“I only experienced freedom as a child in 1945”

Eef Schouten (1934) vividly recalls an anecdote from the lead-up to the Second World War. “My father won the Gendt shooting festival; he was crowned king of the St. Sebastianus shooting guild. The celebrations were in full swing with lively music in the festival tent when the mayor suddenly entered and ordered the music to stop. The Queen had just announced the mobilisation. My father replied, ‘What queen? I’m the king here, and I know nothing about it!’ To which the mayor said, ‘Willem, today you are a king, but tomorrow you will be a soldier.’ The next day, my father put on his uniform, wrapped his puttees around his legs and left.”

Eef’s first real confrontation with war came in 1940, when planes flew over Gendt towards the west. “After that, life just carried on as usual.” That was until 17 September 1944, when, as part of Operation Market Garden, American Airborne troops landed near Groesbeek. “That’s when things became serious. Heavy fighting broke out all around us. We frequently had to shelter in a bunker. My father, a carpenter and contractor, had dug a hole in the orchard behind our house.”

From 7 October onwards, Gendt became a stronghold for the occupying forces. “The British were on the other side of the Waal and shelled the Germans with tanks.” In just one month, 34 people lost their lives.

On 9 October the occupiers forced the people of Gendt to leave. “A German soldier entered our shelter and shoved my father against the wall. ‘Raus!’ he shouted.” The Schouten family—grandparents, parents, Eef, his younger sister and little brother—fled in haste towards the ferry at Pannerden. “We walked with 50 to 100 others along the road, under fire. We frequently had to dive into the ditches for cover.”

That evening, they found shelter in a school in Angerlo near Doesburg, sleeping on makeshift beds. “Then we received word that we were to be taken by bus to Groningen. My father refused—he didn’t want to be even farther from home.” He remembered that distant relatives lived in the Achterhoek. “We barely knew them.” The family made their way to Gaanderen. “They must have thought; here comes a bunch of lunatics from the Betuwe.”

Once there, the family was split up. Eef’s parents and youngest sibling stayed with the Thuis family, Eef went to an uncle and his sister to another uncle. “We were within walking distance of each other. I saw my parents once or twice a week.” He attended school in Gaanderen and didn’t find life on the farm unpleasant, though he missed his friends.

The liberation on 5 April 1945 was uneventful. “The Canadians drove in. That was it.” The family returned to Gendt as soon as possible, where celebrations were in full swing. “I had a decorated bicycle.” But the scars of war were everywhere—destroyed houses, shattered windows in his school. “Tradesmen from Twente came to repair what they could, as long as materials were available.”

Landmines were scattered everywhere. “I can still picture a man, presumably a German prisoner of war, walking down the street with a mine in his arms. Behind him, soldiers followed with their rifles drawn. He was ordered to carry the mine to a location where it could be safely detonated.”

Eef describes the war as a defining period in his life. “Our world was turned upside down. It wasn’t until April 1945 that I consciously experienced, for the first time, what it meant to live in freedom.”

Interview with Eef Schouten, Evacuee from Gendt
By: Ineke Inklaar