Whether they turned out to be later on the Jewish children that were being protected. Do you know what happened to the-uh the Jewish citizens from your town, if they made it through the war? 15

16 They never came back. But they, so they you know they were deported? They must have been yeah, yeah. Um, was it, did you notice when they were gone or was it just kind of you looked up one day and? Yeah, they, they were not that prominent people and-uh, I, I don t think that you know the town was big enough to know that, that the people were coming and going. And if somebody didn t show back for a while you know you didn t think much about it. It was not, it was not big advantage of that at all at least not in our family. Well you said uh, there was these children that were being hidden in your town. Was that like a, was there a lot of houses or families participating in that or was it kind of a? No, the, few and far between. Really? But there were you know a handful or so I would say as far as I know. You know because the, the, the region of course did not make it conspicuous anyway. Right. So-uh, there was no publicity given to them if people knew. And so it was, it was kept quiet. Right. And since it did not involve our own direct family we were hardly aware of it Right. --as children. 16

17 How did you uh feel about Germany and Germans when you were-uh before the war and then during the war? Well, before the war it was just you know a place that was, that was a foreign country. And I remember one trip we took with an uncle who had a car, and when, which where we took a couple of steps across the border and we said, Hey, we ve been in Germany. But otherwise it was there and-uh, we, we were too young to go there. Well our family didn t travel that much. Of course we had a family that had to stay close to the business and we didn t make any foreign trips. And since, in 1940 the war broke out and there was no way to go there anymore anyway. Right. And, and of course when the war broke out of course all of a sudden all Germans were enemies. Uh-huh. So-uh, there was not an overflowing of sympathy there. Yeah, how did your parents feel about Germans? I think they were pretty negative about it as well. Yeah. Yeah, and of course during the war uh, Germans would sudden, suddenly show up at our door and say hey they both wanted two rooms in the house. You know, it s totally contra the Geneva Convention but they, they just quartered themselves into. We had a fairly large and new house and it was built in 1933 and there was room. And so they would take, have that that room and then several people would stay there for days or so and then 17

18 disappear again, but forced themselves to be there. It was not taken to into with great enthusiasm of course. Right. Okay negative, of course they were the enemy and we were, and I had, I had after the war started I had gotten myself a big map of Europe and where I followed the German invasion of, of Russian by, by putting pins, pins in there. Uh-huh. And making the front line in, in by thread. And I remember one day there was a German lieutenant in, in our house and he came into the room and he saw that map. And the Germans were already at that time already in retreat. And he said, Are we that far back already? I said, As far as I know yes. He said, How do you know? I said, Well I heard it on the radio. I didn t say it was the BBC. Uh-huh, what, did he ask what radio station you heard it from? No he didn t. Unk: We weren t allowed to have radios then? No, I would have said the Dutch radio of course which was totally under German control. Uh-huh. And we had, and, and us, we had to, it was forbidden to listen to foreign radio stations. Right. But we did anyway. I mean I had a hidden radio under the bed and listen to BBC whenever I could. The Dutch had broadcasts via the BBC and of course as I learned English in high school, I was able to understand more of the BBC broadcast. 18

19 So when-uh, when these Germans would quarter in your house, would they search the house and look for contraband like your radio or anything like that? Not those people. Those people were just soldiers and they, they were you know on assignment to be in this town for limited period of time on their way wherever they were going. It might be for R and R from the front or so. Oh okay. And, and, and we stayed out of touch. We didn t communicate with them. We did not necessarily behave in a hostile way because you couldn t afford to do that. You had to watch out just tolerate it is what you did. And then they had their own food and whatever. They didn t, they, they have never ruined anything that I know of in our house. So they just, they just stayed at the house-- Yeah, stayed at the house. --a few days and left. --used the facilities and slept there and I think they probably went to the room, eating, feeding places is where they were. Well, during occupation you were telling me about how German patrols looked for uh people to take to the war camps. Not in our town. In our town we, we only were aware of-uh, uh, that they were ordering everybody to turn in their radios for instance. And then we came with a very old radio and turned it in. Right. 19

