June 2017

AanspraakAfdeling Verzetsdeelnemers en Oorlogsgetroffenen

Strength in unity ‘Engelandvaarder’ Eddy Jonker recalls his North Sea route to freedom. Contents

Page 4 Speaking for your benefit.

Page 5 The 2017 commemoration speech at Dam Square by Eberhard van der Laan, Mayor of Amsterdam.

Page 6-8 Strength in unity. ‘Engelandvaarder’ Eddy Jonker recalls his North Sea route to freedom.

Page 9-11 A bomb blast with lifelong consequences. Jelke van Wattum lives with the effects of the bombing of every day.

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 2 Page 12-14 Escape was impossible. Lotty Huffener-Veffer on her concentration camp experiences before and after the Philips transport.

Page 15 Questions and answers.

No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen. Photo page 5: Ilvy Njiokiktjien.

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 3 Speaking for your benefit

It is early morning on Easter Sunday and the house the memory, the more certain the realisation that is still wrapped in silence. I am sitting at the kitchen freedom has to be nurtured. We can’t take anything table, looking out into the garden. Blossom is for granted. swirling down from the fruit trees like snowflakes in the wind. The bright sun can’t hide the fact that I am proud that our 80 or so SVB colleagues - there it’s cold outside. On the dike behind the garden, used to be about 400 of them - realise this and carry a solitary dog walker is hidden inside his collar. out the schemes for resistance members and victims I look at the news on my iPad, hoping for inspiration. of war with all due care from day to day. According ‘North Korean rocket explodes during launch.’ Peace to the last edition of Aanspraak, a recent survey has balances on a knife edge, and seems to depend shown that you are very appreciative of their efforts. more on chance than design. That is good to hear, but it is how things should be done anyway. This edition of Aanspraak reminds The time of year has come again when we com- us again of how important our work is, and who memorate the war and celebrate peace and free- we are doing it for. dom. Now, 72 years since the war ended, there are fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses of the war to The house is waking up. I can hear someone tell us their personal stories. Three such personal stumbling about upstairs. The boys are home this accounts can be found in this edition of Aanspraak. weekend and my late father’s partner is also staying here for Easter. I shall make a good Easter breakfast In the foreword to an earlier edition, I told the for them all as a surprise. Croissants fresh from the story of my father who survived the bombing of oven and... Rotterdam, and died two years ago. He was born in the same year as Jelke van Wattum. From his attic room on the Prins Hendrikkade, his 11-year- old self could have seen the bombs falling on Ruud van Es Mr van Wattum’s family home. The more tangible Member of the Board of Directors of the SVB

Aanspraak - March 2017 - 4 The 2017 commemoration speech at Dam Square by Eberhard van der Laan, Mayor of Amsterdam

On 9 May 1945, fighter Henk van who helped to get hundreds of Jewish children into Randwijk addressed the jubilant crowd that had hiding and who was herself murdered at Auschwitz. gathered here at Dam Square to celebrate the Or farmer Schutten, from the province of Drenthe, Liberation. In his thanks to the liberators, his closing who found the government courier Bestebreurtje words were “We will always be allies and friends! on his land. He had parachuted out of an English We have lost years, but we can gain a century!” plane at night on a secret mission, but had broken a leg on landing. Years later, farmer Schutten was That dream of enduring peace was exceptional interviewed by a reporter. “What did you think when considering the estimated 60 million who had died, you saw Bestebreurtje that early morning lying in including 6 million Jews; the worst crime in history. your field?” “I’d rather he hadn’t been lying there,” Just two days before, 32 citizens of Amsterdam had said the farmer, “but seeing as he was, he was my been killed when German Kriegsmarine offciers, responsibility.” from the balcony of their club on Dam Square, opened fire on a crowd gathered in anticipation On a day like today, we realise how many people of the arrival of the allies. became victims of the occupying forces and how many people risked their lives for the sake of our 72 years of Van Randwijk’s century have already freedom. We realise what great privileges they have passed. For each of those years, we have commem- helped secure for us, democracy, fundamental rights orated those who fell in battle and the other victims and the rule of law, for us to cherish and maintain. of the Second World War. We also remember our And we realise that as soon as intolerance raises its fellow citizens who have been the victims of war head, we have to fight it without delay, and without situations and peace missions since the Second becoming intolerant ourselves. We owe that to every World War. To each of them, we pay our respect. person that we are commemorating this evening.

