Читать книгу THE SCARRED OAK - William Walraven - Страница 6

Chapter 2

It was early May 1940. Eric woke up at the break of dawn. It was a crisp morning but promised to turn into a beautiful spring day. He lay there, daydreaming, while listening to his brother Johann’s deep breathing beside him. He finally got up and opened the window and looked down at the street to the crossing of his and the Main Street. It was very peaceful, except for Willem’s chicken rooster across the street, informing the neighborhood that he was awake. Eric was looking across the street, trying to find the rooster, when his right eye caught a movement at the crossing. When he turned his head, he saw a soldier in a strange green uniform crawling around the corner and, with his short automatic machine gun, looked up at the flat-roof house across from him.

At that time, he noticed Eric and very quickly pointed his gun in his direction. Eric had no idea what was happening and just waved at him. The soldier took a few seconds and then made a sign to someone to follow him. Soon two then three and then more followed around the corner. Eric watched for some time the passing of the soldiers until an eardrum-breaking racket from the very low flying German bombers made him jump back from the windowsill and run screaming into the upstairs hallway.

His mother rushed to him; grabbed him and his brother, Johann; and calmly but quickly helped them down the stairs. In the meantime, she tried calming them down while explaining that war had broken out. Eric was about six years old at the time, and the only airplane he had ever seen was a small two-decker high up in the sky. These big bombers must have scared the living daylights out of the whole district. Maybe this was the intention of the Germans, because except for a couple of shots fired and a few Dutch soldiers killed, the war—or better, the resistance of the Dutch forces in that part of the country—was over.

After the first wave of airplanes passed over the village, the sound changed to the noise of armored vehicles and thousands of boots of the marching German soldiers hitting the Main Street in the direction to the close by city. This marching went on for hours.

The children had quieted down by now, and after Martha made sure it was all right for them to go outside, Eric grabbed a quick sandwich and ran down the street and joined Nico and other children at the corner of the street to watch the soldiers marching by. He didn’t know what war all was about, but for the children, it was exciting. They waved and saluted the soldiers, and some of them smiled and waved back. One of the soldiers pushed a small puppy, which must have been a couple of weeks old, into Eric’s hands. He took it home and showed it to his mother. She immediately noticed that the puppy was covered with lice, so she washed him with warm soap and water. She dried him in a towel and gave him back to Eric. After some discussion with Nico, they called him Prince. This puppy grew up to a beautiful large shepherd and, besides Max, the horse, became Eric’s closest friend in many adventures during the wartime years.

When marching subsided, an uneasy calmness came over the people. They clustered together, discussing this abrupt event. One family, thinking that the Germans would take all the food supplies, went with a big round washbasin to one of the village bakers and had it filled full of loaves of bread. This gesture exploded the villagers, and everyone rushed to the stores, buying everything they could lay their hands on, not realizing that the food would spoil without the availability of refrigerators or freezers at that time in the homes. The only cool place was a very humid basement with dirt floors, where potatoes and apples, besides preserves, were kept for the winter months. The result was that after a week or so, most of this food ended up in the garbage. However, this incident made the war a reality and was the start of a nearly five-year-long cruel World War II.

The Dutch Armed Forces, however small, fought bravely for five days against the overwhelming German forces. These few days gave England time for their defensive actions and allowed the Dutch queen and her family to escape to England. After a few days of fighting, the Germans demanded that the Dutch surrender. If Holland didn’t surrender, they would bomb and flatten one city at a time. The German high command kept their word. They bombed Rotterdam flat, killing roughly thirty thousand people, and promised to come back the next day to give Amsterdam the same fate. Holland surrendered. Within weeks, a large part of Western Europe fell to the mighty German masters.

After Holland surrendered, the first item on their forever-growing list was the confiscation of all radios (TVs were not yet in existence). This was easy because in Holland, a radio was a luxury item, and consequently, everyone possessing a radio would pay taxes for it. It was only a small task for the Germans to obtain these lists. Everyone on this list was notified to deliver their radio to the nearest specified location.