20 The good one we kept, and-uh, then another one that would order that everybody brings a bicycle. They want, they needed bicycles. We had to bring our bicycles or, or else they would kill five prominent people or something like that or ten. That was the threat so then at the appointed time people tried to get to their oldest but turn in whatever they had. Then sometimes they wanted blankets. As the war brought, went on you know the, the acquisitions became more and more severe. Unk: And copper remember? Huh? Unk: Copper. Oh yeah. Unk: You had to bring anything you owned that was copper you had to bring. Yeah, copper vases, copper utensils. Unk: Trash bags. Did they ever uh They, they, they took the chur, the church bells out. Did they-uh, were those, were those made of copper too or just metal that they wanted? Yeah, bronze or copper yeah. Did they-uh ever take food from your father s bakery? No, they were, as a matter of fact my father was able to feed his customers. So, what, you were, you were talking about these patrols that go looking for-uh people to work in the work camps. Is that when you are going to and from School. --school? 20

21 Yeah, the You went; you went to school in a different town right? Yeah. Unk: Fifteen kilometers. Fifteen kilometers up and down by bike. And-uh you know of course that was a bigger city. And so, there that was a large permanent occu, occupation force and they, and they had also secret police there and those were the details that they used to, to, to gather. Did you see a lot of people being picked up by the Germans or--? Well, when you saw it you were, you made sure you went to other way. But yeah, you saw it from time to time. Were, were they uh, were they all just any Dutch or was it mostly Jews or--? No, male of workable age. Like eighteen, eighteen and older. Did-uh and you said there was secret police there. Were you ever questioned by them? Uh, I came close on one of my courier trips. And I was, I was, I was, as a courier I was assigned to-uh deliver documents and other things that I m not supposed to know about. But I knew there were ration books. The Germans had a system whereby they had regionalized the, the ration books for, for people by parts of the country. And since we, 21

22 people had to disappear and go to other parts of the country. Their ration books wouldn t be valid there. So they had to be exchanged, and I was part of the network that was, that helped making the ration books coming into the right hands. So every now and then I was assigned a trip by-uh by my boss who was at the beginning it was our local minister, that one was a local uh, uh, what do you call that, veterinarian, when the minister was transferred, and-uh, and do those things. Okay, well why don t you tell me a little, tell me about your work in the resistance? Well, it was, I, I, I was, I was the church organist of our Dutch Reformed Church from the age of thirteen to the age of eighteen. And in that time I knew the minister very well, so he was, he one, one day called us on our new phone and he says would you come over and I want to talk to you. And I said sure you know. There was nothing abnormal about it. And he said, You know, I have, I have some stuff that I want to deliver to the town of Zwolle which is like two hundred kilometers to the northeast. And-uh, and I, I you know I, I don t want you to ask any questions about it because the more you know the more you can-uh can tell so. just take it, take it and be careful and make sure that you don t get stopped or searched. Unk: And don t tell your parents. And don t tell your parents. So my mother was probably aware of it. Things were happening and all she could do was pray I guess. And-uh so I did it several times and I made this trip. And on one of those trips on the way back on my bicycle I-uh, I was accompanied by a friend of mine who was hiding in that same area where I was had been, just been. 22

23 That s uh, Zwolle? Near Zwolle yeah. And I was between, I was still north, northeast of Zwolle and my friend said, I ll, I ll bike with you for a while. All of a sudden he said, I m out of here. And he turned around and, and scooted away and I kept on going. And there was a, a German truck standing on the, on the highway and-uh I just biked on. And-uh those, and there was only guy with it, one German soldier and he said in German, Halt stop. And I had to identify. And I had, I had, I had papers and I forgot now whether those were the falsified ones or whether I still could use that ones that I had. You know we all, we all needed identification or the Germans had gates, had had installed a nationwide identification system for everybody fourteen years or older or something like that. So I was, that, that was satisfactory and, and, and he said What s in that suitcase that you re carrying there? And there were my, it was the stuff the contraband I was carrying that I had a packet of, of ration books. And I said, Oh that s my, that s my, my evening eat meal in there. Do you want to see it? Uh-huh. He said, No, go ahead. Then I just went on you know with a pounding heart and trying to, to bicycle slowly and not in a hurry. But that was, that was how close I came. Had I had to open it up and had they seen that one he would have called for superiors and I would have probably been forced to tell everybody that I knew. You know, that they would try to torture people and make them tell whatever they wanted to know. But that was, that was close that I came. And another trip I was, I was called by the minister and he said, I have a guy who needs to go to Zwolle. We had this sort of a bible in Zwolle where we put people 23