During the occupation, it took a lot of courage On this 4 May, let us count our blessings and find and a strong sense of duty to join the resistance the hope and confidence we need to continue on movement. Take Henriëtte Pimentel, for example, the road of peace. Each year, we should try to renew head of the crèche opposite the deportation Van Randwijks’ dream: “We can gain a century.” assembly point at the Hollandsche Schouwburg,

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 5 Strength in unity ‘Engelandvaarder’ Eddy Jonker recalls his North Sea route to freedom.

During the Second World War, Eddy Jonker was an Preparing for our sea voyage ‘Engelandvaarder’, one of the many Dutch who fled We took our preparations very seriously. Dolf went to England from the occupied in order to the maritime college in Groningen and I went to to serve in the Allied Forces. Here, he recalls his the one in Amsterdam. We familiarised ourselves North Sea route to freedom. with the restricted zone around by exploring it in the dark by canoe. At college, we ‘The only chance we had to escape from the occupied were given maps of the Haringvliet estuary with the Netherlands without being detected was once a exact locations of the sandbanks and details of the month when there was a new moon. On 25 July 1943, tides. By chance, we came into contact with Anton it was the turn of our group of ten young men to Schrader. He said, ‘Why not join me?’ Schrader was make our way in the pitch dark down the river Spui an exceptionally intelligent man, just 24 years old to the Haringvliet estuary and across the North Sea and already a qualified civil engineer. The son of a in a boat that was scarcely seaworthy.’ Eddy Jonker Dutch naval officer, he was born in Surabaya and (96) can still remember that dangerous crossing in went to school in the Dutch East Indies. In 1935, vivid detail. ‘Our goal was to reach the English coast he joined the National Youth Storm, the Dutch and help the Allied Forces to liberate our country.’ equivalent of Hitler Youth. He thought it was a club for Dutch patriots but soon realised his mistake. Planning to sail to England However, he retained his membership, which I was born in Amsterdam on 16 July 1920 as Eduard came in useful during the war. In the Netherlands, Arthur Jonker or Eddy as I was always called. My Schrader got a wartime job with a government parents divorced in 1922. My father was a banker and agency distributing food supplies, because the major lived in Paris. With my older brother and younger cities in the west of the country relied for their food sister, I only saw him once a year when he came to on the rural islands in the south. The food supply visit family in The Hague. Those meetings always felt agency had access to the fleet of cars belonging to strange because we didn’t really know him. We had the Dutch Royal family, so Schrader could always moved to Hilversum where my mother had had a arrange for a chauffeur-driven car to pick up, for large house built by a pond on the estate of the Ter example, the crews of English bombers shot down Kuile family. When war broke out on 10 May 1940, over the Netherlands. Thanks to his network, English I saw the German war planes flying overhead from pilots and members of the resistance who were the garden. I spent a lot of my youth sailing with two being sought by the Nazis were able to escape friends, Dolf LeComte and Jan van Zutphen. The to England. We helped Schrader’s group to make three of us would take part in sailing competitions. all kinds of practical arrangements for the boats I went to a secondary school that specialised in the that would take Dutch people who still wanted to sciences. As soon as the Netherlands capitulated, my fight across to England. If there was an engine part sailing friends and I decided to go to England. I didn’t missing, for instance, we would hunt it down so that want to tell my mother, but I did tell my grandmother the brothers Pier and Jo Meijer could get the boats who gave us money to buy a boat. In Loosdrecht, we ready at the Van Ravesteyn wharf in Leidschendam. made the boat as seaworthy as possible. You hardly knew anyone in the Schrader group by

