Mischief during the War

“It’s not safe to walk outside, because shells are exploding left and right. But as a growing boy, I don’t pay much attention to that—I’m always out and about, watching what the Germans are up to,” writes Eef Hübbers (91 years old) on his blog, where he shares his wartime stories. Eef is seven years old when the Second World War begins. During the war, he gets up to all sorts of childhood mischief. “I had a particular eye for binoculars and pistols, which were occasionally left unattended here and there.” He adds, “The German officers all carry a dagger with a stag’s hoof as a handle—that makes for great toys too!”

Eef lives in Huissen, where his family runs a shop, a café and a bakery. During the first three years of the occupation, he experiences little direct impact from the war. However, the presence of the occupiers is certainly felt in Huissen. From time to time, German soldiers march through the town. Anti-Jewish measures, which begin as early as 1940, do not go unnoticed by young Eef either. “‘No Jews Allowed!’ is written above our café door. My father unscrews the sign after a few days and never puts it back up,” he recalls.

But there is another side to the occupation: the presence of German soldiers offers Eef, as a young child, unique opportunities for mischief and pranks. He recounts an incident in May or June 1942 when he hid the rifles of two unsuspecting German soldiers in a chicken coop, while they were resting in the shade. Eventually, a furious Wehrmacht non-commissioned officer leads the frantic soldiers to the hiding spot and Eef retrieves the rifles. “My fear is soon drowned out by the deafening cackling of disturbed chickens and loud laughter from the Germans.” The officer dismisses it as a “Witz” (joke) and remarks that if Eef were older, he would have made a fine recruit for the Hitlerjugend.

On 13 May 1943 Huissen is struck by a bombing raid that destroys part of the town centre. From 17 September 1944, the first day of Operation Market Garden, the area is hit by bombs and shellfire. However, the real devastation comes in October 1944 after the operation fails. The frontline stalls in the Betuwe region. A terrifying period follows. Bombings and food shortages become a daily reality. Many residents of Huissen flee the town. On 4 October, amid the shelling, a mass grave is dug in the town’s cemetery to make room for the mounting casualties. On 12 October Eef writes in his diary that his father no longer allows him to leave the air-raid shelter. He is not pleased. “I don’t want to end up looking as pale as all those others. For me, the war is only just beginning!” He doesn’t stay inside for long. On 16 October he writes: “People are paying less attention to me, so I sneak out again.” What he finds outside is shocking. “Huissen has become a ghost town.”

The town is utterly destroyed, it is uninhabitable. On 19 October the German military police (Feldgendarmerie) announces that an evacuation will take place the following day, ordered by the German occupiers. Since Huissen now lies in the middle of the frontline, the Germans can no longer guarantee the safety of the civilian population. “Most people think they’ll be able to return in a few days, so they agree without much complaint!” writes Eef. And so, on 20 October, he embarks on a journey to De Blesse in Friesland, where he remains until the liberation.

Seven months after the evacuation, the Netherlands is liberated. Huissen is one of the hardest-hit towns in the region. The city is left in ruins, littered with debris and abandoned ammunition. “Yet, in no time, life begins to function again, albeit in a makeshift way,” Eef recalls. He and his friends put the abandoned ammunition to use. “For the first New Year’s Eve after the war, we Zandse boys ‘fired off 1945’ with a German machine gun.” The local newspaper later reports that a farmhand in the area, upon hearing the gunfire, thought the war had started all over again!

Interview with Sabine Hübbers, supplemented with texts by Eef Hübbers
By: Mette van der Elst and Luuk Huiden