June 2021 AanspraakAfdeling Verzetsdeelnemers en Oorlogsgetroffenen

Louk de Liever on the ‘Lost Train’ from Westerbork transit camp on 13 September 1944 Contents

Page 3 Speaking for your benefit. Coen van de Louw Member of the SVB Board of Directors

Page 5-6 National Remembrance Day speech by André van Duin on Dam Square, 4 May 2021 2021, Commemorating the dead in the rain, the heavens weep with us...

Page 7-10 I was a five-year-old orphan at the time, so it’s a miracle I survived the camps. Louk de Liever on the ‘Lost Train’ from Wester- bork transit camp on 13 September 1944.

Page 11-14 How I almost lost my father. Peter Rufi’s father was brutally punished by the Japanese before his eyes.

Page 15-18 When they started firing at the festive crowd, I ran for my life! Tom Gase was hit during the shooting on Dam Square on 7 May 1945.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 2 Page 19-20 Results of the client satisfaction survey.

Page21 Questions and answers.

No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 3 Speaking for your benefit

COVID-19 is forcing us to reflect on every aspect surveys have shown that you, as clients of our of our lives more than ever before: the services Department for Former Members of the Resistance we provide, our democracy, and our climate. and Victims of War (V&O), rate our services so highly. It’s a time for reflecting on what’s truly important. Naturally, we would like to keep things this way. The COVID-19 restrictions also affected us all during the official commemorations of the Second We would therefore ask you to let us know if there’s World War. For the second consecutive year, anything we can improve upon, because all of our National Holocaust Memorial Day and National staff genuinely want to offer our clients the best Remembrance Day had to be held in the absence of service we can. Since COVID-19, we’ve noticed a members of the public, with an adapted ceremony. decrease in the number of applications and claims The fact that these restrictions still apply on we receive. During lockdown, it may have been more account of the contagiousness of COVID-19 is a difficult for some clients to post letters, and some bitter pill to swallow, but it does not stop us from post offices were having problems, which meant that commemorating the war in Europe and Asia. applications and claims were either not submitted This June edition of Aanspraak contains the or submitted late. Furthermore, because physical special speech given by André van Duin during contact was no longer possible for physiotherapy the National Remembrance Day ceremony on and psychotherapy, V&O received fewer claims than ’s Dam Square on 4 May. they would under normal circumstances.

Recently, there has also been widespread attention In these difficult times, we have made extra efforts for major errors made by government departments to ensure that we are available by telephone every in the execution of their tasks, at the cost of citizens. working day to be able to assist you with your The many mistakes made in the communication applications and claims, and to answer any questions with citizens with regard to childcare benefit, for you may have regarding your personal situation. example, are a powerful reminder of the fact that, We’ll offer you solutions where we can, because we, as employees of the Sociale Verzekeringsbank, that’s what we’re here for! have a duty to fulfil. As an organisation, the Sociale Verzekeringsbank wants to listen to citizens; we want to know their difficulties and needs and help where we can. For this reason, we work with an independent research agency who conduct random customer satisfaction surveys for each of the benefit Coen van de Louw schemes we administer. We are pleased that these Member of the SVB Board of Directors

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 4 National Remembrance Day speech by André van Duin on Dam Square, 4 May 2021 2021, Commemorating the dead in the rain, the heavens weep with us…

When I was born in Rotterdam in 1947, just many who died or were killed in the camps in South- after the war, the city was working to rebuild East Asia. And all the soldiers, sent to the front, itself. Clearing rubble and trying to recover from never to return. Now, we say, ‘They fought for our the enormous damage inflicted by the great freedom’, and that is true. But they were probably Bombardment. On 14 May 1940, 60 German thinking, ‘How do we get out of this hell alive...? bombers raised the heart of the city to the ground And if we do, will the still even exist?’ in just under 20 minutes. More than 80,000 people homeless. Countless wounded, and hundreds dead... I have lived in this city for more than 30 years. And in just under 20 minutes. Der Luftwaffe returned yet, this is the first time that I have attended the 4 May home satisfied. With Amsterdam, Remembrance Day ceremony on Dam Square. and Utrecht threatened with the same fate, the I usually go to the ceremony at the Westermarkt, just a Netherlands surrendered. stone’s throw from here. There, on the little square behind the Westerkerk, there is another memorial to It was the beginning of 5 years of occupation, fear, the war. Not as big as this one, but just as inspiring, uncertainty, hardship and repression. In Rotterdam – the Homomonument. This evening, at 8 o’clock, the as in many other cities – all males between the ages of dead are being remembered there, just as here. The 17 and 40 were ordered to report for Arbeitseinsatz... three large pink triangles on the ground symbolise Forced labour... Roads and bridges were closed so discrimination and degradation. You will always find no one could escape. Those who went into hiding, flowers there, any time of year. The monument is or tried to flee, were shot on sight. It was the largest inscribed with a line of poetry by the Jewish writer Jacob round-up of people in the history of our country. Israël de Haan: ’Naar Vriendschap, Zulk Een Mateloos My father was captured too, and deported by train Verlangen’ (Such an endless desire for friendship). to Germany. Exactly what happened to him there, what hardships he suffered, he would never say. The fact that, since 1987, we have had this monument, If I questioned him, as I did from time to time, he the first of its kind, here in the Netherlands, replied, “You don’t want to know, lad.” He had symbolises our freedom... The freedom for each survived... But we were not to ask: How... individual to simply be themselves. Without anyone else having the right to judge. The Dutch In our house, the war was never or hardly ever constitution is steeped in benevolence and mentioned. It was only when I started primary school tolerance. For the most part, you can do what you that I heard, for the first time, what had actually want, or say what you want... Here, you are free. happened during those years. How many people Free, with the negative image of the war contrasting had died... Hundreds of thousands dead. Citizens, with our vividly coloured picture of peacetime. resistance fighters, victims of the Holocaust, the And tomorrow, we celebrate that freedom.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 5 In spite of all the limitations that have come with the coronavirus, we will celebrate our freedom... And so will I. But I do so with the conviction that I too bear a responsibility to pass our freedom on to a new generation. Because, as has often been said, ‘Freedom cannot be taken for granted’.

It could easily have turned out differently... Then... 76 years ago. And I might have had to have given this speech in German. That is why I am thankful... Thankful that I am able to live in freedom, and so very proud to be living in the Netherlands.