Eric’s father, noticing that the German soldiers didn’t inspect these radios, dismantled the inner radio parts, tightened a rock in the inside chassis to give it some weight, and got his name off the list. He mounted his radio in an old couch in the kitchen, and all through the war years, it was never discovered. Many evenings after the children were in bed, some of the trusted neighbors supposedly played cards in the kitchen but were actually listening to Radio Orange, the voice of the Dutch queen in England. Also, coded messages were transferred back and forth from the Dutch resistance group.

Another proclamation forbade anyone from being on the roads after 8:00 p.m. Only people with special permits, like coal miners or anyone going to or coming back from their jobs at night, had to wear a yellow band on their left arm, permitting them on the roads. If caught, it meant automatic prison or, worse, being shot on the spot. Naturally, this was no problem for the inventive Dutch people. Holes were made in private hedges, and fences were torn down in their backyards, which made an effective network of new communication roads. Also, local resistance people used this network for a quick getaway during the many razzias held by the Germans. Many of the Dutch National Socialistic Party members collaborated with the Germans after the surrender of Holland and became the Dutch’s most fierce enemies. They worked closely together with the German Gestapo (short for Secret State Police) and the well-known SS. Through this trash of Dutch people, thousands of fellow Dutchmen (Jews and resistance members alike) found their dead in one of the German concentration camps or were shot instantly.

The first few years of the war didn’t change Eric’s life at all. The world and its problems seemed to go over the heads of the village children. His first love was still the farm. Except for plowing the fields, which was done with a single blade plow pulled by Max and where a sturdy and strong hand was needed to guide the plow and the other hand for the reins, Eric was now a full-fledged farmhand. Feeding the animals and milking the cows in his free time was a chore, but he loved it.

Prince, now fully grown, followed him like a true friend wherever he went. Being a good German shepherd, he quickly learned to drive the cows together in the meadow when it was milking time. Generally, Prince was a good-hearted dog and could withstand some abuse from the children. Only on occasions when Eric got into trouble with another boy would Prince show his teeth and, with a deep growl, let the intruder know that he had gone far enough.

Eric loved the game of soccer and played it every time he had a chance between school and working at the farm. The only problem was that soccer shoes were practically impossible to get; only the teenagers who belonged to the local soccer team had real leather soccer shoes. The younger village boys would tie a rope around the wooden shoes and the ankle for playing soccer in the streets. Eric, who was tall for his age, most of the time took the position of goalie. Many times, his reactions had to be unbelievably fast when one of the attackers broke the string while kicking the ball with all the power available to him in Eric’s direction. Both wooden shoe and ball arrived instantaneously.

Slowly and surely, the German SS and Gestapo closed in on the helpless Jewish race all over Europe. Holland, which had a large Jewish population, realized too late how the German plan to terminate their hated Jews worked. With the utmost secrecy and precision, they went to work. All the governmental agencies down to the village elders were already replaced by Germans or German collaborators. Everyone above the age of eighteen was notified to go to their local city hall to update their civil records. Without suspicion, the Dutch people assisted the cruel Germans in the first step to massacre their own relatives, neighbors, and friends. Simple questions were asked, like name, age, occupation, religion, and religion of living and nonliving relatives, parents, grandparents, etc. It was only a matter of time and elimination, and the Germans had a perfect record of everyone having only the slightest amount of Jewish blood.

Within a couple of months, everyone of Jewish blood, young and old, had to wear the yellow Star of David and was destined for destruction. It was now only a matter of time for the shrewd, devilish masterminds to close the net. They promised by relocation a promised land for the Jews. Beautiful films were shown about the settling of new Jewish communities in Poland where young and old worked together and had accommodations with flower gardens. This false advertising produced such a rush of Jewish people for their promised land that many of them sold all their belongings and paid outrageous prices on the supposedly black market for tickets on the special trains to their new and promising destinations.

Actually, for a while, only the well-to-do Jews could afford these prices. Only after thousands and thousands had freely left Holland and found instead of beauty the misery of the by-now well-known concentration camp or death in the forever-operating gas chambers did the Dutch people realize the monstrous games the Germans were playing. The shockwaves of this realization were felt by every Dutch citizen, and the hatred for everything that ever sounded German surpassed its borders. The peaceful and friendly Dutchmen had unknowingly sent part of its own people like lambs to the slaughter. Still, some Jewish families didn’t believe these rumors, and for some time, the half-filled trains rolled over the border into Germany. This slow down action didn’t agree with the German SS high command and soon the up-to-now-friendly actions were replaced by the most monstrous, cold-blooded, and beastly operations the world had seen in modern times.

