Buren Was Packed with Dutch Soldiers in Those Days!

My childhood home was on what was then called Schoolwal, now Achterbonenburg. I lived there with my older sister and my parents. My father was a typesetter at Thijsen’s printing company.

I finished primary school in 1941, a year later than usual. That was because, in the second half of 1939, our school—like many other buildings in Buren—was requisitioned by the Dutch military to house the mobilized troops. Buren was packed with Dutch soldiers in those days! For us boys, it was fantastic — we couldn’t stay away from them. One of them, a soldier named Van der Heijden from Friesland, would come to our house every evening for coffee. The authorities had asked the people of Buren to pay attention to the soldiers, because they were terribly bored.

After primary school, I had all kinds of jobs. I started with seasonal work in Beekman’s orchard, where Jan de Jong always bought the cherry harvest. During the harvest, I had to “turn the cherries” by walking through the orchard with a rattle from early morning until dark. But it paid well — ten guilders a week, which was a great sum for a young boy at that time! Jan de Jong taught me the basics of economics. He would give me cherries to take home, even though the harvest that year wasn’t great. When Beekman warned him not to be too generous, he said, “When they’re expensive, I make good money and can afford to give some away. When I have too many cherries, I need to sell everything just to earn a few cents!” I had more jobs after that, including at Boon’s shop, where I met Arie de Groot, who was hiding there from Arbeitseinsatz (forced labour). After the war, he became my brother-in-law!

When I was 17, I also received a call to work in Germany. But at that time, I was employed at De Oranje. This was a small dairy factory on the Lingedijk, across from the Roman Catholic church. I had a Schein, a document stating that I was indispensable because I worked in food production.

However, in the final months of the war, I was forced to do labour in our own region. At one point, we were transported to Aalst, on the Rhine, for a week of digging work. A friend and I tried to escape by hiding in a haystack. But we had been seen. “Hier haben die Zwei sich versteckt,” the soldiers shouted, firing a few shots into the air. Well, that got us down quickly! Our punishment? No bread rations. That was tough, especially with the heavy physical labour.

It was during the last war winter. One day, the Germans announced that we had to evacuate—they were going to flood the area! Although we normally never went outside after curfew, that evening, all the people of Buren were on the streets, panicked. What should we do? Leave, or hope it was a false alarm?

There were rumors that a few drunken German officers had issued the order. My father said, “I’m staying!” But just in case, we moved all our belongings to the upper floor. I also helped the elderly Mr. Thijsen, the father of the printing company’s director, carry his things upstairs. Later, I went to Jan Kulker, the shoemaker, where I often helped in the workshop. When I stepped into his living room, I saw a man with a mustache who looked vaguely familiar. But only when I noticed his signet ring, did I realize who he was—it was Mayor Knobbout, who was in hiding at the time. He asked me if I could deliver a message to the Kolff family in Deil that very night. I told him I needed my parents’ permission, so I went home to ask. My father didn’t allow it. When I returned to tell Knobbout, that was the last time I ever saw him. That same night, on his way back to his hiding place at Van Coeverden’s, he supposedly fell into the water in the dark near the park. In February 1945, when the ice melted, his body was found in the pond. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened that night.