Source: The National Committee for 4 and 5 May.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 6 I was a five-year-old orphan at the time, so it’s a miracle I survived the camps Louk de Liever on the ‘Lost Train’ from Westerbork transit camp on 13 September 1944.

On 13 September 1944, Louk de Liever was in Amsterdam South, where I was to go into hiding on the very last train to leave Westerbork for as a member of the Veenstra family. BergenBelsen concentration camp. Referred to as ‘Gruppe Unbekannte Kinder’ [‘Unknown Children’] ‘I was two and a half years old when they took me in, by the Germans, the cattle wagon at the back of and I stayed with them for more than two years. Like the train was carrying fifty-two undocumented me, my foster parents, Dirk and Marietje Veenstra, Jewish orphans who were being deported. Louk had dark hair, so people genuinely believed I was explains that he owes his life to the care of his their son. They would let me play outside with my foster parents, the Veenstras, their nanny Henny slightly older, blonde-haired foster sister, Marijke. Keuter, and many fellow prisoners in the camps. The nanny, Henny Keuter, cared very well for us. He has nothing but praise for the Russians who I got on very well with all of them from the start.’ liberated him from Theresienstadt. Louk shares his wartime experiences by giving talks as a guest Betrayed by the neighbour across the street speaker in schools, and is now sharing them with ‘In June 1944, a man who lived across the street us in Aanspraak. betrayed me to the Germans. He received 7.50 guilders for reporting a Jew to the German Alone in hiding intelligence agency, the Sicherheitsdienst. On Louk: ‘I was a five-year-old orphan at the time, 16 August, I was arrested by two Dutch SS officers so it’s a miracle I survived three Nazi camps. My dressed in long black leather coats. We lived on parents both came from devout Orthodox Jewish the first floor and they rang the doorbell. Just as families. My father, Philip de Liever, and my mother, Henny opened the door, I came to ask her for a Heintje de Liever-van Gelder, had a haberdashery in sandwich. The SS officers took us on foot to the Nijkerk. They worked in the shop together, selling Sicherheitsdienst’s headquarters on Euterpestraat. textiles, spools of thread and pieces of fabric for The Sicherheitsdienst were housed in a building clothing. I was born on 21 August 1939 in Nijkerk as they had commandeered that was part of the Louis de Liever, but everyone called me Louk. During Christian secondary school. Henny left via the the war, in 1944, my parents had a second son, back entrance and warned my foster parents. This followed by a third after the war in 1946. meant the Veenstra family now also needed to go into hiding. The SS officers locked me up in a cell ‘In early 1942, our family was forced to go into in the basement, where I, still only four years old hiding because of the persecution of the Jews. Our at the time, had to await my fate. The head of the neighbour, a teacher, told my parents that it would Sicherheitsdienst was SS Sturmbannführer Willy probably better for them to put me into hiding Lages, who treated me as a Jewish orphan and sent with a non-Jewish family, and that I could stay with me to Westerbork transit camp.’ his sister in Amsterdam. Shortly after, a lady called Annie, who was a member of the resistance, came to Camp Westerbork collect me. She put me on the back of her wooden- ‘On 18 August 1944, the train I was transported wheeled bicycle and took me to Agamemnonstraat on arrived in Camp Westerbork. I was assigned

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 7 to barracks 35, which was also referred to as “the My time in Bergen-Belsen is a big blank camp orphanage”. The orphans were looked after ‘I have no memory whatsoever of my imprisonment by the friendly German-Jewish couple Otto and in the large concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Hennie Birnbaum. Every school day, the other For me, that whole period is a big blank. After the orphans and I attended the camp school run by the war, I heard that, as orphans, we remained together Birnbaums. They sang songs with us and we would and slept in overpopulated barracks. Typhoid was take walks through the camp. There was a large rampant, and I became seriously ill with it. Whilst sandpit and a swing. All we were ever given to eat many other prisoners died of hunger, typhoid or the was cabbage soup and swede, so I’ve never eaten cold, every single one of the “Unknown Children” either since. I missed my parents, but especially my survived. foster parents and our nanny. ‘On 15 April 1945, Bergen-Belsen concentration ‘Fortunately, there were female prisoners who camp was liberated by the Allies. However, we had took pity on us. We were constantly looked after to wait longer to be liberated, because us “Unknown by different people, because prisoners would be Children” had left Bergen-Belsen four months transported to the camps in Germany by train every previously, in January, in a cattle wagon. Our initial week. For my fifth birthday on 21 Augustus 1944, my destination was Auschwitz extermination camp, in carers gave me an inedible cake made of straw and German-occupied Poland, but when the railway line potato peel. They sang birthday songs for me so it to Poland was bombed, we were taken to Camp at least felt a little like a birthday.’ Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia, which was also under German occupation. On board the train, many The ‘Unkown Children’ prisoners had caught typhoid, which was contagious. ‘In early September 1944, a banker’s wife, Truus One of our group of orphans, a girl, died from Wijsmuller-Meijer, tried to save our group of orphans pneumonia during the journey.’ in Westerbork from deportation. She approached the Nazis and argued to camp commander Gemmeker Gardens in Theresienstadt that we were the orphaned Dutch children of ‘On 15 January 1945, we arrived in Theresienstadt, Dutch women and German soldiers. Her plea was where we were made to put on black-and-white- unsuccessful. striped prison fatigues. Upon arrival, a prisoner gave me a piece of bread. That felt like a feast! We slept ‘On 13 September 1944, Gemmeker ordered that all in the brick Hamburg Barracks, where I lay in the fifty-two Jewish orphans were to be put in the cattle tallest bunk bed. wagon at the back of the very last train. Other than some straw on the floor and a bucket that served ‘Opposite the barracks was our school, where as a toilet, there was nothing in the wagon, and we were given drawing lessons by a Dutch artist, the soldiers would occasionally throw some chunks Ms Metz. In the Netherlands, her family had been of bread inside. When the door closed, everything part of the so-called Barneveld group – Jews who would go pitch black. The only daylight came had been deemed indispensable to the worlds of through a small hatch at the top of the wagon, which art and science, and had therefore been granted had been left slightly open. I found it very stuffy, and a stay of deportation and were housed in a villa in the darkness made it feel eerie. We left for Bergen- Barneveld. They were eventually sent to Westerbork Belsen in the wagon marked “Unknown Children”. transit camp in 1943, from where they were sent to Under normal circumstances, the train journey took Theresienstadt instead of the extermination camps. four hours, but on this occasion it took almost four days. This was because the drivers had to keep filling ‘One of my duties was to spray the German guards’ in driving other trains, and because a lot of tracks, vegetable gardens with water using a tin as a watering towns and cities had been bombed by the Allies.’ can. The produce was intended for the German

