Twenty-one evacuees in a small worker’s cottage!

From the first days of the war, the only thing I really remember is the taste of the biscuits that the Dutch soldiers handed out when they left. They abandoned their equipment at the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal as they retreated and flooded everything. But in Zoelen, they shared their dry biscuits with us.

After the capitulation, life went back to normal. Yet, something had changed: I had to learn German at school! Sometimes, we even had to take oral tests over the telephone. Apparently, a German on the other end was checking whether we were making serious progress. I still remember having to count to ten in German: “ein, zwei, drei, vier, fünf…”

It wasn’t until the autumn of 1944 that the war came closer. The English were positioned on the other side of the Waal River and were firing at the Germans in Tiel. Sometimes, the shells landed in Zoelen as well. Once, my mother and I had to dive into a dry ditch, clutching our little crate of jam—which, luckily, remained intact!

In October 1944, we took in evacuees from Kesteren—all relatives from my mother’s side with their families. In total, twenty-one people. That was a lot, especially in our small house, where we already lived with eight of our own. The children all slept in the large attic. Downstairs, there were two box beds, where the sick lay, because diphtheria had broken out under our roof. The rest slept in the backhouse. My father grew his own vegetables, and we had slaughtered a pig, so we never ran out of food. But that pig was finished much faster than usual that year!

Our family from Kesteren was strictly religious, while we in Zoelen were a bit more relaxed. As children, we would sometimes say things like: “I’ll smite you!” When our grandmother from Kesteren heard that, she was utterly shocked: “Child, child, you mustn’t say such things!” But I had no idea what was wrong with it! Our cousins from Kesteren, however, loved learning all these “forbidden” words from us.

The family stayed with us from October until several weeks after the liberation, because they had nowhere to return to. Kesteren had been heavily damaged by the war. Despite living with so many people under one roof for months, the atmosphere remained good. Sure, sometimes words were exchanged, but one of the aunts always stepped in to make peace.

When the Canadians rolled into Zoelen with their tanks, I, a 14-year-old girl, went up to them to beg for cigarettes – not for myself, of course, but to make my father happy! However, the soldiers said, “You can have chocolate, but you’re too young for cigarettes!”