24 that needed to go in hiding. And he said, Tomorrow morning at six o clock he ll be at your house and he ll whistle and would you please bring him to the point where he want. which I knew the only point, one point where I knew to bring people. Uh-huh. And-uh, I said, Sure. You know and it, it was a beautiful morning and spring of I forget whatever year it was 44 or so. And-uh there was a young man in there and he was just a year older than I am, I was. And that of course he was already of the age that he had to be in hiding and I could still be-uh be, had a legitimate, had a legitimate reasons to be around and had identification. And you know he gave, he gave a first name. I think he called himself Hank, I don t know whether it was. Not necessarily his name and I didn t give him mine. And we biked along and just chatted. It was a quiet morning and he said you know he said to me, Do you know what I have? I said, No, what do you have? He said, I have a gun. I said, You have a gun? Yeah. You know what s that for? He said, Well I have one. Do you want to see it? It was a quiet morning and I said, Yeah let me see. Let s get off the bike. He stopped and he showed me that. And he let me hold it and I had never seen it before. I said, Okay Hank, you know we re not going to go any further with that revolver. Unk: Because we re going to go in the train and, and you know there there will be searches. And if, if they find a revolver on you and I m there too, both of us are, are for gone. He said, Yeah, but I want to keep that. I said, Well, feel free to go ahead by yourself, but I m not going with you any further. I said, Well what do you want me to do? He 24

25 said, Give me that gun. And there was a, there was a road sign like a stone marker and I said that I looked and I said, Number seventeen on there. I ll, I ll put that gun there and at night when I come back I ll pick it up and I ll bring it where I want it to be. He had no choice. So, we went without the gun and then and then at that time we went part of the way by train you know the train to Zwolle. And I came back that same night and went back and stopped there and picked up the gun and brought it to my boss. And so that s the last I heard about it. What uh, why did you need to escort him up to Zwolle? Did he just not know the way? Yeah the, yeah they wouldn t know where to go. Was he, he was another Dutchman? He was. He was a farmer s son somewhere yeah. And I didn t know him. Unk: Did you also have people that didn t speak Dutch? Oh well you know there was, there was also, we also had courier services where we accompanied allied soldiers who had been shot down and parachuted down and were and and escaped being captured by the Germans. And they had to be brought over to the allied lines. And we had to just, and, and so each of us, in each zone there was a series of people that were detailed to accompany them through back roads and turn them over to the next. 25

26 Would they uh and how would you show? How would you do this? Did you put them in a disguise or--? No, we would, we would just stay out of, out of sight. And-uh and, and, and the only instruction you had was don t talk much with them so you don t know anything about them, and-uh if, if you ever get caught you know then, then, then deaf mute. (Laughs) That s what, fortunate that never happened. So a couple of times Did you ever escort any women? Yeah, a couple of times but that was you know few and far between. And I was a little antsy about that of course but you know. Yeah. But I knew the back roads of course in my area very well. How far did you have to take them? About thirty miles. And then someone else would pick them up from there or--? No, no somebody else would be there. Right. And take them on. 26

27 Unk: And I d go back. Is there anything else other than escorting a, escorting No. --escorting people and delivering food? No, I don t know nothing, nothing heroic about Well, it s all relative. You know yeah, it s all relative. Did your boss? Huh? Unk: You didn t work anymore after your boss got killed? Oh well that yeah, well yeah. My, my, that s true. I was, I was, from time to time I disappeared you know when he thought it was a little bit too hot. My grandparents lived about seven miles in a, in a very small hamlet and they had a hiding place for us. My brother and I, like if we felt we needed to be away for a while we were there. But I was home at one time and then all of a sudden from our living room we saw a group of Germans and a couple of guys with their hands on their head had been arrested and one of them was my boss, the-uh Unk: The veterinarian. --the veterinarian. And apparently he had been captured; found putting explosives in that bridge that was later on exploded. And-uh Unk: It was a major bridge. Huh? Unk: A major bridge. 27