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 8 camp guards only, but I would secretly eat some of had their own circus theatre in Dresden. The animals the raw fruit and vegetables: green beans, peas and were being moved because of the many Allied strawberries. I thought they were delicious, which is bombings of the city. We had to wait a long time why, even now, I prefer to eat my vegetables raw. before our driver was able to move the stationary circus train off our track. Those wild animals made ‘In February 1945, we were visited for the second quite an impression on me.’ time by a delegation from the Red Cross. I was chosen by the camp leaders to dress up in smart When I returned home, I wasn’t exactly clothes. Together with several fellow prisoners I received with open arms didn’t know from Adam – a man, a woman and ‘On 12 June 1945, we arrived at Eindhoven rail- a girl – I had to create the illusion of an average way station, where we were registered in a large family living in a small house in the camp. Once the building that belonged to the company Philips. inspection was over, we immediately had to change My foster mother, Marietje Veenstra, had received back into our striped prison fatigues. a tip from the resistance that the very last train from Theresienstadt was due to arrive in Eindhoven, so ‘On 23 June 1944, the Red Cross visited Theresien- she contacted the reception organisation there to stadt at the behest of the Danish government to find out whether she was allowed to come and inspect the camp. In September 1944, the Nazis went meet me on my arrival. so far as to have a propaganda film made to give the impression that Jews were being well treated there. ‘My foster mother was delighted to see me and we The Red Cross allowed themselves to be misled travelled to my parents’ house in Nijkerk together by this propaganda, because immediately after the on the back of an open lorry. When I returned home, film’s completion the Jewish director and actors I wasn’t exactly received with open arms. My father were sent to Auschwitz extermination camp.’ greeted us outside and gave me a bar of chocolate while I was still sitting on the lorry. “Thank you, A circus train sir!”, I said. “Don’t you recognise him?”, my foster ‘On 8 May 1945, we were liberated by the Russians. mother asked my father. “He’s your son!” My father They were our heroes! We were in a bad way due to did recognise me the second time around, but my hunger and typhoid. The soldiers gave us delicious mother couldn’t believe it was me. “That can’t be chocolate bars. our Loukie,” she said. “I’ll only believe it if there’s a scar on his big toe, because he stepped in broken ‘Together with fellow orphans Hans Reens and Willy glass when he was little.” They then took my shoes Schrijver, I was allowed to return to the Netherlands off, and when she saw my scar she had to concede with the Metz family. In Falkenau, a village southwest that it was me. of Dresden, we stayed overnight in a nunnery. Before we went to bed, the nuns asked us to take ‘My mother really struggled to accept me because our clothes off so they could wash them. We were she’d thought I’d been dead for all those years. awoken in the middle of the night because the Metz All her attention was focused on her second son, family had discovered that there was a train leaving who’d been born in 1944. We’d also been joined for the Netherlands, so we quickly had to put on by another brother in 1946. She would take her bad our wet clothes and sit down on the train with them. moods out on me and, as the eldest child, she would During the journey, our train stopped unexpectedly scold and beat me more than her younger sons. because a stationary circus train was blocking the When my foster sister, Marijke, came to stay with us, tracks. We got off and saw that the train was carrying she couldn’t bear to see how my mother treated me. large cages containing elephants, tigers, monkeys Towards me and only me, my mother had two faces. and horses, but there was no driver. Years later, Hans Many years later, Hans Metz told me that the Metz Metz, the eldest son of the family, told me that it family had searched for me for years because they must have been the German circus Sarassani, who wanted to adopt me.’

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 9 A fantasist ‘My wife, who is also Jewish, has her own ‘My parents had spent the whole of the war in hiding experiences to contend with, so I don’t want to and didn’t believe my stories about the camps. They burden her with my wartime memories. That’s why didn’t believe that I’d seen wild animals on a train, I like to keep busy. Before the corona crisis, I did and my mother said there was no way there could this as a guest speaker by giving talks about my have been a garden full of fresh vegetables in Camp experiences during the war. I’m also the chairman of Theresienstadt. She would tell me she had endured the ‘Stichting Onbekende Kinderen 13 september the Dutch famine of 1944, and called me a fantasist. 1944’, the foundation for the orphans who were on the very last train to leave Westerbork transit camp ‘Because I’d survived three Nazi camps, I’d become for Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. We have very hard to handle – so much so that my parents a reunion on 13 September every year, and are all were unable to cope with me at home. This led in regular contact. Two of us are even married to them to send me to the Paedological Institute in one another. I see them as my brothers and sisters, Amsterdam, where I learnt to alter my behaviour. because they have the same peculiarities as me. During my assessment, Professor of Psychology & Trains make us feel claustrophobic, and we don’t Pedagogy Jan Waterink told my parents, “If he’s still ever want to have to stand in line again. When I’m having delusions about wild animals, I’d recommend with other war victims, I can be myself and speak that we keep him here for another nine months!” My freely about what’s on my mind.’ father thought my treatment had lasted long enough and took me home. Remembrance ‘On 4 May, my wife and I commemorate the war at ‘I would often visit my paternal grandparents in Nijkerk. home, together with our children and grandchildren. My grandfather was the only member of our family who If there’s one piece of advice I would give to was genuinely interested in my wartime stories. My everyone, it would be to respect every human being foster parents, the Veenstras, and their nanny, Henny, of every colour and creed! felt like my real family, and that has never changed. I still see their children every week. Years later, I ran ‘For me, the war will never be over. The past is into Hans Metz, whose parents had taken me to the sometimes too heavy a burden. For instance, I once Netherlands with them by train. He still remembered worked as a volunteer at the zoo in Amersfoort. For the circus train vividly, which truly delighted me. I told the baby elephant’s first birthday, his keepers made him, “I received years of therapy because my parents him a cake from hay and potato peelings, and he didn’t believe my story about the circus train!”’ thought it was delicious. This suddenly brought back my memories of the war, and I had to walk away. A When I’m with other war victims, I can be myself keeper asked me why I was so upset. Later, when ‘When I was fifteen, I met Mary de Vries in a Jewish I told her about the cake made of hay and potato holiday camp in Vierhouten. When I was twentyfive, I peelings I was given at Westerbork for my fifth asked her to marry me, and we’ve now been married birthday, she understood. On another occasion, I was for fifty-seven years. I became a seller for a textile waiting in my car at a railway crossing, when a cattle wholesaler in Utrecht. We had two daughters, and train drove past. Deep in my thoughts, I found myself now have a greatgranddaughter. It’s wonderful for back in that dark cattle wagon as it left Westerbork my wife and I to be able to experience this. for Bergen-Belsen. Suddenly, someone tapped on my window: “Sir, would you mind moving on, ‘I’ve been back to Theresienstadt on two occasions: because there’s a whole row of cars behind you?!” once with my eldest daughter, and once with the That’s just the way it is. You need to pick yourself Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) up and carry on, but as a war victim you sometimes and Binyomin Jacobs for the unveiling of dwell on the past for longer than others.’ a commemorative plaque. I wanted to go back to be able to show them that there really was a vegetable Interview: Ellen Lock garden, and that I hadn’t made it up.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 10 How I almost lost my father Peter Rufi’s father was brutally punished by the Japanese before his eyes.

