The war left deep scars in our family

My father was a furniture maker at Salet in Beneden-Leeuwen. He worked there his entire life. I was the eldest of nine children. Even during the war, my mother continued to give birth roughly every year and a half. I was a toddler when the war began, so I have no memories of those early years. But I do have some fragmented recollections of the last year of the war. We lived near the dike, and as children, we often played outside. Whenever we heard something happening across the river, we would crawl up and curiously peek our heads over the dike. Our father would immediately order us back down!

Toward the end of the war, we had to evacuate. I don’t remember exactly how we got there, but we ended up in Altforst. My three sisters and I all wore dresses made from the same fabric—not out of luxury, but because textiles were incredibly scarce at the time. However, the woman who housed us accused us of being “full of ourselves.” I can still hear her saying it, even though I had no idea what she meant.

Our house survived the war, though many houses nearby were destroyed by German shelling toward the end of the war. The war left deep scars in our family. Both my father and my mother lost a brother during the war. My mother’s brother, Gerrit van Kampen, was arrested during the 1943 strikes. He worked at the furniture factory and, like his colleagues, had laid down his tools. But after returning home, he realized he had forgotten to switch off a machine. When he went back to do so, the Germans caught him. Shortly after, he was executed in Arnhem. My father’s brother was also involved in the strike and was deported to Buchenwald. He never returned. Their names are engraved on memorial plaques in both Boven- and Beneden-Leeuwen.

I do remember the Canadians! They left quite a few children behind here. When a baby was born, villagers would say, “That’s a little Canadian.” As a child, I overheard these things, though I had no idea what they meant at the time! I was far too young for a romance myself.