28 Oh yeah, a major bridge on the road south between and Antwerp. Do you remember when he was arrested? It must have been in the fall of 44 because the bridge was destroyed on January 45. And so, I don t remember what it was then. And then what, what happened, when he was being brought to the place where they wanted to put him up or whatever they do, interrogate him. He, he, he ran away and he was shot. How did you find out that he ran away, just? Well it happened right almost the same little few steps away from the grocery shop. Was that right after he got arrested or--? Yeah, he was on his way to, to be, to being detained. And you know he did that because had he been captured and interrogated the way the Germans interrogate, he would have been given away our names, the names of people he worked with. So he sacrificed himself. Do you, what was his name? Har, Harmond Von den Brink, H, H, H initial, H initial Harmond initial H. Von Den Brink. But I called him doctor. And was the vet and the-uh. He was. He was the vet. And you say he was a minister too at the church? No, the minister, no he was just in my, in my boss he was a successor to the minister. I didn t know the guy Oh. --until I was assigned him. 28

29 --to work with him. And the minister left and he said now you work for him. And I knew that he existed but Okay, so you had, you had two, two guys you worked for. There is the minister in the church. Yeah and that s and succeeded by the, the vet. And who was the minister? His name was Derek, Derek Zemel, Z-e-m-e-l. And was he ever captured? I don t know. He was, he was transferred to another town and we never, and we never saw him again. He had. He had been in the concentration camp for six weeks while he was a minister for us. That was, that was early in, in, in the occupation. Unk: In. And he came back with a, with a bald head with a short cut, in the concentration camp of Amersfoort. But he came back and survived that. So was uh, in the resistance was there a lot of people in your town who participated? Yeah. But only, I found, I found out after the war was, after liberation because all of a sudden these guys became visible and they were, they were all wearing these blue coveralls and black berets and they had guns. But I was not part of that, of that group. But I mean uh, people who did jobs like, like yours like couriers or--? Well if so, I didn t know and of course I wasn t supposed to know. 29

30 Right. I know that s some of the guys that had been gone, that had gone for all my friends who had gone to, to Zwolle and surroundings because we, that was our prime and so on. So other, other kids your age were participating, but you Yeah. --just didn t know it at the time. And, and, and, and on the same token, people from Zwolle were in our backyards but you know we didn t know where they were. They worked as farmhands or whatever. So you didn t talk to him because No, you --you didn t want to know? --exactly. The less you knew the better. Uh Unk: Of course. --so I guess who were, was it uh, people from all walks of life who participated doing this? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah teachers and mechanics and-uh, farmhands. We were in a very rural area as a small set. Did you uh ever encounter anyone who-uh was-uh more pro pro-german and against the resistance who was Dutch? Yeah, yeah, there were some, there were some, some people in town who were, who sold the Nazi newspaper on the street corners. And this was in your hometown or in the bigger cities? 30

31 In our hometown. And those people you knew. In, in the bigger cities of course there would be, there would be more of them but you, you didn t associate with them. What, what was it like dealing with them? Did they ever try and talk to you? No. No they were. They were shunned. We just ignored them. But they were. They were around. So do you know any who, who any of them were? Did you know their names or anything like that or-? Yeah, I, I, I knew one who lived on our street and, and his name was Gosman, G-o-s-m-a-n. I forget his first name right now. And-uh he was, he was, he was a Nazi. He wore the Dutch Nazi, the Dutch black Nazi uniform and, and, and, and had the newspaper that came out every week that sold for six, six pennies each uh Folk and Fatherland it was called. What other uh activities do you see collaborators doing? Collaborators, well you know, there were of course contractors who were recruited by the Germans to work on, on defense works against allied invasion. Whether they did it voluntarily or just uh, uh, with, with their eye on the big profits that they made or whether they were coerced to do it. You didn t find out. Again you know you stayed out of those, out of those things. Unk: And you left the town right after the war so you never heard any more details. After the, no after the war of course I went to school yeah. Unk: To Rotterdam. So do you think uh, how do, how do you think they-uh found out about your boss you know and other people? 31