For civilian war victim Peter Rufi, the memories of the war in the Dutch East Indies can never be erased: ‘In early 1942, when the war with ‘The execution was to be carried out in the presence Japan started in the Dutch East Indies, my father, of their wives and children. My mother, my sister who was a factory manager for the Batavian Oil and I were collected along with Ms De Ceuninck van Company (BPM), was ordered by his employer Capelle and taken to the execution site, where my and the Royal Netherlands Indies Army (KNIL) to father and Mr De Ceuninck van Capelle were each destroy his oil refinery in Sumbawa so it could not made to dig a hole before saying their goodbyes be used by the enemy. He followed the order but to us. After that, the Japanese tied their hands was arrested by the Japanese. behind their backs and blindfolded them and made them kneel in front of the holes they had dug. On Every day, Peter lives with the memory of the the order of the Japanese commander, they were brutal punishment that followed, because his family beheaded with a samurai sword by two Japanese was forced by the Japanese to watch his father’s executioners. Their bodies both rolled forwards into beheading: ‘The images of that day are forever the holes, disappearing from view. My mother and burned into my memory.’ However, the story took Ms De Ceuninck van Capelle screamed and fainted. a different turn, which is why Peter wanted to I’m still confronted by these horrific images daily.’ share his wartime experiences. En route to Celebes The execution of Peter’s father ‘After the execution, we were taken home and told ‘My father, Rudolf Rufi, was the manager of a BPM to get ready to be transported to Celebes. The fossil fuels plant in Bima, on the island of Sumbawa. following day, we were loaded onto a lorry, which My mother, Wilhelmina Rufi-Duran, was a housewife. then drove to the prison to collect other prisoners. I was born on 6 May 1939 in Banjarmasin, followed To our great surprise, we discovered that my by my sister, Reeneke, on 20 February 1941. We had father and Mr De Ceuninck van Capelle were there a Roman Catholic upbringing. waiting for us and were, in fact, alive. My mother and Ms De Ceuninck van Capelle were overjoyed ‘In early 1942, when the war with Japan started in and fell into their husbands’ arms. My father and the Dutch East Indies, my father, who was a factory Mr De Ceuninck van Capelle explained that it manager for BPM, was ordered by his employer and had been a mock execution. They had both been the KNIL to destroy his oil refinery so it couldn’t be knocked unconscious with a single blow from the flat used by the enemy. Together with his second-in- side of the sword, and had fallen forward into the command, Mr De Ceuninck van Capelle, he blew holes they had been made to dig for themselves. up as many installations as he possibly could using Out of view of the women and children, they had explosives. This led to them both being arrested by been taken and thrown back into their cells. It the Japanese and being tried as war criminals before wasn’t until years later that my father was able to a court martial, who sentenced them to death by tell me that he almost went mad when he regained beheading. consciousness and discovered that he was still alive.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 11 ‘Together with the other Dutch prisoners, we were female prisoners in Kampili women’s camp to the taken by boat to Makassar, on the island of Celebes. men in Parepare men’s camp and vice versa. On board, we were allowed to speak with our father some more, but once we were ashore the men were The Allied bombings of Kampili separated from the women and children. The men ‘For the final six months of the war, Camp Kampili were then taken to the prisoner-of-war camp in was attacked repeatedly by Allied bombers. They Parepare, north of Makassar, while the women and would first circle the camp, and then return to children were taken to the women’s camp in Malino. firebomb it. The firebombs contained phosphorous, In Malino, we were allocated a small house, which which would make the wooden barracks catch fire we shared with Ms De Ceuninck van Capelle. When even quicker, and a large part of the camp would we were in Malino, we were allowed to walk in and be razed. During the bombings, we were allowed out of the camp freely. One day, my mother bought to leave the camp. When the first bombing hit, my some food from locals, but she got caught. For mother was working in the kitchen. Hand in hand punishment, she was beaten by a Japanese guard with my sister, I ran between all of the mothers, and locked up in a cell for three days.’ who, in panic, were running in all directions, fleeing the camp with their children. We couldn’t see our Camp Kampili mother anywhere. ‘In May 1943, the Japanese soldiers took us by lorry to Kampili women’s camp in South Celebes, which ‘As my sister and I ran past the Japanese camp lay approximately twenty kilometres southeast of commander’s house, we saw that his desk was on Makassar. It had previously been a TB sanatorium fire. I remembered that desk all too well. On one and was now a barbed-wire-fenced women’s camp. occasion, I’d forgotten to close the gate. As a result, Japanese guards patrolled the perimeter of the the goats escaped, and were found kicking around camp day and night. The camp commander was the nuns’ white clothing on the bleaching field. called Yamadji. To access the camp, you had to cross Mother Superior had taken me to that desk to punish a guarded bridge traversing the Berang River. There me by giving me a Japanese-style stick-beating, but were twelve 6 by 60 metres barracks for the Malino in the end that didn’t happen. Instead, I had to stand prisoners and ten small houses that had previously still on top of it. We saw how the pigsties were being been for staff, where the prisoners from Ambon hit by the phosphorous bombs and immediately were later housed. Each barracks housed around bursting into flames. The screams of the locked-up a hundred prisoners. We slept in bunk beds. Our animals as they caught fire were heartbreaking. cutlery, plate and mug were our only possessions. The first brick house was the camp commander’s, Major panic while the second house was home to the camp ‘Amid the panic, I lost my sister. She was with a doctor, the priest and the pastor. There was also friend and her family. I hid under the bridge with a barracks that only housed nuns. one of the Japanese, but it didn’t feel like a safe place, so I ran into the forest to where everyone was ‘Almost all of the women had to work the land in gathering. There, I found my mother, who hugged the burning sun, but my mother was fortunate in me with joy. When she discovered that my sister that she had been assigned to work in the kitchen. was missing, she went into a blind panic. Together, This meant she was sometimes able to keep some we tried to find her. My mother ran up to a girl the of the food for us that she had cooked for the same age as my sister who was wearing an identical Japanese. Each prisoner was given just a bowl of dress, but it turned out it wasn’t her. My mother was rice a day, with vegetable juice. There was a roll-call now extremely worried and scared that my sister was every morning at 7 a.m.. We had to bow before the dead, but in the end we managed to find her. Japanese flag and stand in rows to be counted. If you did even the slightest thing wrong or didn’t bow ‘The whole camp had been bombed to smithereens. deeply enough, you’d be savagely beaten. For a Everything had been destroyed and burnt. The price, local couriers would smuggle letters from the kitchen, the barracks, the livestock houses and