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 6 their real name. Sometimes, we came together at the heard a number of MTBs coming up Haringvliet in house of the Burgwal family in Populierstraat in The our direction. We started sailing closer to the coast Hague. of Goeree-Overflakkee and ran onto a sandbank. Fortunately, we managed to get the boat off it, A brief farewell but we could hear the German MTBs still coming Together with Kees Koole, the skipper of the inland towards us. At one point, they also started firing vessel ‘Nooit Volmaakt’ from Schipluiden, Schrader in our direction with a heavy machine gun, but the thought up a good plan with a fixed route. Kees ground mist proved to be our salvation. To our joy, Koole transported our boat in the hold of the ‘Nooit they passed us by and shortly after, we reached the Volmaakt’ covered with a huge pile of empty potato North Sea. sacks. Our route went from Leidschendam via the rivers Schie, the New , the Old Meuse and Storm at sea the Spui, down to the Haringvliet estuary. The Nooit At first, the sea was calm and everything went Volmaakt was checked by German soldiers at the according to plan. But it looked like the boat might locks on the way, but all the German papers and have been damaged scraping over the sandbank stamps were in order. The first attempt was aborted because she was taking on water. At noon, the because of strong winds. But at the next new moon, engine stopped because the bobbin was burned on 25 July 1943, the ten of us were taken by truck through. The outboard motor failed soon after when from the government food agency building to the the pin between the axle and the screw gave out. Spui near the Hoekse Waard, where we boarded There wasn’t enough wind so we had to paddle, the Nooit Volmaakt. Koole then sailed slowly down which was made more difficult because the sides the Spui in the direction of Haringvliet. Just before of the boat had been raised. Suddenly the weather midnight, we heard the anchor rattle down. Our boat turned and it started raining heavily and blowing a was unloaded in the middle of the river and we said gale. Despite the sea anchor, we were being driven a brief farewell. fast towards the Dutch coast. Thank God we at least had one bucket with us. Five of the group were Our salvation seasick and lay helpless on the floor of the boat, It was pitch dark with a ground mist. By standing while the remaining five of us took turns at scooping on a bench in the boat, Dolf could just see over water non-stop out of the boat with the only bucket the mist. He stood at the helm and I was near the we had. We toiled throughout the night in the compass and the cabin. Dolf used the church towers pouring rain, with the waves as high as houses and sihouetted against the dark background as a guide. the boat rocking dangerously. We threw everything Our shallow wooden boat was about 6 metres long we had into that fight against the elements. But with a small cabin. We had built the sides up to strength lies in unity, and after hours of struggle, make her more seaworthy. On board, we had a sail, we finally emerged alive. It was touch and go. a sea anchor, four paddles, a bucket, an outboard motor and a ‘slaggaard’, a long rod with a screwed- Land in sight on top that we could use to push down the steel The next day the weather was very hot with blue anti-submarine net stretched across Haringvliet. We skies and not a breath of wind. We dried our things used the rod regularly to gauge the depth because and kept paddling and bailing out. It wasn’t until of the sandbanks. Unfortunately this pulled a trail the fourth day that an east wind arose so that we of luminous plankton behind us. We hoped the could start to pick up some speed. In the early Germans wouldn’t spot it. At Hellevoetsluis, the morning, after four and a half days at sea, we finally home port for the German Navy’s motor-torpedo came within sight of the English coast. Not far boats (MTBs) the soldiers scanned the water with from the coast, we saw a large convoy escorted by searchlights, but they couldn’t see us because of two warships. As the convoy sailed on, one of the the ground mist. We turned the engine down as low warships stayed behind, but it did not come towards as possible so as not to make a noise and let the us. It wasn’t until we’d paddled on for another two boat go with the current. As we neared the sea, we hours that the ship finally approached us. It stopped

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 7 right next to our boat. They threw out a rope ladder awarded the Bronze Cross by Queen Wilhelmina and a sailor climbed down, boarded our boat and as early as 9 March 1944, after having crossed to said simply, ‘Welcome to England boys, follow me.’ England himself. In August 1946, he was decorated Once we were on board, the English captain told us with the Silver Star by President Truman for his he couldn’t pick us up any sooner because we had participation in military operations in occupied wandered into a mine field. They had watched our territory from November 1944 to May 1945. progress with bated breath and hoped that we’d make it out alive. For Engelandvaarders, the bonds of friendship ran deep. Members of a resistance group will do You are the link anything for each other and you learn that you can The British wanted to make sure they weren’t letting achieve more by working together. A special club any spies in, so everyone was subjected to a lengthy for Engelandvaarders called Oranjehaven had been interrogation by MI5, the British secret service. set up in 1942 on the initiative of Queen Wilhelmina. They made you sit on a low chair in front of a desk We kept in touch after the war and the Society of and bombarded you with the weirdest questions in Engelandvaarders was founded. We would meet English, like who were your friends and neighbours, up once a year and were often joined by Prince or why was my father in Paris? We found out later Bernhard. that our interrogator spoke perfect Dutch. After that, we were interrogated by the Dutch secret service at A Museum for Engelandvaarders 82 Eaton Square in London. All Engelandvaarders In 2011, at the request of the Heritage Association who arrived in London were interrogated first in this of Leidschendam, one of their board members, former residence of Queen Wilhelmina. Our queen Jos Teunissen, and I started initiatives to create an had since moved her office to 77 Chester Square. Of Engelandvaarders museum. Helped by the joint the Engelandvaarders, Queen Wilhelmina famously efforts of Engelandvaarders, surviving members said, “You are the link between those who stayed of their families, experts, volunteers and the behind and me”. All of us who arrived in England municipality of , the museum has now were invited to have tea with her. become a reality.

