My Mother's Heroic Efforts to Save Our Family
During the Nazi occupation of Holland food began to disappear in the stores.
In 1944, I was nine and my brother Arnout was seven. In the middle of the day one of us went to a hotel not too far away with a pot to get one scoop of watery soup. Sunday was the best for then we got porridge, which had a little more to it. We also would ask the Dutch women, at the grammar school, who were peeling potatoes, for the peelings, vegetable leftovers or a crust of bread.
Moeder, my mother, teamed up with a lady from across the street for about six bike trips to Friesland in northern Holland to obtain food from the farmers. There was no currency that the farmers would accept so they had to barter. They took all their linens, and eventually jewelry, until everything was gone. On the first trip they had tires on their bicycles. These were replaced at first with pieces of solid rubber, and when they were gone, pieces of wood were wired to the rims. At first they would have to go 50 miles but as more and more city dwellers flocked to the rural areas they went one hundred miles or more, each way. They would be gone for days and days; at least once they gone for ten days. I remember they would bring back potatoes, oatmeal and wurst.
Staying warm was also a problem. The winter of 1944-45 was brutally cold. Peter, my other brother, become so undernourished he had to stay in bed to not burn up spare calories.
On the night of May 5th, 1945, all of a sudden everyone was in the street cheering. The Germans that remained could not understand why everyone was violating the curfew. But the great news was that we were liberated by the Canadians!
