I concluded the previous chapter with our arrival at Eerbeek House, a fourteenth-century country house that served as a shelter for about forty children from the Scheveningen children’s home ‘de Vluchtheuvel’. These children, ranging in age from two to thirteen, arrived in Eerbeek in the spring of 1943. There were a few reasons for their evacuation. Firstly, safety in Scheveningen could not be sufficiently guaranteed. A second reason was the deteriorating food situation in the west and in particular in the large cities.
De Vluchtheuvel was a Reformed institution. The children attended the Christian Tjark Riksschool on Dericxkamp in Eerbeek.
I think our arrival must have been a problem for the management of the home, but refusing us was not an option. Another issue was, of course, whether they wanted to refuse two children who had nowhere else to go. In any case, after a brief conversation with the black-coated officials, one of the managers took us under her wing. She made sure we were given a place to sleep in an attic room, separate from the other children. She then showed us around the house and told us about meal times and other house rules.
We didn’t meet the older children until the afternoon because they were at school. If I’m not mistaken, my brother and I arrived on a Wednesday and they had the afternoon off. The introduction went very smoothly. Of course, they wanted to know who we were and where we came from, and then we were accepted into the group without any problems. The way my brother and I had arrived was apparently considered normal.
In this way, we immediately joined in with the regular daily routines in the house, such as going to bed, getting up and eating, without any problems. Only praying before and after meals was completely new to me at first, but after a brief explanation by one of the leaders, I joined in with the others and opened and closed my eyes at the right times.
The first weeks of our stay in the children’s home
As I said, we quickly got used to life in the children’s home, but it was strange that the staff let us potter about during the day. During the week, the children aged six and older went to school in the village. My little brother and I played on the large estate that belonged to the house. The same was true when the whole group went to church on Sundays.
So there were no initiatives from the management to integrate the two cuckoo boys. I found that a bit strange, but on the other hand, it wasn’t so bad. We quietly went about our business, as we had been doing for a few years.
The other boys and girls accepted this status, but asked me a few times if I didn’t have to go to school. I couldn’t give them an answer, and they didn’t think it was important enough to ask any further questions. After a few days, I joined some peers and hung out with them when they weren’t at school. Two boys my age, Job and Krijn, soon became close friends of mine. Especially when I taught them how to make a bow from flexible willow wood and a piece of string.
For a long time, one of our favourite activities was archery, using arrows with tips made from elder wood. The trick was to shoot your arrow so high into the air that you could hardly follow it with the naked eye. Krijn was the undisputed champion at this. He was also the tallest and probably the strongest of the boys.
In my memory, those arrows stayed in the air for minutes, but in retrospect that seems a bit exaggerated. But they did fly high, that’s for sure.
It wasn’t just Hannes who wore clogs
And so the days passed. On the one hand, I was busy with all sorts of things, but on the other hand, I longed for my family, yet we heard nothing from them. Not a single message, not even from the management or the carers at the home. We had been dropped off at the children’s home by the German occupiers, so we were fed, bathed and clothed, but otherwise we received no attention whatsoever.
Those clothes are a story in themselves. Like the other children, we had to wear clogs because we had no shoes. One of our first visits outside the home was therefore to the local clog maker. Under the supervision of one of the leaders, I was fitted with a pair of clogs.
They were fine footwear (or should I say clogwear), but just like a number of other children, my feet were rubbed raw on the instep and heels. This eventually led to quite stubborn sores and I had to sit with my feet in hot soda water every day for many weeks to clean the wounds. This took place in the kitchen. I can still see myself sitting there.
“Ouch, nurse, the water is so hot!”
“Come on, don’t be so childish. If it’s hot, it means it’s working. You want your feet to heal, don’t you?”
Yes, of course I did, but in a less painful way.
But in the end, the wounds healed and I got so much calloused skin on my feet that I could tolerate the clogs.
The rest of the clothes we wore were our own because my mother had put them in a suitcase before we left for the detention centre.
Were the carers, whom we addressed as sisters, nice? Yes, although in an impersonal way. The boys’ favourite was Sister An, who I think was about twenty-five.
There was also a slightly older nurse, whom the boys claimed was not really religious. I remember her from the morning washing and reading aloud. If I am not mistaken, we called her Mrs Braun.
Washing was the most unpleasant part, so I’ll start with that.
The daily ritual was to line up at a row of washbasins in the morning, where everyone had to wash not only their face but also their upper body. Very sensible, actually, but it was done with cold water. Mrs Braun always took care of soaping, rinsing and drying our backs. “Brrr, it’s so cold, nurse.” The squealing and moaning was incessant every morning.
Bathing in a real bath happened much less often. Once a week, we had to line up in a large basement room of the house where there were four or five bathtubs. Such a cleaning session consisted of soaping up, a quick dip in the bath, then rinsing off, hopping out and drying off, after which it was the next person’s turn. The person who was the last to finish undressing was unlucky enough to be the last in line to bathe in lukewarm and not very fresh water.