Royal Air Force The museum, which is located in one of the bunkers After a conversation with Prince Bernhard, he of the in Noordwijk, was opened by arranged for me to be trained as a pilot with the King Willem-Alexander on 4 September 2015. Here, Royal Air Force. Before the training programme future generations will be able to read about our started in Canada, I had to swear allegiance to struggle. The museum houses a database containing King George the Fifth with my hand on the Bible. all the stories of the Engelandvaarders, to provide After the war, I was trained by the RAF to be a as much information as possible for their descen- flying instructor. When I was appointed as a flying dants and the generations to come. The museum instructor with the Dutch Air Force in 1946, I met commemorates over 2,000 Dutch men and women Beatrice van Delden, who became my wife. She had who succeeded in making their way from German been a courier in the Netherlands. We had three occupied territory to England in order to continue children, Michael, Robert and Eugenie. Most of the the fight against the enemy. friends from my youth group in Hilversum had died working for the Resistance. Interview: Ellen Lock

I have great respect for Anton Schrader and Kees The museum houses a database containing all Koole, who arranged my journey to England, the stories of the Engelandvaarders. Any and that of many others. Although Schrader was information about Engelandvaarders, from any interrogated very closely by the British Secret country, would be gratefully received (e-mail: Service in London on the subject of his continued [email protected] of tel: 06-15465972). membership of the National Youth Storm, he was

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 8 A bomb blast with life- long consequences Jelke van Wattum lives with the effects of the bombing of Rotterdam every day.

On 14 May 1940, the home of Jelke van Wattum’s ‘Up above’ parents in Rotterdam was bombed. Jelke was ten, Everything about what followed is from hearsay, and the bombing had a catastrophic effect on his because I was immediately knocked unconscious. life. In addition to losing his mother and younger When I was carried into the Eudokia hospital, a brother, Jelke lost his left hand and part of his doctor said, ‘Give him some morphine, because he jaw and face. In the years that followed, he would won’t make it through to the night.’ My face was undergo plastic surgery numerous times. Even now, badly damaged, the left side of my jaw was broken, people stare at him on account of his still-visible and my left hand had been shattered by shrapnel. injuries. He is reminded of the war in everything he Against expectations, I was still breathing five hours does. We spoke with Jelke about the course his life later. Later, I heard from the doctor that I’d been has taken since that fateful moment. operated on for six hours. He was just about to go home, but stayed to operate on me. My brother Everything reduced to rubble was operated on immediately upon his arrival at the On 14 May 1940, I was sitting at the dining table with hospital, but died the same evening. My mother my younger brother, my mother, my grandmother was killed immediately. My grandmother visited me and my cousin. My sister was out getting groceries, regularly, but the doctors wouldn’t let her tell me and my father was in Zeeland for work. He was a my mother and brother had died, as I was too weak tobacco, coffee and tea rep. We lived at Vijverhof- to handle bad news. My father was unable to come straat 141 A in Rotterdam, near the house I was born back from Zeeland that day because traffic was in on 25 August 1929. A few days before, on 10 May, halted in Roosendaal. He returned home one day we had seen German paratroopers descending in later to find everything reduced to rubble, and that the distance. In those early days of the war, the air- his wife and eldest son had died. My father and my raid siren would go off all the time. When it did, we mother’s brothers, all of whom were builders, saw were urged to stay inside and sit as far away from the to it that they weren’t buried in the mass grave in windows as possible. Shortly before the bombing, Crooswijk, but together in a family grave. Together, we were sitting at the dining table playing with they built a coffin. The funeral was kept secret from cardboard toy plane kits. We were so engrossed in me. My grandmother, father and sister visited me our play that we didn’t hear the plane approaching. daily. If I spoke of my mother and brother, they My brother Gijs, who was three years my senior, was would say they were ‘up above’, which I took to much better at building the planes than I was, and mean they were on one of the above floors of the wanted to be an architectural draughtsman. I wanted hospital. After a month, I was out of bed and set my brother to help me with my plane and stood up about finding out where they were, only to discover from my chair. At that moment, a high-explosive to my shock that they weren’t on one of the above bomb landed in our living room and, within the floors, but that ‘up above’ meant they were in space of a second, everything was reduced to heaven. rubble.