A German SS command would close a whole city block, driving everyone, young and old, with bayonets and clubs to an open area. Everyone on their list being of Jewish blood were driven like cattle into waiting trucks and, from there, to the train stations. These actions, called razzias, were feared by the Dutch people to the end of the war because this was the beginning of some tactics to also capture people in the Dutch resistance. The hatred for these bloodthirsty Germans brought the brave Dutch people closer together and developed in Holland the cleverest and highly sophisticated resistance organization known. The resistance organization spread like wildfire through Holland and the rest of Europe and was the most feared organization the Germans had to contend with. Through these brave people with their vast network of communication, the lives of thousands of Dutchmen and, later, captured allies alike were saved. Also, it gave Holland new life and hope for its suffering people, and once again, Holland was strong.

Many Jewish children who were playing in other city blocks during these razzias escaped the hands of the Germans and were picked up by the friendly non-Jewish neighbors. Quickly and in an orderly manner, the resistance would take care of these children and relocate them into small border villages right under the noses of the SS border commands. The friendly and very brave villagers who took care of these children received false papers from the resistance movement. In most cases, the papers showed the children as orphans from their dead non-Jewish relatives of the bombing of Rotterdam. Eric’s parents also received a Jewish child a couple of years younger than Eric. All through the rest of the war, Piet (his real name was David), who, for the children’s sake was introduced as Eric’s cousin from an uncle who had died, stayed with his family. Eric accepted him as a family member, but Piet, with his proper Dutch language (Eric’s dialect was more German) and being very weak and sickly, didn’t fit in with Eric’s bloom of life.

However, when anyone was teasing or trying to start a fight with his cousin, he would step in between and receive his shared of cuts and bruises instead of his helpless new family member. Only after the war did Eric realize that Piet was not his cousin and that his real name was David. It was after the Dutch Red Cross had located relatives of the youngsters and reunited the many leftover families. For these down-to-earth folks like Eric’s parents, all that they and hundreds of others had done was not considered bravery, just decency. The good and brave deeds of many Dutchmen during World War II was not praised in many books; nevertheless, this quiet bravery made Holland and its people outlast its most cruel enemies through the centuries.

Eric was around seven years old when one particular Easter Sunday, it all happened. Easter Sunday was one of the highest religious days in the Catholic Church in the southern part of Holland. All villagers went to church on that day—not only for religious reason, but more so to show off their new outfits. This high Sunday falls in early spring and the once-a-year time for new clothing. The young ladies would show off their colorful new spring dresses, and the young men walked like peacocks in their new suits with new shirts and ties, not able to turn their heads from the starch-stiffened collars on their shirts.

On this day, a very religious family like Eric’s would send their children three times to church—the seven o’clock early Mass to go to communion, the ten o’clock High Mass, and the three o’clock afternoon Vespers. Eric didn’t mind the early Mass because, after all, he had the day before gone to confession and stood in line for more than an hour between all those people gliding a rosary through their fingers before he could confess his sins. While standing there, he had figured out that it was impossible for some of these elderly ladies to pray Holy Mary or Our Father as fast as they moved the rosary between their hands. He had tried it. At his fastest way of praying, they had moved already to the next bead before he was halfway through the Holy Mary. He guessed that they were only showing off but in the meantime were trying to figure out what sins Peter Van Der Bink or Marie Van’t Aaltje had committed.

This early morning Mass was worthwhile because he could go to communion. Sticking his tongue out as far as possible to Mr. Pastor gave him a good feeling because he still had a grudge for him since the squeezing-hand incident. While giving the host, Mr. Pastor never noticed Eric’s real intent. It surely was not the host.

