After the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, we thought the war would soon be over. Paris was liberated in August of that year, and if things continued at that pace, it would surely be over in a few months.
Pentecost brought the surprising football championship of the Volewijckers, and the chant ‘Aa jee AA iks Ajax is a club of nothing’ was regularly heard on the streets, chanted by the youth of Zuid. In itself, this was not so strange, because Blauw Wit, playing in the Olympic Stadium, was much more popular in Amsterdam Zuid than Ajax.
Mad Tuesday
However, the advance of the Allies took much longer than we had hoped, although after Radio Oranje announced on Monday evening, 4 September, that the liberators were coming, the news spread like wildfire throughout our country. On Tuesday morning, 5 September, half of the Netherlands thought that liberation was near. The Allied troops were said to be already in Breda, and emotional scenes unfolded throughout the Netherlands with people cheering and dancing. Flags were flown, German road signs were torn down, and businesses emptied as staff rushed out to greet the liberators.
The Germans took immediate action. On 4 September, a state of emergency was declared, and on Mad Tuesday itself, the Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer Rauter announced that groups of more than five people would be shot.
But for the time being, the lower levels of the occupying forces did not intervene. Groups of German soldiers even left the country here and there, heading for Germany. Panic broke out among the NSB members and many left with their families for Germany, where they were sent from pillar to post. Germany did not want them.
What we did not know was that the number of Allied troops was still far too small to advance into the Netherlands. The main force was still in France and the troops that had just reached Antwerp were at risk of being cut off.
During Mad Tuesday and the day after, more and more people realised that liberation was still a long way off. In the south, the population saw no Allied troops, but rather more German soldiers.
In the west, we realised on Wednesday that it was not going to happen. When the Battle of Arnhem in September also ended in defeat due to a German victory, it became clear that the liberation of the northern Netherlands would take some time. The west of the Netherlands faced the Hunger Winter. Only the area south of the major rivers was liberated in October.
The soup kitchen
In the fifth year of the war, the food shortage in the west of the country became really acute. Rations became smaller from month to month. In addition, at one point the gas supply was cut off.
Sometime in the early autumn of 1944, central kitchens were opened to provide food to the population. They were called soup kitchens, and the food was indeed cooked.
Initially, the food consisted of mashed potatoes with beetroot or cabbage, but later the quality gradually deteriorated and eventually only thin potato and bulb soup or foul-tasting mashed potatoes, mainly consisting of sugar beet, were distributed.
The soup kitchen for our neighbourhood was housed in a former bicycle factory behind the old RAI in Van der Helststraat. Later, distribution was moved to a large vacant shop a few hundred metres further down that street.
I found getting food a tedious chore because you usually had to wait a while. I was eleven years old at the time and old enough to join my older brother and sisters in the distribution schedule. That meant walking to the distribution point a few times a week, a walk of about fifteen minutes. I carried a small milk pail to put the food in. It was usually distributed around three o’clock in the afternoon. When I arrived, there were usually already people waiting. I joined the back of the queue and looked to see if there were any familiar faces to chat to. Then the waiting began. Sometimes it took fifteen minutes, but sometimes it took almost an hour before the day’s meal was delivered. In rubbish bins, that is, the galvanised model of those days, because apparently nothing else was available.
When it was finally my turn, I showed our family ration card and was given a few spoonfuls of food in my bucket. Then I could walk home with my ‘delicious’ meal.
In the previous chapter, I already mentioned that we had a reserve supply of food, including wheat and rye from Eerbeek, but not everyone was so fortunate.
The area next to the soup kitchen, covered with cinders, always attracted many visitors because that was where the rubbish was thrown away. Children and adults in ragged clothes rummaged through the rubbish heaps in the hope of finding a few peelings or something else edible.
The bins in which the food was transported to the distribution points were a very sought-after item. The emptied bins were put outside and were immediately stormed by a horde of enthusiasts who scraped the inside and bottom with a spoon.
Ever seen little boys almost disappear entirely into a rubbish bin? They say you have to see it to believe it. I regularly passed by when I went to get food and saw rows of bins with only legs sticking out.
Food at school
In the meantime, I was still going to school, although only for half a day instead of a full day. I can’t really remember if the stoves were still burning. There was no central heating in school buildings at that time, and the teacher’s job was to light the large stove in each classroom in the morning and heat it with coke.
At school, too, food was distributed a few times a week during the last six months of the war. Everyone had to bring a large bowl or dish and a spoon on those days. The meal consisted of the same thin soup or sugar beet stew that was distributed at the soup kitchen.
Once, in February or thereabouts, there was a big surprise. There was real thick vegetable soup with pieces of meat in it. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The whole school was buzzing with excitement. We feasted and there was so much that there was an extra half portion for everyone.
Such an event naturally created expectations. We thought the war would soon be over. But it was far from over. And the next time, the usual watery soup was served again, soup consisting of water and some potato peelings.
And the hope that the war would soon be over was put aside for a while.
In photographs from that time, you often see children in ragged clothes and sometimes barefoot. They must have been among the poorest people at that time. My mother always made sure we wore clothes without holes or frayed edges, and my youngest brother and I also had shoes without holes in the soles. I now wonder how she managed to do the weekly laundry without water and electricity. I will tell you more about this in chapter 22.