32 Oh well, the, the one that was, was captured? Well they, they must have had been tipped off or, or and strolling those sensitive points like bridges and other, those points where they could be sabotaged. They saw activity over there and must have followed somebody. Did you suspect that maybe there was I didn t know that he worked on those things. Other uh, other uh Dutch citizens that were giving information to the Germans? It could be. It could well be, of course there is always, always giveaways. There is always traitors, yeah. Was it something you were concerned about at the time? Uh-huh, that s, that s why you, you kept as, as closed mouth as possible because you never know who was going to be the guy that gave you away. Well-uh, you said your-uh, one of your bosses was a minister at your church. Did youuh, did you continue to go to church with your family during the war? Oh yeah, yeah we did. As a matter of fact, the, the, the second day of the war, the war broke out on a Friday, and Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost and our church had been taken over by the Dutch military who had put in all kinds of and they had, they had there so. The, the, another church gave us hospitality and we had our service in that other church. And, but and I was the organist in the church that had been taken over, but that was cleaned out again. and I kept, I continued until the age of eighteen to be the organist in that church and after your eighteen you know you were vulnerable to be recruited by the Germans for forced labor. So then I, my younger brother took over. 32

33 Uh-huh, uh what were the sermons like? What do you remember about them during the war? The Germans? No, the, the sermons? Well, neutral with hidden meanings. (Laughs) what do you? You know, but whatever you read between the lines. Uh-huh. You could not do, you know, because I was, I was inclined to play the Dutch National Anthem on the organ. Uh-huh. But of course that was forbidden. That was too far? Every now and then you just took a little liberty and went onto something else. And, and, and I guess the sermons were like that too you know. We, they were a very Funda, ours was a very Fundamentalist Church. So-uh you know it s always God and his enemies. And of course, who were the enemies? You knew that, that So, what types of things would they say like, can you give me an example? (Laughs) that s hard but you know you; you can imagine that, that, that the, the sermon might be about the wars of Israel against it, it s enemies. Uh-huh. You know and then you know Israel is the chosen people. Uh-huh. 33

34 We were the chosen people. So, you could tell like if the minister was drawing parallels? Oh yeah. Unk: They had to be very careful. Oh yeah, yeah. Unk: Very, very careful. You know because if, if people who but, but there could be spies in, in the audience but Unk: No. we didn t think so. It never to my knowledge ever happened. So, so nothing was said directly but No, but no. --the message, the message was understood? Only, only by conversations of course. But the message of the sermons were uh Well just you know, just you know the theological shall we say. But I mean so you said, they re talking about the bib, you know just the bible and Yeah. --stuff like that? Yeah. But there s another message there Yeah. --he keeps communicating to you? Was that anti-german message that was well understood? 34

35 Yeah, oh of course, of course you always knew that. But you know it, it, it was straight quotations from; from the bible you know God defeats his enemies. Right, so there was uh That, that --plausible non-deniability? Yeah, oh yeah that, that, that was inspiring in a way. Yeah? Did it-uh, inspiring how just to keep Giving you comfort like you know, eventually good will win out over evil. Well yeah, I mean because I can only imagine your occ, Holland was occupied for over four years. So, was that difficult trying to, living under occupation for that long? Five years was the- Yeah. --it was five; five years minus five days almost it was the war. Oh yeah, it was, it was increasingly difficult. You know, the whole occupation was such a gradual process. In the beginning things went on almost as normal. But then like I said for instance, in our first year in school we were during the-uh morning break we weren t allowed to go outside. Across the street was a German office of occupational organization. We as school kids started singing there very patriotic songs. Well within a week we are no longer allowed to get outside and we were told to stay in the inner courtyard of the school for the duration, that kind of thing. You know that, that was a small thing, but gradually the noose was getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And also, of course our material circumstances were getting worse. Gradually things were being rationed. I remember the first thing that went was 35