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 12 the other buildings were all gone. In the ashes ‘Whenever I sing our national anthem, I think about of our barracks, my mother did manage to find the emotional and solemn liberation in Kampili. All her silverware. It’s a wonder that we survived the of the women and children from Camp Kampili were bombings, as many were wounded and five were taken to Makassar by lorry, where we were allocated killed.’ a house, which we shared with the Prins family. We didn’t know where my father was and whether he The Forest Camp was still alive. At the distribution point of one the ‘On 17 July 1945, we were moved to a temporary soup kitchens, where we were able to get food once location called the Forest Camp, where the Japanese a day, the Red Cross had set up a small office where had already had bamboo barracks built for us. We we could enquire about missing family members. My were to live in those barracks until Camp Kampili was mother left our address with them in case my father rebuilt. The Forest Camp was primitive; there was should come and ask about us.’ no drinking water and there were no latrines, which meant that the women and children had to carry a The reunion lot of water. ‘One day, I was playing in the front garden, when a white man with strawberry blond hair, a red ‘There were feral dogs in the camp, which had come moustache and beard, and blue eyes asked, “Young from the kampongs, and three people were bitten man! Are you Peter... Peter Rufi?” “Yes, sir!”, I and died from rabies. One day, the Japanese camp replied, to which he responded, “Well, in that case, commander chopped down all the banana trees, I’m your father.” “No, sir. That’s not possible”, I said, probably following the news about the bombing of shaking my head, but he insisted. “I am, really!” Nagasaki. In the period from 1943 to 1945, there “No, sir. That can’t be. My father’s in Parepare”, were 1,651 prisoners in Camp Kampili, thirty-three I answered, because this was what my mother had of whom didn’t survive the internment. Another five been telling me for three and a half years. My died in the bombings, along with the three who died mother, who was busy with my sister, heard us of rabies. talking and ran outside. She threw herself into my father’s arms, screaming and crying. I was very ‘We were separated from my father for three and a shocked by this, as I thought my mother was being half years. My sister and I had little to no memory of attacked. I took a clog and started hitting the man him. My mother would often tell us stories about my on his back and head. This really made my mother father, and would try to explain what kind of man he and father laugh, and I very soon realised that he was and what he did. The only men we saw in the really was my father. So after three and a half years, camp were Japanese, and through my child’s eyes I finally had my father back. they weren’t real men, but monkeys. Throughout our internment, my mother told us our father was in ‘My father started working for the BPM again. My Camp Parepare. For the final six months of the war, parents also took in a foster child – the daughter of we were unable to correspond with my father.’ one of my mother’s sisters. From day one, she was genuinely a part of our family. In South Celebes, the Liberated, but not yet free to leave now-infamous Captain Westerling was responsible ‘On 15 August 1945, Japan capitulated, and the war for keeping the peace. My father was transferred was over. The head of the camp called us together to a BPM refinery in Kupang on the island of Timor, and told us that Japan had capitulated, but that we where there was little to fear from freedom fighters. needed to remain there for our own safety. So we This is how we survived the post-war period. In 1949, were liberated, but not yet free to leave the camp. we arrived in Batavia via Surabaya. My father had The women spontaneously started singing the Dutch strong connections with high-ranking Indonesians national anthem. I didn’t know it, but I pretended to who would arrange protection and security for sing along. The women started crying and laughing him for his work and family where necessary. This as they sang, and I sang, cried and laughed along enabled my parents to live in Indonesia for a long with them. I’ll never forget that feeling of great joy. time after.’

