How does a Scheveninger end up in Buren?

In 1944, I received a summons to work as a forced laborer in Germany. I wanted no part in that! So, I decided to go into hiding. At first, I tried to find a hiding place in the Noordoostpolder, but I had no luck. That’s when I went to my older sister Bep, who was working for a family in Geldermalsen. The man of that house had connections in the resistance. Through him, I ended up with the Boon family in Buren in the summer of 1944. The Boon family ran a grocery store on the Markt. During the day, I helped in the shop and delivered groceries. At night, I was supposed to bike out to the Brouwer family in the countryside to sleep. But that arrangement only lasted two days – my bike was confiscated by the Germans. After that, I had to walk the rest of my time in hiding. I carried a forged identity card that listed my birth year as 1927 instead of 1926. With that, I managed to get through those months in Buren just fine, until the liberation. It never even got particularly tense. Even when a group of German officers was quartered in the front room at Job Boon’s house in the spring of 1945. No one ever asked any difficult questions.

After the liberation, I returned to Scheveningen as quickly as possible. The war had been much harder on my mother than on me. In 1942, my father unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54 after, what seemed, like a minor surgery. To make matters worse, that same year, we were forced out of our home in Duindorp, because the Germans were digging a massive anti-tank trench. It was part of the so-called Atlantikwall. You don’t read much about it in history books, but the entire population of Scheveningen was forced to leave. And there was no plan in place for us.

At first, my mother and my youngest brother, Maarten, stayed with relatives in The Hague. Later, she was assigned a few rooms on Copernicusstraat, where she remained until the end of the war. Our house in Duindorp was a filthy ruin by the time we returned.

My oldest brother, Piet, was forced to work for Organisation Todt by the Germans. My brother Jan was also sent as a forced laborer to Germany. He had chosen not to go into hiding, not so soon after our father’s death. He feared that it would only make things harder for our mother – she already had enough to bear. Two years later, I made a different choice, and luckily, my mother didn’t suffer any consequences because of it. But she spent all those years in constant uncertainty about the fate of her sons.

Once I was back in Scheveningen, I soon received a request from one of Job Boon’s sons asking if I would come help in his newly opened bakery in Buren. My mother didn’t hesitate: “Go! Those people helped you; now you must help them!” So I did, working there until October 1946. Then, I was drafted into military service, only being discharged in 1949. At the time, I had no idea that in 1952, I would end up marrying a woman from Buren!