MY STORY 5.1

Hunger hurts. It is constantly on your mind, day and night. There is after all not much nourishment in sugar beets an tulip bulbs. We ate anything that was remotely edible. Eventually we had to quit school, as it was just too hard to keep going. One of the reasons was communicable diseases. One of those was diphtheria, another was scabies. And a whole bunch of other epidemic ailments, that should have been rejected by a healthy immune system.

As I have said earlier, we had no bikes anymore, either the Germans just took them, or the brave ones among the population just dumped them in the canals. It would be interesting to know what was all in those canals! Anyways the only thing with wheels was an "autoped", actually a kind of scooter with a platform big enough for two kids. It was very old and wobbly, for us kids it was transportation. I often took the autoped and waited by the exit of the train station. When a traveller came out with a heavy suitcase, I offered to put it on my autoped and walked home with the traveler, for a small reward, of course.

One day I was at the station, looking for "business", when the sirens went off. The sirens with a up-and-down tone announced that war planes, probably British, were coming in. The all-clear siren was one steady tone. I popped into the nearest door for shelter. It was not so much danger from the planes themselves, but the danger was that the Germans shot exploding shells at them, and those fragments just rained down over the city. I stood in a part of the station where they serviced trains and rail equipment. Part of the roof was made of enforced glass, you know the kind with thin criss-cross wires in it. Suddenly a piece of shrapnel came through the glass and slammed into the floor just inches away from my feet. That, plus a shower of glass fragments. I bent over to pick up the shrapnel but it was too hot to hold in my hand. I brushed off the glass fragments off my jacket and cap and decided to go home.

"Theo, Theo, were have you been!" It was my mom welcoming me into the house. It happened that when the alarm sirens went off she experienced a powerful urge to pray for me. She had thrown herself at her chair, on her knees, her favorite spot for prayer. She "pleaded the blood of Christ over me" for protection. That, we agreed, was the exact moment the shrapnel slammed into the floor just inches away. What can I tell you? We were in awe how God had worked in this situation.