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 13 Moving to the Netherlands ‘Because I couldn’t sit still, I took a posting in Zaire ‘After the war, my parents had two more boys: my in 1995 with the UNHCR through the Netherlands brothers Hans, born in 1948, and Huib, born in Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I was responsible for 1953. In 1955, I was in my second year of secondary liaising with local authorities to ensure that this school. From the third year, I was supposed to be international aid organisation was able to deliver taught in Bahasa Indonesian, but my father thought food aid safely. My contract meant I was away from it would be better for me to finish my education in home for four months of each year. This type of the Netherlands. My father arranged a flight for me logistical work for charity organisations suited me and enrolled me in a school and boarding school. In much better. It involved working with refugees, August, I arrived unaccompanied at Schiphol Airport. whose lives mirrored my own. I saw refugee women I attended Don Bosco Catholic boys’ boarding carrying bales of clothing on their heads, walking school in Rijswijk and the Jesuit College in The hand in hand with their children, just like us when we Hague and acquired my secondary school certificate. were on our way to Camp Kampili. They also slept My parents and brothers arrived in the Netherlands crammed together in appalling conditions. I would in 1959, but that coincided with me having to go into sometimes say to my Zairian colleagues, “You get military service. During my military service, I heard food, water and a roof above your heads, and you about the course at the Royal Military Academy in can also leave the reception camp. Like you, I was Breda and became a professional soldier. I wanted in a camp, but as a prisoner. We were imprisoned to become independent as soon possible.’ there for three and a half years, and the women were beaten by the Japanese camp guards. We weren’t allowed to leave ‘I married in September 1960, and my wife and I had ‘I worked with refugees until 1997, with great two daughters. We divorced in 1982. I was in the interest. Before the corona crisis, I would always army from 1960 to 1994. In 1962, I was stationed in attend the annual Kampili reunion. It was glad to New Guinea, but by the time we arrived the fighting find out more about life in the camp by hearing the had already ended, and we were instructed by the stories of others who were also children at the time, United Nations to withdraw. In 1982, I married my but older than myself, and remembered things in second wife, who already had two sons from her greater detail. Even though I was very young at the previous marriage. I’m now great-grandfather to time, my wartime memories from Bima and Camp the children of my daughter’s children. My job with Kampili – and, in particular, how I almost lost my NATO led me to move to Germany with my family. father – still continue to haunt me. I see the image In 1994, I retired from NATO as a lieutenant colonel. of his mock execution before me every day.’ In retrospect, I’m extremely thankful that I only experienced a cold war during my military career, and that we didn’t go to war with Russia. Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 14 When they started firing at the festive crowd, I ran for my life! Tom Gase was hit during the shooting on Dam Square on 7 May 1945.

On 7 May 1945, thousands of people came kitchens using a long spoon tied to a stick. Everything together on Dam Square in the centre of Amsterdam revolved around food, so when we heard that the to celebrate the liberation of the Netherlands Canadians were about to arrive in Dam Square, we and cheer on the approaching Canadian troops. went along hoping they would give us chocolate. Following the German surrender on 5 May 1945, a podium had been set up in the square for the In September 1944, the Dutch railways went on official transfer of power. The German soldiers strike at the request of the exiled Dutch government wandering through the city were still armed. in London. The allies had already liberated the The Domestic Armed Forces (BS) were also still southern part of the Netherlands, but the occupying carrying their Sten guns, contrary to the orders of forces subsequently blocked all food and fuel Prince Bernhard, their Commander-in-Chief, in the transports to the western provinces. This six-week expectation that they would surrender their blockade had resulted in the Dutch famine of 1944- weapons peacefully to the Canadian army. 1945, known as the ‘Hunger Winter’. We had to build our own cooking stoves and constantly hunt Suddenly, the festive mood vanished. Some women for wood to burn. My father and I knocked out who were known to have consorted with the enemy the wooden blocks from the railway tracks or the were punished by having their heads shaved and banisters from deserted houses. I would collect the atmosphere turned grim. Then, as the Germans driftwood from the banks of the river IJ that we dried were being disarmed by the BS, a shot rang out. and used for fuel.’ Immediately, a German soldier on a balcony to the left of the Royal Palace turned his machine gun on Father was sent to a work camp the assembled crowd and started firing. For the ‘My father and I went on a hunger march that ended next hour and a half, the BS and German soldiers at a farm near Medemblik in the province of North engaged in a shooting match. By the time it was Holland. We slept in farm buildings along the way over, 32 people were dead and 200 wounded, and traded our family silverware and bed linen in including nine-year-old Tom Gase. “I immediately exchange for vegetables and sacks of flour. As we dashed behind a barrel organ to shield myself from drew near to Medemblik, my father walked into a the bullets. The only thing to do was get the hell Gestapo trap on one of the country roads. He was out of it!” In this interview, Tom Gase describes how arrested and sent to work in Germany, leaving me all Liberation Day in Amsterdam marked him for life. alone at the age of nine. Complete strangers helped me make the long journey back to Amsterdam, Everything revolved around food! giving me lifts in handcarts or on the back of bicycles ‘On 7 May 1945, when I was nine, I went into the with wooden tyres. We didn’t hear or see anything centre of Amsterdam with my friend Wim Nipper more of my father until after the war. to celebrate the liberation of the city. We had gone through months of starvation at the end of the war, My father was a road worker and my mother an when I would walk through the streets endlessly with ordinary housewife. I was born in Amsterdam on my friends in search of food. We scraped the rest of 24 October 1935 at number 40 Hembrugstraat, a the soup and leftover food from the vats in the soup street named after the railway bridge over the river IJ.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 15 The railway embankment was to the south of our shaved while the crowds jeered and spat at them. street. The Netherlands was mobilised on 28 August Then they were beaten until they were bleeding and 1939, shortly before Hitler invaded Poland. My smeared with red lead. It was an appalling sight. The father was called up immediately to serve with the city had suffered so badly from hunger, it was hardly engineers who were stationed in Gouda, so my surprising if these young girls would have done mother had already been left alone with me as a anything to get food. But now the people’s fury was toddler in 1939. We often stayed with her mother focused on them.’ in the next street, Spaarndammerstraat. There was nearly always something to eat there, even during The shooting the Hunger Winter, because they would distribute ‘Suddenly, the atmosphere turned grim. To the left food from the Maria Magdalene church opposite of the Palace was the building that housed the men’s her house. club ‘De Groote Club’ where the German Navy were waiting to surrender their weapons to the Canadians In July 1943, the Allies bombed the Fokker aircraft and return to Germany, as agreed between the Allies factories that had been requisitioned by the and the German military leadership. In the square, Germans, killing more than two hundred people. there were still German soldiers and members of the We often played on the railway embankment near BS in their blue overalls, whose duty it was to make the factory, and now we took tins with us to collect sure everything went peacefully. remnants of the phosphorous bombs which made wonderful fuel. At the end of December 1944, the Suddenly, there was a gunshot. I wasn’t sure at first weather turned freezing cold so we needed more where it had come from. Immediately after that, food and fuel to keep warm. In Amsterdam, people at about 3 p.m., one of the German soldiers on started dying from starvation and you would even the balcony on the corner of Kalverstraat turned see their bodies lying in the street. I had a goat his machine gun on the crowd and people started called Mieke that we were eventually forced to kill. falling to the ground. There was complete panic But she was mine and I couldn’t bring myself to eat as everyone burst into action. The rattle of the her even though I was starving.’ machine gun was followed by the terrified cries of people trying to escape. Wim and I jumped A better view from the Palace down simultaneously from our high perch to find ‘On the morning of 7 May 1945 my friend Wim somewhere to hide. In the tumult that followed, I lost Nipper and I made sure we got to Dam Square sight of him. I would love to talk to him again now, in plenty of time. When we arrived, it was already if he is still alive. Some people hid in a line behind packed with grown-ups so we grabbed the iron a lamppost - nine of them, one behind the other. bars over one of the Palace windows and pulled You can even see this on photos and film. Others ourselves up onto the sill to get a better view. tried to shelter behind a kiosk. The side streets off From there, we could look down on the celebrating the square were crammed with people trying to crowd. Directly in front of the Palace was a wooden get away. I ran for my life and ducked behind the tent with a podium set up for the speakers at the barrel organ in the middle of the square, in front of hand-over ceremony. We saw three British armoured the Bijenkorf department store. I shielded myself by reconnaissance vehicles drive through the crowd, crouching down behind it with about twenty other greeted by cheers. A few metres away from them, people. But we weren’t safe because the BS soldiers, trucks belonging to the Grüne Polizei and Waffen SS who were practically untrained and couldn’t shoot also drove past. Then the British unit left the square. straight, started to fire back. We were caught in the All this time, an organ grinder was playing cheerful crossfire.’ Dutch songs. Hit by a bullet Suddenly, an open lorry drove into Dam Square ‘To escape the firing line, we ran towards the church carrying women and girls who had consorted with known as the Nieuwe Kerk. The door that opened the Germans. They were forced to have their heads onto the square was locked. We found a low side