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 9 Thin soup through a straw Did they perhaps go into hiding? A nurse later told me that a priest had been to A year later, my father remarried to a friend who had see me to read me the last rites because I was so often stayed with with us when my mother was still badly injured. My head and arm were covered in alive. She was a nurse at Eudokia hospital, but came bandages, and the only thing I was able to eat was from near the village Mussel in the municipality of thin soup, which I drank through a straw wedged in Stadskanaal. On her days off, she would often stay the right corner of my mouth between the bandages. with us because travelling by public transport was They gave me a lot of morphine. A neighbour told so arduous at the time. We moved from Rotterdam me forty years later, ‘It looked like a bomb had to the centre of Breda, where, after finishing primary exploded in your mouth.’ Once I was able to open school, I did one year of secondary school. We lived my eyes again, I found myself in a ward with soldiers there until the end of the war. One day, a Jewish who had sustained minor injuries in battle on the family who lived in our street, the Platvoets, disap- Meuse River. They were into high jinks, and enjoyed peared, never to return. ‘Did they perhaps go into teasing the nurses, so I had a lot of fun with them. hiding?,’ I ask myself to this day. After the war, My left hand been amputated, and my jaw had been I enquired with the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust set by a surgeon, Dr van Ree, who had miraculously and Genocide and the Red Cross, but they didn’t managed to fix together the loose pieces of jaw know. There were many people in hiding in Breda. using a plate. By taking a skin graft from my upper On Queen’s Day, the organist in the church played back, this doctor fabricated a new cheek for me. the national anthem, the Wilhelmus, in between the I spent months convalescing in hospital, where hymns, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed, as it I was spoilt rotten by all the staff, my fellow patients had been prohibited during the war. On 29 October and my visitors. 1944, Breda was liberated by Polish tanks. We ate compact, yeast-free bread, because the yeast factory A reminder near Delft was in still-occupied territory. On the After three and a half months, I was finally allowed square in the city centre, people were celebrating. to go home. I left the hospital on my eleventh After the war, I underwent further surgery on my birthday, so I was showered with gifts by the staff. face, which was performed by a Jewish plastic Dokter van Ree said, ‘You survived because you’re surgeon, Dr Koch. He had fled to London before so tough!’ My most treasured possessions are the the war, where he had patched up many British RAF studs my mother always wore in her ears; she was pilots. He operated on me numerous times and also wearing them when the blast happened. A year did a great job. after the blast, my father had the ear studs made into two tiepins specially for her brother and I as A mirror held up to me mementos. Years later, at the 4 May commemoration More than anything, I just wanted to live my life at the national monument for civilian war victims, my and not have people feeling sorry for me. We went cousin gave me a small box. ‘We’ve brought you the to church every Sunday, and from a very early age tiepin made from your mother’s ear stud’, she said. I was struck by the idea of becoming a clergyman. ‘My father always wore the tiepin on his lapel, but Young though I was, I was already telling everyone, he’s no longer with us, and the ear stud is of greater much to their amusement. The war did nothing to sentimental value to you than it is to us.’ I was very change my ambitions to join the clergy. Fortunately, touched to receive this gift, and had my mother’s it was a vocation I would be able to fulfil without ear studs from the two tiepins made into a single any difficulty despite my missing hand. This led me tiepin. Together with the photo of my mother and to go to grammar school and then study theology brother, this tiepin is my most treasured possession. in Kampen. I was always very keen to do everything In a dream I had years later, I saw my mother lying myself. When I was a student, a female friend of on the ground with her arm severed, and my brother mine held up a big mirror in front of me. When I slumped at the table with his head face down on his left, she held up my coat for me to help me put it arms. This may be something I saw at the time. on. I was somewhat short with her, and said I was

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 10 perfectly capable of putting my coat on myself, to This led to my involvement with the Foundation which she replied, ‘We understand that you want for Civilian War Victims (SBO), which I chaired from to do everything yourself, but we determine the 1980 to 1990. Together with victims of war and etiquette in this house, and this is how we treat all violence from all over the country and interested of our visitors!’ That was an important life lesson politicians, such as CDA MP Dien Cornelissen for me, and made me realise that you don’t need and PvdA MP Joop Worrell, I conducted many to persist in doing everything yourself. If someone discussions and attended the debates in the Lower offers you help, you should accept it and take House of Parliament, which led to the passing of pleasure in it. the Benefit Act for Civilian War Victims 1940-1945 (Wubo) in 1984. Thanks to this Act, this particular Back to Eudokia group of war victims finally received the recognition I met my wife by chance through a couple who were they deserved. Because there was no monument friends of mine at a farm in Raamsdonkveer, where to them, in 1989 the SBO commissioned artist and I was giving catechism classes. She had taken a former resistance fighter Truus Menger to design day’s leave and was staying there. We struck up a one. Specially for the Netherlands’ civilian victims of conversation. Her name was Frieda, and it turned war, she made ‘The Stone of a Million Tears’. The out she worked at Eudokia hospital as a maternity monument stands next to the Oudedijk in Kralingen, nurse. A year later, I was in Rotterdam to collect and symbolises the broken lives of civilian victims my household effects, and decided to pop into of war. the hospital while I was waiting. I visited the senior nurse who had known me as a ten-year-old boy, and Hope she put me in contact with Frieda. We immediately Once, someone said about me, ‘Give that boy clicked, and within four months, in 1956, we had a morphine injection, because he won’t make it fallen in love, got engaged and married. We later through to the night!’ I was ten years old. Night still had two daughters and a son together. hasn’t come, and I’m grateful that my sister and I are still alive. One should not be ashamed to be a victim The Stone of a Million Tears of war. If people stare at me because of my hook or As a preacher, I often came into contact with people the scars on my face, I simply stare back, and I’ve who had sustained serious injuries as a result of become very good at it. Everyone gets despondent war or violence, and discovered that the church at times, but at the same time there’s so much to did little to support them. In 1986, an ecumenical live for. You need to see and seize the opportunities pastoral service for victims of war was set up under that present themselves. You don’t necessarily need the leadership of the Reverend Roel Kaptein. We to do everything yourself. Don’t focus too much on wanted the churches to do more for victims of war your own impediments, and accept help from others. and violence and have a clear idea of the type of assistance and information they could provide. Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 11 Escape was impossible Lotty Huffener-Veffer on her concentration camp experiences before and after the Philips transport.