36 sugar. I guess they made alcohol out of sugar or something because there was plenty of sugar in Holland. But the, the, we were, we were stolen blind by the Germans in, in Holland. They, they just, Holland was a pretty rich country before the war relatively speaking and the loss of supplies and spare supplies but they were emptied out in no time. And at the end of the war they even took out you know the railroad tracks and, and the copper wire. Uh-huh, um, what, I m sorry just to go back. Sure. Your church uh, was it a Catholic or a Calvinist Church. Calvinist. Calvinist okay. Uh, and then do you remember uh hearing about or seeing any Dutch citizens joining the German Army? I heard there was a very mod Yeah, there was a modest number of people that did that, went and joined the German, the Dutch SS, part of the German SS. Was there anyone from your town who did that? I m trying to think. If so, they haven t, it was, it was less than five. If so, and I, I, I can t think of any names right now anymore. They were certainly not prominent people and people that we associated with regardless. But do you recall, not, not, not names but just No. Memories of any, anyone? 36

37 No, no, I really don t. But there could have been because they were attracted by probably the prospects of elimination of whatever. Okay, well uh, before we move on I just want to start the track over so we can put this on a CD. Unk: I m going to retire. All right, so we were-uh, we were talking about during the break about you mentioned the German prop, propaganda. Yeah. About how it was saying that-uh things would be better if the Germans came. Yeah. Economic circumstances. Um, how did you feel about that because you said that the Germans were really just taking everything, copper, food, any supplies they could get? Of course a number of those things that the Germans did we learned in retrospect because they didn t advertise what they were doing. Right. And they didn t publicize that kind of stuff. But you know you were aware of the fact that more and more things were getting scarce and-uh, and, and-uh then you know the propaganda from the B, that you heard on the BBC the Dutch, the Dutch radio from London uh you know insinuated. And of course, we probably tended, tended to believe that they were speaking the truth and I hope that they, you know, that the Germans were doing all kinds of evil things to the Dutch population. So-uh, the, the Dutch newspapers made no sense anymore. There, there, there were, the one that we, that we subscribed to which was called the Standard uh, stopped 37

38 publish, publishing almost right away after the war started because the Germans said that s a forbidden paper, that s too, too, it, it was oriented towards the Dutch Calvinist Church and that kind of thing. So we, that stopped working. And the other papers uh, also stopped except for a few that were just run by, by, by Nazi sympathizers. The Germans of course were masters for propaganda and they, they knew that they had to keep the public, publicity totally under control. That the rad, the Dutch radio stations, there were two or three of them I guess, uh, were also totally controlled by the Germans. You know, except maybe for some, some music they d listen to any of it. Right, were there any uh newspapers that were anti-german? I know that there probably weren t. Oh underground? Yeah underground. Oh yes. Yeah? Oh yes, and, and, and we distributed those as much as we could. Was that part of your work in resistance distributing the newspapers? Uh, no, you did it more or less. I didn t do it in an organized way but there were several Dutch newspapers that, that started during the war on an underground basis. Some of them are still, are still publishing now. But they started out in that way and, and, and whenever you could get a hold of it, you know, well that was great. How did you get a hold of it just--? From friends and 38

39 Yeah. --by hand. No, no, no organized way. You just, you have one and you d pass it around-- Yeah right. --among friends? Yeah, you d pass it around. Oh yes, and every now and then there was some pamphlets dropped by the allies. Uh-huh. And also and so you pass on whatever you could. Uh-huh. And-uh, certainly you were not supposed to be caught with them anyway. Right. So you had to get rid of them by passing them on. Oh yeah, and there were several. There, there was a, there was a communist one for instance and they called the Waarheid Truth, same thing. And-uh there was a Dutch that came from, from the Christian Reform side from the Calvinist side called Trouw, that s still publishing except it is much more general paper now. How, how did you spell the-uh the communist paper the name of it? The Waarheid, W-a-a-r-h-e-i-d, Waarheid. Sorry. That s the word for truth. And Trow was T-r-o-w? T-r-o-u-w, that s still publishing also. 39