But in her sometimes somewhat stern manner, Sister Braun was perhaps the most involved with the children. For example, I remember well how beautifully she could read aloud before we ate. Meals took place at the same time for everyone. You were supposed to arrive well in advance and then wait quietly for the arrival of the director, Sister Bommezij. This stern-looking lady belonged to the order of Deaconesses. She always wore a long robe with a large starched cap on her head. She never took it off, not even during meals.
Keeping more than forty children quiet was, of course, no easy task. Everyone had a fixed place, arranged according to age. I was lucky enough to sit at the table where Mrs Braun ruled the roost. On condition that we kept quiet, she read to us from books such as Kruimeltje and the Artapappas. She did this so well that we all hung on her every word, always wanting just one more page. But that was usually not possible because when the mother superior came in, it was time for another uncompromising bestseller in the house, the Bible.
So from the moment I arrived at the children’s home, I was introduced to the Christian faith, that is to say, the Protestant Christian variant, and I eagerly participated in praying and singing. It did not convert me permanently, but at least I was introduced to the basic principles of the Christian faith.
Meanwhile, of course, the war continued. You didn’t notice it much during the day, but at night it was all the more apparent. One of the routes for the bombers from England ran over the Veluwe. Several times a week, the squadrons flew high in the sky towards Germany and then returned at night. Near Eerbeek, they were often met by German fighters and there was also an anti-aircraft battery.
Many times we were taken out of bed at night because of the fierce battles that took place in the air. Deafening explosions, the sky full of clouds of smoke, searchlights, and us, fearful and trembling downstairs in the large conservatory attached to the house, waiting for a squadron to pass.
When things got really bad, we were given a biscuit.
What do you think it’s like here?
The carefree life came to an abrupt end after two or three weeks. I had to go to the headmistress’s office in the afternoon. I thought it was to get acquainted, or perhaps there was news about my father and mother.
That was clearly not the case. I had barely entered the room when she started yelling at me. What I did think it was for was the house where I had ended up. That there had to be an end to loafing around and hanging out. Did I think I had special privileges at ? That had to stop and from the next day onwards I had to go to school and on Sundays to church with the others. And to really drive the point home, I would not be given any dinner and would be locked in the tower room until seven o’clock.
I didn’t understand any of it, but shortly afterwards Mrs Braun took me to the tower room, bewildered, to begin my repentance. I got the impression that she didn’t entirely agree with the approach that had been taken, but she remained silent because there was no other option. In hindsight, that would have been difficult.
My repentance didn’t go very well. It was more a case of astonished indignation. When that had subsided a little, I entertained myself by looking outside through a window that was easy to open. Outside, my little brother, who had undergone the same treatment as me but without being locked up alone, was walking around in astonishment.
I have never been able to fully understand the reason for this particular form of charity. It must have had something to do with the headmistress’s principles, but even so.
Back to school
So that was the end of hanging around and loafing about, as the headmistress called it. The next day we went to school, the Christian school. My little brother went into the first class and I went into the third after the teacher had tested my knowledge. Mr de Roo had moved to Eerbeek with the Vluchtheuvel from Scheveningen at the end of 1942. I should mention that it was only a small school, which meant that two classes, in my case the third and fourth, were housed in one classroom.
After nearly three years of freedom, it took some getting used to, but I must say that I enjoyed it. The teacher was so welcoming that I quickly felt at home.
Because it was a Christian school, there was a lot of singing, praying and reading from the Bible. Although my mother came from a strict Calvinist family, we did not practise any religion at home. So this was my first introduction to the Christian faith. I remember very well that we once had to write an essay about one of the Bible stories our teacher had told us. I now realise that was my first story. Perhaps that was when the foundation for my hobby was laid. In any case, I did my very best and was rewarded with an eight. When the essays were handed out afterwards, I had to go and see Mr de Roo. I had used my own spelling for ‘Evangelie’ (Gospel). That was simply because I had never read the word before. I had only heard it dozens of times and thought it was ‘eet van Gelie’ (Gelie’s food). I experienced eating and believing as an obvious combination on a daily basis, and Gelie probably belonged in the list of Samson, David, Goliath and other biblical greats.
In any case, my mark for Religion on my first report card was impressive: a nine.
At one point, the peace at school was seriously disrupted when the headmaster – Mr Jansen, what’s in a name – was arrested for listening to Radio Oranje’s programme ‘ ‘ (The Voice of the People). Rumour had it that he had done other things as well, but I don’t know the details.
The punishment was severe. He was interned in a camp, from which he returned a few months later, shaven bald and emaciated. He was a nice man, though, and after all the classes had sung to him in the playground, he resumed his work at the school undisturbed.
Meanwhile, we were completely absorbed into the daily life of the children’s home. Only our sleeping arrangements remained unchanged. My brother and I stayed in the small bedroom in the attic, while the other children spent the night in the dormitories one floor below.
After a month or two, the room next to ours was furnished for a guest, a niece of one of the teachers. She must have been deeply unhappy because she cried herself to sleep every night and was inconsolable despite our efforts.
The weeks passed. Sometimes we felt homesick for our family. But they seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth and there were no messages or letters.
See also ‘Eerbeek won’t let me go’, added as a postscript to chapter 13.