Lotty Huffener-Veffer (1921) and her father Offer of escape not accepted were diamond workers at the Asscher diamond My fiancé, Sal, and I were due to be married in May company in Amsterdam. During World War II, 1940, but this never happened due to the outbreak indispensable labourers with specialist skills of war on 10 May. We’d already found a safehouse, were initially protected from deportation, but in where I stored all of our things. We’d already given February 1943 Lotty was taken from her home official notice of our marriage. We’d even set a date and interned in Vught. In June 1943, her younger and chosen a venue for the wedding, but I was taken sister was deported with a children’s transport, away with the rest of the Jewish diamond workers. and her parents went with her. Lotty worked in the At 8 p.m. on 11 February 1943, the Grüne Polizei industrial workshop at Camp Vught - the so-called came to our door to get me. I wasn’t given time to ‘Philips Command’. A year later, on 3 June 1944, gather any belongings. There were also other Jewish the final transport of Jewish women left Camp diamond workers in the police van. We were told that Vught for Auschwitz. Lotty tells the story of how labourers were needed for a diamond factory they she survived the Holocaust. were planning on setting up at Camp Vught. I was taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg theatre, the Learning a trade first assembly point for the deportations, where I bumped My father was a diamond cutter at the Asscher into someone I knew who worked there. He said, diamond company and my mother had been a ‘When the tram comes this evening, walk around the sales assistant at De Bijenkorf before she got back of it, and I’ll make sure there’s someone there married. I was born on 10 July 1921 into a non- to collect you.’ Later that evening, I saw my parents practising Jewish family in East Amsterdam. My and my sister again at the Hollandsche Schouwburg. sister, Carla, was born seven years later. When I was After a couple of hours, as many people as possible very young, I wanted to be an actress because we were loaded into the tram, but I couldn’t bring myself would often playact at home. My father also played to sneak away unseen and lose sight of my parents the violin. After I had finished primary school, I and sister, so I went with them. went to secondary school. After that, I entered a French language course, but my father said, ‘You Separated at Camp Vught need to learn a trade first!’ This led me to take In the middle of the night, we were taken to Muider- a job with the Asschers, who provided me with poort railway station together with other diamond vocational training to become a diamond cutter. workers’ families, where we departed on a passenger In retrospect, that’s what saved me. As diamond train bound for Vught. When we arrived, we were workers, in addition to the ‘J’ stamp we were given forced to walk through the woods in the dark with a ‘Sperr’ stamp in our ID by the Jewish Council. more than two hundred other prisoners and hand This temporarily exempted us from deportation to over all of our belongings at the entrance to the Germany, because we were indispensable in the camp. Men and women were separated from one Asscher diamond company. another. I slept with my mother and sister in a three-

