Things can’t be that bad in a country, or there will always be a few clever lads who know how to make money from the needs of the rest of the population. Under the slogan ‘trade is trade’, they dive into one of the many gaps that have arisen in the market.
Slagcrème
This is what happened in the last or penultimate year of the war, when a sweet ‘delicacy’ consisting of a whipped mass suddenly went on sale in a small shop or house on the Amstelkade, not far from the house where Gerard Reve wrote De Avonden a few years later. In appearance, it most resembled whipped egg whites. Whether that was the case, I do not know. It is quite possible that eggs were used, perhaps in combination with sugar beet syrup. Coloured and sweetened with saccharin or something similar, it quickly became popular under the name ‘slagcreme’.Don’t ask me how the enterprising traders came up with the recipe and the raw materials for this snack in those days; in any case, they had sensed an opportunity and all the children from my school and a number of neighbouring schools crowded around before and after school to buy a portion. For a penny or so. I only tried it once, a dollop of that sweet stuff in a paper cone, but I didn’t like it. The sickly taste of the sweetener made me feel nauseous.
Anyway, it was the only treat available at the time and a child’s hand was quickly filled. After a week, if I remember correctly, we were warned at school not to buy it because it could make you sick.
As the war progressed, there was little to snack on. If I remember correctly, there was still ice cream in 1943. Watery ice lollies from a man who regularly came through the neighbourhood with an ice cream cart. And you could buy packaged ice cream at Jamin on the corner of Scheldestraat and Noorder Amstellaan (now Churchilllaan).
I ate a lot of those Jamin ice creams. We usually settled down in the shelter that had been built in the park at the beginning of the war. The ice cream wasn’t really like the ice cream we have today. It was a kind of frozen vanilla porridge wrapped in paper, but what did I know? In any case, it didn’t cost much. Something like 5 cents or a dime. I don’t remember exactly, but I’m not far off. I’m not sure about the date it was sold, though. It may well have been after the war.
Sinterklaas
The Sinterklaas celebrations at primary school were quite different.
It was always a celebration that we looked forward to for a long time in advance.
I can still remember the Sinterklaas party in the first class of the Jan Mayen School as if it were yesterday. Weeks in advance, we were already practising singing ‘Zie ginds komt de stoomboot’ (Look, there comes the steamboat) and other classics in that genre. What’s more, we had a teacher who used chalk and her talent to conjure up all kinds of colourful Sinterklaas scenes on the blackboard, which added to the excitement.
On 5 December, in the afternoon, Sinterklaas and a number of Black Peters visited the decorated gym. Did I still believe in Sinterklaas back then? Gosh, I have no idea. But I wasn’t very impressed when a few ‘naughty’ children had to come to Sinterklaas and one was almost taken away in his sack. So I think I was already doubting the existence of the Good Saint.
After that, a magician made a much bigger impression on me because he conjured pigeons out of a top hat, which flew around the room and then disappeared without a trace back into the same hat. But that all happened in December 1939.
At the end of 1944, organising such a celebration was of course much more difficult, and I think the management of the Meerhuizenschool realised this. Where could you get treats for the children? In any case, the magician I just mentioned couldn’t conjure them up.
But Sinterklaas proved that he really does exist and he chose my class to help him with that. We carried the Saint’s apples.
I don’t know how the school management found out, but at the end of November 1944, a number of boys from my class, including me, were called in for a special task.
Together with Mr Bloksma, our class teacher, we walked to the Amstel in the afternoon. There we saw what was going on. A few hundred metres from the Berlage Bridge, a skipper had moored his inland vessel and was selling apples.
Just like that, outside of all distribution channels with ration cards, that fruit was being sold. Illegally, I assume, and he must have asked a hefty price for it. Apparently, that wasn’t an issue, because there was already a long queue of enthusiasts.
Together with the teacher and someone from the parents’ committee, we joined the queue and began the long wait. Hours, in my memory, until it was our turn. After some haggling, three or four crates of apples were bought and we were able to show how strong we were. We went back to school and, walking uncomfortably with the heavy crates, we finally reached it on our last legs.
As a reward, we were given an apple afterwards and, in case it wasn’t already clear, on St. Nicholas Day, every child at school received a few shiny, polished apples in addition to some sweets. Everyone was delighted with these treats.
An apple. You can’t get away with that anymore. Unless it’s an Apple (computer, for the uninitiated).