My Story 11

In north America people are often divided based on race, when I grew up we were sharply split because of religion. Our parents enrolled all of us in a protestant school. Down the street was another school, Catholic. We were not to associate with Catholics. I am not kidding! It seems so silly now. My dad studied books on the Nazi and Catholic dangers, which after the war changed to communist and the catholic danger,( Het roomse en het rode gevaar). Some one even spent considerable time proving to me why a catholic can not possibly be saved. 

I agree with the Catholic priest who said: "We differ not so much in basic doctrine, but in emphasis." Let us leave the rest up to God. In the meantime I found myself in the Noorder school, until the Germans came and moved in. We had to move to another school building, the Wouwerman school. About a year later I volunteered with some other kids to go to the old Noorder school to pick up some books. The building was spotless, clean windows, polished floors and the Germans were, well, disciplined is the right word. In may 1945 when the Canadians took over, within weeks the place was a mess. Broken windows, and they even tore up that nicely polished parket floor. But the Canadians could not do anything wrong. Still today the Dutch love the Canadians.

Later on we began to hear about concentration camps, and the unspeakable cruelties of the German regime. People began to tell their stories. One uncle told us how he spent days hiding in the bush when the Germans came around to pick up able bodied men to ship to factories in Germany.His wife dealt with the German soldiers when they came, and they came frequently. She had a large map of Europe on the wall with pins indicating where the latest front was. The young soldiers liked to gather around, homesick, some crying, and more then ready for this war to end. Another relative told how he was picked up and sent to a factory making machinery of some kind, and how he and others sabotaged the equipment. He escaped and walked for days ending up in a small town in Germany. The mayor of the town invited him to be his chauffeur. Ask no questions and you will be safe. Everybody who could drive a vehicle in Germany was already at the front.

One Jewish gentleman told how he was the only survivor out of a family of fifty two! Another relative had become the head of the local resistance and he could sit down all night telling you stories. Corrie ten Boom published her experiences, recalling how she and her dad and sister fared with hiding Jews, and her subsequent stay in a concentration camp. Is it not unbelievable that the leaders of a civilized country like Germany could sink that low.