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 12 storey bunk bed in a barracks. The next day, my were locked in ‘the bunker’ – an overpopulated, sister was moved to separate children’s barracks. We dark cell without windows – together with 72 other were no longer allowed to speak with one another. women for collective punishment. They survived, but Every morning at 6 a.m., there was a roll call and many of the other survivors were no longer able to head count. The Dutch female camp guards were the work. That night, ten women died in the bunker as a worst. In the children’s barracks, there was a mother result of asphyxiation and crushing. who was unable to stop her baby from crying. The camp guard said, ‘I’ll get her to shut up!’ She ripped The Philips transport the baby from the mother’s arms and pressed its tiny All of a sudden, we were rounded up, and in the neck against the barbed wire until it was dead. After early hours of 3 June 1944, some four hundred of the war had ended, this cruel camp guard spent a us, all Jewish women, left with the so-called ‘Philips long time in prison. transport’. The other female inmates remained at the camp until its closure in September 1944. The The children’s transport train travelled directly to Auschwitz over a period of On Saturday, 5 June 1943, it was announced that four days, which we spent sitting in a closed goods all Jewish children under the age of sixteen were to wagon. When we arrived, I saw guards with large leave the camp. They were often sick, and the guards dogs on the platform. At the gate, we were told to were fearful of infections. My sister, Carla, had just strip immediately, and they sprayed us to kill any lice. turned fifteen and was to be transported away. One Because we had all worked in the Philips workshop, parent was allowed to accompany each child, but we were treated as a separate group. Bypassing the both of my parents wanted to stay with her. I wanted usual selection for the gas chambers, we were taken to go, too, but my mother said, ‘Stay here. That to the adjacent camp, Birkenau, where they shaved way, you’ll still be here if we come back.’ ‘Please our heads and tattooed numbers on our lower arms. look after her,’ she asked the women who didn’t We were then led to a shower room. We feared have to go with the children’s transport. The women that gas would come out of the showers, but to our comforted me and kept an eye on me. ‘They’ll be surprise it was water. We were then issued striped taken to a labour camp, and the children will go to dresses. Our job was to carry large slabs from one school there,’ they said. end of the camp to the other, where we were also required to stand for roll call for hours to be counted. The Philips Command Within a week, we, as skilled labourers from Philips, I stayed behind in Vught with a group of women who were taken to Reichenbach to work in a Telefunken worked in a separate Jewish barracks at the Philips factory, building condensers for aeroplanes. Command. We worked seven days a week and often had to stand for roll call for hours in the middle of Spared the night. In the Philips workshop at Camp Vught, In the factory, an engineer would listen to English we made condensers and soldered light bulbs and radio broadcasts and keep us up to date on the war. wiring for the V2’s. Despite the fact that, as Jews, When I was working in the factory, I became seriously we worked and slept strictly separated from other ill with typhoid and a high fever. Fraulein Gebauer, female inmates, I managed to meet resistance a camp guard who also thought the war was fighter Tineke Guilonard. When they arrived at the abhorrent, looked at the thermometer and shook it camp, she asked me: ‘Could you keep an eye on down straight away so as to lower the temperature Beppie Schuier? She’s all alone here.’ From that shown. She told her superior I didn’t have a fever, moment, the Jewish resistance fighter, Beppie and as a result of which I was spared. The following day, I stuck together. We were the same age, helped she brought me some quinine pills. In February 1945, one another, and raised each other’s spirits. At one the Telefunken factory was bombed. With the factory stage, I contracted a serious middle ear infection, beyond repair, we had to leave. What followed was a for which I was treated by Dr Steijns, a kind Jewish long, bleak trek through the snow to various camps doctor from Utrecht. On 15 January 1944, my friends in Poland. I walked these death marches wearing two for life, Tineke Guilonard and Louise van de Montel, left-footed clogs. Many people had no more than a

