It must have been a strange time, those first months after the capitulation. On the one hand, there was grief for the fallen and outrage at the destruction of the centre of Rotterdam, while on the other hand, the population was advised by the government and the boards of organisations and associations to behave in an orderly manner and resume their daily lives. These and similar messages were published by various newspapers, and only a few dared to raise their voices at the time. But the official line was ‘just carry on as usual’.
Daily Life in Amsterdam
In an earlier chapter, I referred to the problems encountered by a football club because a large number of players had been mobilised and were therefore unable to play at the weekend. The club’s magazine reappeared on 30 May after the short war in our country had ended.
‘After the battle’ was the headline of the editorial, which stated that ‘it can be noted with satisfaction that all 21 club members in military service have, as if by a miracle, been spared from death in the war‘. The article ended with the names of the 21 people involved ‘in order to keep them alive in the history of the club’.
A page further on, the editors discussed the consequences of the occupation.
‘Although the war has only raged within our borders for five days, countless people have been completely thrown off balance by the events. Despite all the sadness, it is the wish of the government and indeed the best thing for life to return to normal as much as possible. That is why the remaining league matches will be played. After weeks of nervous tension, our minds need relaxation and we are going to throw ourselves back into football with true enthusiasm. However,I trust that all players, without exception, will still be willing to participate in the final matches.
What I remember is that life just went on. Also in Mercatorstraat in Amsterdam-West. We lived there on the second floor at number 155, a family with five children, two girls and three boys, aged 16, 15, 13, 7 and 4 respectively.
I went back to school, played with other boys on the street and was unaware of the changes introduced by the occupying forces.
Kindergarten, which was not compulsory at the time, had passed me by. I don’t know why. I heard it was because you were more likely to get polio there. At the time, it was still a disease to be feared because there was no vaccine.
At that time, Mercatorstraat was on the outskirts of the city. Opposite our house was a market garden, separated from the street by a wide ditch. They grew vegetables there, which were taken by boat to the market halls on Jan van Galenstraat a few times a week.
The farmer lived there with his family in a simple wooden house. They did not live a luxurious life. I think they had to work hard for a small income.
Five hundred metres further on, behind that market garden, construction workers were already busy building a new neighbourhood, now known as Bos en Lommer. My father, mother and I would sometimes walk past to see how the construction was progressing. And they always warned me not to fall into one of the pits of quicklime. I would burn alive in it. In retrospect, it seems like a strange story. What was that quicklime used for and why wasn’t it kept in a closed place? However, that was never explained. My parents didn’t think it was necessary and were fine with everything as long as I gave those lime pits a wide berth.
I could also see the neighbourhood under construction in the distance from the windows at the front of our house. The Ringdijk was located in the direction of what is now the Slotermeer neighbourhood. It had been built in a forward-thinking mood around 1930 by the city council at the time with the intention of running a train on it. A train that was mainly intended to transport goods. When, after the war, the city grew far beyond the boundaries of 1940, most of the dyke was cleared away because it was considered a nuisance. It later turned out to be a hasty decision. It could have served perfectly well for the construction of an above-ground metro.
The dyke was not visible from our house, but it was from the bridge on Hoofdweg. Halfway along the dyke was a small black tunnel that has a permanent place in my memory. The reason for this is that I thought it looked like a sinister eye peering ominously in the direction of Mercatorstraat.
But occupied or not, summer was just around the corner. With lots of playing in the street. Spinning tops, hide and seek, marbles. I don’t really remember us playing football. I think there wasn’t enough space for a game, but it’s also possible that we didn’t have a ball. One of our favourite games was pinkelen. This involved hitting a round stick about 20 cm long with pointed ends with a long stick. If you did it right, hitting one end, the short stick would fly through the air towards its target. Usually that was a manhole cover, and the first person to hit it with their stick was the winner.
The losers were the residents of Mercatorstraat, because sometimes a stick would fly through one of the windows. I can’t remember anything about the children I played with, except for a neighbour boy named Nico. He went to a different school than me and had an electric train, which was at the top of my birthday wish list.
Departure from Amsterdam
That carefree childhood came to an abrupt end when the whole family suddenly left Amsterdam. Incidentally, it was more than just a move from one place to another. We went into hiding, as it was called, disappearing from the daily scene of ‘ ‘. I describe it in detail in the next chapter. It has everything to do with the resistance against the Germans and the role my father played in it.
Appelscha became our new home.
Resistance
As I wrote on the previous page, the vast majority of the Dutch population waited to see how things would develop in the first few months. “Let’s wait and see what happens.” “The Germans aren’t so bad.”
But there were also other voices. For example, from groups of people who did not want to accept the German occupation. And soon the first illegal newspapers appeared, calling for resistance against the enemy.
I have copied a few headlines from these newspapers and printed them on the next page.
One thing was clear: not all Dutch people were willing to be treated like docile sheep.