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 16 window to the right of the building that had already Their things were still there been kicked in and I climbed in after the others. But ‘In 1949, my father’s brother Evert, who had during the dash to the church, I had been hit by a managed a plantation in the Dutch East Indies, bullet that had gone straight through the thick of my returned to Amsterdam. He came to live in our thumb and shattered the bone in my left thigh. My house with his East Indian wife Rosario and their six hand was bleeding heavily, but I hadn’t yet started to children. The only one I could talk to was my uncle, feel the wound in my leg. as his wife and children didn’t speak Dutch. Although we already had a flush toilet, they would insist on Suddenly, someone threw a couple of hand rinsing the toilet bowl with water from a bottle. grenades into the church, which was already full When I was thirteen, I was keen to work in Artis, of people fleeing the shooting outside. Quick as a Amsterdam Zoo. My father knew one of the flash, I ducked behind the monument to the Dutch keepers and I was chosen by the director out of 350 naval hero, Michiel de Ruyter. A red cross nurse in a applicants. I worked with the head keeper to look white uniform saw how bad my hand was bleeding after the aviary, the ape house and the snake house. and bandaged it up. By now, the hospitals were full A number of Jewish people had gone into hiding with the seriously wounded from the shooting, so in the attics above the elephant house and the she sent me home. Amazingly, I managed to walk aquarium. Their things were still there and I helped there. The weeks that followed were terrible. I lay in to store them away in wooden crates.’ bed in great pain. My wounds didn’t heal and got badly infected. Our doctor gave me a new miracle We picked up where we had left off drug called penicillin. My mother cut up her corset ‘When we were young, my current partner Jannie to make an elastic sleeve to hold the leg bandage lived opposite the entrance to Artis. We became in place and my arm was put in a sling to rest my friends when I was fifteen. When I was nineteen, hand. My mother had to change the bandage several I married someone else and we had two children times a day.’ together. Then, one day, my wife left me. So when I met my childhood friend Jannie again, who was The morphine brought everything back to me by that time a widow, we picked up where we had ‘Eventually, I had my first operation in the children’s left off and have been together now for 42 years. In hospital Emma Kinderziekenhuis. One of the doctors the war, she was so hungry she sometimes stole a said, “I’m afraid the leg will have to come off.” sugar beet from the elephants. Eventually I became Fortunately, my father had returned shortly before, a road worker, like my father. This kind of work walking all the way back from his forced labour on usually means kneeling down on both knees but a farm in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. He insisted the because of the wound in my leg, I worked for years doctor spared my leg, so he did. I was in hospital on one knee. I also suffered from osteomyelitis, for months with an inflammation of the left leg. which made my leg grow longer. They shortened the I remember having to eat lots of different types bone by 2 centimetres and put in an artificial knee of cabbage. The leg wound refused to close, and which kept me at work until my pension. I started I had to have ten more operations. Shards of bone at the municipality of Landsmeer, and later I set up kept coming loose which would cause another my own road works company. I have paved a lot infection. While I was in hospital on morphine, the of courtyards for Monumentenzorg (a monument worst moments of the war kept coming back to me. preservation society). I also laid and then varnished Suddenly I was on that country road in Medemblik the flagstones for the floor in the Amstelkerk (church) again and my father was being taken from me. Or in Amsterdam.’ I was jumping down from the Palace window again with Wim and hiding from the bullets behind the I go to Dam Square every week barrel organ. At last, I was operated on successfully ‘At the time, I didn’t understand why they were by a plastic surgeon who covered the wound with shooting. Years later I heard that that same morning, a layer of skin so that it finally healed. He really in an alleyway leading to the square, some members saved my leg.’ of the Domestic Armed Forces (BS) had used

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 17 unnecessary force to confiscate weapons from shooting of 7 May happened two days after Germany a group of Germans, one of whom had died had actually surrendered. as a result. There is a war monument behind my garden in The BS was made up of young resistance fighters Landsmeer, made from a propeller from a British and ordinary working men eager to get back at the plane that came down in the fields after the pilots Germans by removing their weapons themselves. had bailed out over the North Sea and drowned. This ran counter to the agreement that the Germans That’s where I usually go on Remembrance Day, on would surrender their arms to the Canadians. 4 May, with my partner Jannie and the children. I like Suddenly, instead of enjoying the celebrations as we to talk about the war to the English and American waited for the liberators, we were watching the grim tourists who come to watch the ceremony. Once a spectacle of ‘traitor’ women and girls forcibly having week, I cycle to Dam Square to sit on a bench and their heads shaved. It still amazes me how quickly gaze at the place where I almost lost my life in the the whole atmosphere changed and turned into a fatal shooting on Monday 7 May 1945. The war was shoot-out. I can’t stop thinking about how crazy the over, we were already celebrating the Liberation in war was. I am so grateful that I survived, and in the Amsterdam, and still it was able to flare up again!’ hope that others can perhaps learn from my story, I often tell it to schoolchildren or groups of tourists. People are usually astonished to hear that the Interview: Ellen Lock