After the first Mass, Nico, Eric’s friend, was waiting for him outside the church, and together they walked in the direction of home, discussing the unfairness of the parents sending the children three times on one day to church. They should know better. Kneeling on hard wooden benches a couple of inches off the floor until their knees had no feeling anymore or standing straight, shifting their weight from one leg to another, unable to talk or even whisper to the boy beside them because of the watching eyes and ultrasharp ears of the schoolmaster behind the children’s benches, was too much for every healthy young boy.

If the schoolmaster caught them whispering to their neighbor or trying to exchange some marbles, he would walk between the benches toward them, passing the other children with a scared look on their faces of “Not me! It wasn’t me!” Their heart would stop beating when he stopped behind them, and with a demanding but whispering voice, he would tell them to keep quiet—in the meantime, punishing them by pinching their arms black and blue. They wouldn’t dare to give a sound, scared that the punishment would be worse. The worst punishment would be that they were pulled, with a lot of noise, out of the bench and had to sit all alone in front of the whole church on the always cold white marble communion bench. The shame was unbearable, and it was followed automatically by further punishment on the next school day.

Eric and Nico had made their decision. They would play hooky during the ten o’clock High Mass. Coming home that morning, he saw his mother and father setting the breakfast table with the best plates and cups and a white tablecloth. Today, Easter Sunday, would normally be the day of finding colored eggs outside in their yard, but it was wartime, and eggs were nearly impossible to get. Still his father had managed to get two eggs the day before on the farm where he had helped out after work. The smell of the two eggs mixed with a lot of milk to fill the bottom of the frying pans at the kitchen stove, combined with the brewing of some real coffee saved for this special day, and the early morning sun reflecting on the white breakfast plates made this morning, Easter Sunday, the promise of a beautiful day.

After breakfast, Nico walked in with an extra loud “Happy Easter, everyone!” He knew that at least he would receive a handful of candy eggs out of the filled glass bowl on the living room table for such happy greetings. Normally, on a day like today, the big church bell would carpet the village and neighboring fields with its beautiful heavy sound, announcing the High Mass. Today, however, this familiar sound was exchanged with the silver sound of a tiny bell. Erick and Nico found the exchange amusing but quickly were stopped in their laughter when Eric’s mother sadly explained that the Germans in the last couple of weeks had removed all the big bells of the churches in Holland to be melted down for ammunition.

With the sturdy warning of “You two behave yourselves,” the two left for church, both kind of nervous on how to play hooky without being noticed by the villagers who were quietly talking as they walked in the same direction. The nervous tension overwhelmed both boys when they noticed Eric’s father and Johann were catching up behind them. Something had to be done fast. Across the church was Jansen’s farm with an extended old wall on one side of the farmhouse. The street between the church and this farmhouse by now was filled with the villagers wishing one another “Happy Easter!” Slowly but surely, Eric moved in the direction of that wall, and Nico followed his footsteps. Without daring to look if anyone noticed them, they quickly stepped behind the wall. They stood there breathless and heavily perspiring, waiting for the moment when Eric’s father or, for that matter, any villager, would discover their plan. They stood there behind the wall, looking at each other, too nervous to talk and wondering if it was all worth it.

The sound of the wooden shoes on the street and the talking of the villagers slowly ebbed down and was replaced with the soft music of the organ in the church being transmitted through the big stained-glass windows. The two could breathe a little easier, and they waited another five or ten minutes more so as not to run the chance of still being detected by the latecomers. When everything seemed safe, both came out of their hiding place, jubilant over their success, but still with kind of a heavy heart. The covered hall across the front of the church was filled with wooden shoes, neatly arranged side by side, large and small, painted ones and older ones freshly scrubbed for the day. It was not that wooden shoes were not allowed in the church, but a couple hundred people walking on a marble hallway, trying to get to their seats on wooden floors, would probably tear the paint off the vibrating walls.

Today, both boys seemed to be tuned in to each other. While both were looking at this vast array of wooden shoes, Nico brought up a brilliant idea. “What about we mix up all the shoes?” It would probably be fun to watch all these people coming out of church and not finding their shoes. Eric agreed, and within a few minutes, the deed was done. Still full of excitement, both ran into the woods and found themselves an open spot to grasp the warm spring sun. Still puffing of all the happenings, they lay down in the fresh new grass and filled their lungs with the overwhelming smell of the pine trees.

