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 Amsterdam’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 Netherlands 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, The Hague 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.