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 18 Results of the client satisfaction survey

Every two years we conduct a sample survey to Results assess our clients’ satisfaction with our services. General satisfaction with the service remains high We do this to get a good idea of what you think is and has again increased slightly compared to going well or could be improved. In a year when previous surveys. In this survey, our services were measures taken to combat COVID-19 have neces- rated with an average score of 8.6 satisfaction on sarily changed the way we work, we wanted to aspects such as applications, payments, changes, know how you have experienced our services and how we provide information and how we handle whether you feel our usual standards have been client dissatisfaction has also increased compared to maintained. previous surveys.

At the end of 2020, 20% of our client base was Results of the client satisfaction survey contacted by an independent research agency and Our service in general: invited to take part in the survey. The selection 2020: 8.6 2018: 8.5 2016: 8.4 of the sample took into account the number of beneficiaries for each scheme, those whose Pension/benefit applications: entitlement is based on their own war experiences 2020: 8.0 2018: 7.6 2016: 7.6 as opposed to surviving relatives, and those living in the Netherlands as opposed to abroad. By the Handling of changes: closing date, 30% had responded, of whom a small 2020: 8.4 2018: 8.4 2016: 8.1 number (8%) had used the online response option. The number of responses was more than sufficient Questions and information: for a representative and reliable result. 2020: 8.5 2018: 7.9 2016: 7.6

In order to compare the results with previous Handling of complaints: surveys, questions were asked about: 2020: 7.4 2018: 6.5 2016: 5.3 • our service in general; • the timeliness and accuracy of our payments; Results in more detail • the way in which we inform and communicate In particular, a high service rating was given for with you; aspects regarding the timeliness and accuracy of • how we handle applications, reported changes, payments and the careful handling of questions and and client dissatisfaction; requests. The survey also showed that it is important • contacts with members of our staff. to clients that we maintain our knowledge of the past and empathize with them. The vast majority also For the first time, this survey also included questions indicated that they were treated with respect, that on the use of the internet, email and other digital agreements were met, that they were listened to and means of client communication. Due to the COVID- helped proactively. 19 measures, more of you have had to resort to using digital channels where available and we Most clients prefer to communicate by telephone wanted to know whether they also met your needs (68%), followed by letter or email (15% each) and and requirements. a personal interview (2%). Information provided in

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 19 the form of announcements/notices, leaflets, our What next? magazine Aanspraak and answers to client questions The results of the client satisfaction survey have was judged to be clear and satisfactory. As far been discussed with our staff and with the members as official decisions are concerned, some people of the Pension and Benefit Board (PUR) and the indicated that they did not always understand why Client Council. We will carry on doing what we do their application had been rejected and would like to well. Where you have shown that there is room for see this explained in more detail in future. improvement, we will investigate further and make whatever adjustments we can. In particular, we Although we already offer a fair amount of general will look at ways to expand our English-language information in two languages (Dutch and English) correspondence, allow clients to manage their clients living abroad who do not, or no longer, have affairs online if they wish, and provide a more a good command of Dutch indicated that they would detailed explanation for why an application has been like to receive all our correspondence in English. rejected.

Although half of our clients state that they use email, We would like to thank all our clients who took part with or without the help of others, only 56% (mainly in this survey. If you would like more information on Wuv beneficiaries) indicate that they also want to the results of the survey, you can contact the editors arrange their affairs via email. Most clients prefer to of Aanspraak by email at [email protected] or by arrange their affairs in writing or by telephone. telephone on +31 71 5356888.

Aanspraak - June 2021 - 20 Questions and answers

Why was I not invited to participate in the recent submit a claim after you have incurred the costs, we customer satisfaction survey regarding the services will assess whether your circumstances prevented provided to victims of war? you from submitting the claim earlier. In such cases, The customer satisfaction survey is conducted by the claim is often rejected and the costs are not an independent agency who select the respondents reimbursed. randomly. This agency has contacted 20 per cent of our clients by letter. In doing so, they have In recent years, I’ve spoken with various officers, made sure that the various schemes, the war whereas in the past I had a fixed contact person. victims and surviving relatives of war victims who Is this still possible? are entitled to receive benefits, and clients based Due to the decreasing number of V&O clients, there in and outside the Netherlands, are all equally are also increasingly fewer V&O officers. When a represented. The Pension and Benefit Board and the V&O officer leaves, their duties are taken over by Sociale Verzekeringsbank are in no way involved in other members of staff. In some cases, it may be making this selection. We are therefore unable to necessary to divide duties between the available say whether you will be invited to participate on a officers. As a result, it is becoming increasingly subsequent occasion. difficult for us to guarantee our V&O clients a fixed contact person. Furthermore, since our offices closed Why can’t I submit a claim under the Benefit due to the COVID-19 measures, our staff have Act for Victims of Persecution 1940-1945 (Wuv) not been available directly on their own extension for costs I incurred years ago? numbers. They can be reached via our general Reimbursements under the Wuv and the Benefit Act telephone numbers, but this means that when you for Civilian War Victims 1940-1945 (Wubo) commence call the V&O department, you may speak with a on the first day of the month after the application different officer than usual. was submitted. The Pension and Benefit Board of the Sociale Verzekeringsbank can only deviate from this What do you do with the results of the customer rule in your favour if this is deemed necessary in light satisfaction survey regarding the services provided of your circumstances. However, a claim can never be to victims of war? backdated further than 1 January of the year before It is imperative to us that the standard of the services you submitted it, as laid down in the Decision on we provide to victims of war is maintained and, the commencement date of benefits under the Wuv where possible, improved. As well as comparing scheme and the Regulation on the commencement the results with those of previous surveys, we look date of benefits under the Wubo scheme. for ways to make improvements. In this edition of We would therefore advise you to apply for a Aanspraak, we explain in greater detail what we do reimbursement before you incur any costs. If you do with the results of the customer satisfaction survey.

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