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 13 little bandaging on their feet. One of the guards lent a housekeeper and nanny. It was hard work. The me her boots, with the proviso that I returned them husband had real trouble keeping his hands to to her in good condition, and I walked through the himself, and I regularly had to wrestle myself free mountains wearing them. Twenty of us cleaned them from him. He would always lock the door, trapping with our spit so I could return them to her. There me. The wife told my subsequent in-laws, the were also Hungarian and Russian Jewish women resistance family the Huffeners, that they had ‘a amongst us. The food was poor: small chunks of camp girl’ at home to do the household chores. bread and some cabbage soup. Many died along The Huffeners smelled a rat, as they’d never seen me the way from hunger, illnesses and exhaustion. One outside the house. They sent two of their children, mother - Miep Scholte, who had also been interned Ciska and Joep, to the address in Bilthoven to rescue at Camp Vught - missed her children so bad that me. Ciska rang the doorbell while the husband she would walk around every day holding a piece of was out. She asked if she could see my room, and mould-covered bread in case she saw her children instructed me to make my way to the back door, again. ‘They’ll be hungry!’, she would always say. She which her brother had already opened. Joep was was later murdered on the train for that little piece stood there waiting with a bike, which is how the two of bread while the train stood waiting at Bergen- of them freed me. The Huffeners let me stay with Belsen concentration camp. Bergen-Belsen was so them, and in 1947 I married Joep. full that we were sent away again. The Children’s Memorial at Camp Vught Liberated I think of my sister and parents every day. What In May 1945, some two hundred of us, all women, happened was so brutal and beyond comprehension shaven-headed and wearing our camp dresses, that I often hope I’ll wake up from this nightmare. arrived at the Danish border with our SS guards. On When this happens, I think to myself, ‘Did I dream our journey through Germany, not a single civilian this, or did it really happen?’ My parents and sister tried to help us, and escaping in your camp dress were murdered in Sobibor in June 1943 and my was impossible. Count Folke Bernadotte was vice- fiancé, Sal, a month later at the age of twenty-two. president of the Swedish Red Cross, and arranged In 1989, shortly after the passing of my husband, for us to be exchanged for German soldiers who two other women I knew from Camp Vught, Louise had been made prisoners of war. When we arrived in Affolter-van de Montel and Tineke Wibaut-Guilonard, Malmö from Denmark, we were quarantined for six collected me for a gathering at ‘t Nieuwe Kafé just weeks. We were then taken to Gothenburg by train. off Amsterdam’s Dam Square, where a group of I had jaundice and couldn’t eat a bite. We were female survivors of different camps would meet every given Swedish lessons and were allowed to six weeks. Together with former resistance member choose some clothes from a department store Hetty Voûte, the three of us founded the Camp in Gothenburg. The four of us were allocated a Vught National Memorial Foundation (Stichting small holiday home on a campsite. It wasn’t until Vriendenkring Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught). August that we were allowed to go ‘home’. We Hetty and I worked together on our initiative for a were taken to Groningen. After staying overnight at children’s monument for the almost 1,300 Jewish a fire station, we were able to get a lift by car and children who were deported from Vught to Sobibor eventually ended up in Rotterdam. We wanted to on the children’s transport. I unveiled the Children’s go to Amsterdam, but there was no one left there Monument in 1990, by which time my friends from for us to stay with. We were given a horse blanket the camp had unfortunately passed away. Every year, by a welfare organisation at Johannes Vermeerplein, I give information sessions at primary schools. My and Beppie and I spent our first night in Amsterdam daughter has laid memorial stones in Sobibor for my sleeping outside on a bench on Apollolaan. family. My four children and grandchildren help me and assist with various commemorations voluntarily. Danger In this respect, I’m very fortunate! Through an old neighbour, I arranged for a lift to Bilthoven, where I took a job with a family as Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2017 - 14 Questions and answers

My pension has just gone up. Does this have been recognised under one of our schemes, we to be reported, and will I get less in Wuv benefit can draw up a statement in English confirming that as a result? you suffered persecution by being interned in a If you lose one of your sources of income, or you Japanese camp. Pensions paid under the Article 2 gain a new one, you must report this to us as soon Fund are not deducted from extraordinary pensions as possible so that your benefit can be reassessed. (under the WBP scheme) or Dutch benefits paid The longer you wait before reporting a new source under the schemes for war victims. of income, the more you will have to repay. You must also inform us of any changes in your personal My claim has been rejected because there was no circumstances, for example, if you get married or evidence to prove what happened during the war. start living with a partner, if you separate or get Why can’t you take my word for it? divorced, or if you go into a care home or a nursing We can only recognise a claimant as having been home for any length of time. However, an increase a victim of persecution, a civilian war victim or a in a source of income already known to us does not member of the resistance if, in addition to what they have to be reported, and will not affect the amount themselves have stated, there is sufficient evidence of your current benefit. If your benefit has to be to confirm that they were personally involved in the reassessed in the future for some other reason, war situations concerned. We do this by studying the pension amount you are receiving then will be the files of family members, contacting the people deducted from your benefit. named as witnesses, and searching for evidence in the reports belonging to people who went I have a Jewish background and spent time in a through the same experiences. If we do not find Japanese camp during the war. Would I be eligible any confirmation of the war experiences in historic for the German Article 2 Fund? documents or literature, in the National Archives or That would indeed be possible because Germany the archives of the Red Cross, the NIOD Institute asked the Japanese to treat the Jews as a separate for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, or other group during the war. In some of the camps, relevant institutions or organisations, we will have to Tangerang and Adek for example, people who said reject the claim. Although a lot of historical material they were Jewish were housed in separate barracks. has been kept and many witnesses made statements You can find more information about the Article about their war experiences while they were still 2 Fund and the application form on the Claims alive, it may still be impossible to confirm certain Conference website, (www.claimscon.org). The wartime events. If you call the SVB officer who issued Claims Conference will ask applicants to provide the decision, they will be able to tell you more about documentary evidence of their Jewish status and all the research that was carried out. the persecution they suffered. If you have already

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