When the arms of the church tower clock moved closer to eleven o’clock, they got up and slowly walked back to something they didn’t expect at all. The noise of the air filled with furious shouts stopped the boys in their tracks. With their hearts bouncing in their throats, they walked on, too nervous to talk to each other. Coming by the church, they witnessed a mass of shouting, pushing, and crawling people. Some developed into fist fights that would upset the normal peaceful village for weeks to come. Words passed between friendly families that harmed their relationship forever. The boys were shocked. The grounds normally used before church for friendly meetings and Easter well-wishing had changed into a battleground the village would never forget. The fury went on for hours. Some of the older more aggressive villagers walked home in their socks, cursing and promising that if they ever got their hands on these bandits who played such a dirty trick and that on Easter Sunday, they would pull their limbs from their bodies. Mr. Pastor, who had tried to calm the people down, fell over a couple of fighting youngsters and lost his glasses in the mess. Shouting and pushing, he finally found them. His classic, pinch-on-the-nose, expensive glasses had lost their usefulness.

An hour before the afternoon Vespers, the village announcer stopping at different points in the village while ringing his loud handbell, declared the cancellation of the Vespers for this day. This was a smart move from Mr. Pastor. In the following week, a meeting was held by the village elders, and it was unanimously decided that this could not have been done by the youngers of this village. A grave letter was sent to the elders of the neighboring village a couple of miles down the road, which raised the sometimes-hostile tension between these two villages to its limits. Eric and Nico, realizing the enormous impact of their deed, made a lifetime commitment to each other to never let anyone know that they had committed this deed, which is still branded in the village’s history.

Eric’s village mainly consisted of farmers and coal miners. The shortness of food supplies in the northern part of Holland was not felt by these southern villages. The winter of 1942–1943 was one of the coldest winters Holland had witnessed for years, and many Dutchmen living in the northern cities were left without food and coal to heat their houses. Thousands died from starvation or froze to death. Whole families left the cities on foot or by bicycle on their long journeys to the farm districts of the south with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Only the strongest reached the south; many died a lonely and cold death along the many roads.

The first groups to arrive received shelter, food, and clothing from the helpful southerners, but when the stream of starving people kept flooding the south, there was nothing left to give. The farmers were on rations themselves, because the German inspectors would only leave the farmers enough of their produce to feed their own families; the rest was carried off for the German forces. Still, most of the farmers were able to hide some of their produce and, in the cover of night, would freely assist the remaining villagers or anyone who needed food. Some farmers, however, were not that kind and robbed many hungry countrymen of their last possessions—not so much their own neighbors, but more so the starving northerner who would give anything, even their wedding rings, for a loaf of bread. These farmers became very wealthy during that time, but most of them were punished for their deeds after the war. Most of the villagers, however, had their own garden for fresh vegetables, and they assisted the farmers during the harvest; instead of money, they received rye and wheat for their labor.

Eric’s father was a good provider for his family, and all through the war years, they had no shortness of the basic foods. Everything was rationed by the Germans, but these rations were too small to live on and were getting smaller and smaller when the war lingered on. Eric’s father had at least an acre of land already before the war, and he converted it into a very high-producing vegetable garden. Leftovers and scraps from the kitchen and horse and cow manure scraped from the roads and garden leftovers were thrown into a pit and, when decayed, were used as fertilizer to be mixed by shovel into the garden again. Eric, who had a stronger build than his older brother, Johann, spent many evenings and weekends helping his father in his garden. It was hard work for a youngster of his age, and he preferred working at Willem’s farm more than this gardening, but working together with his father, whose strength and endurance he admired, had its privileges. Many times, his father gave him some extra pocket money on Sundays.

Meat, like beef and pork, was practically nonexistent, but Eric’s father raised a whole stall full of rabbits, and his mother would prepare them in many different ways. Also, he would exchange his tobacco and liquor rations for rye or wheat at the farms and then milled it by a hand-operated grinder in the stall behind the house. A twenty-five-pound bag of rye would take hours to mill, and turning the handle of the grinder would lame Eric’s arms.

Also, the thick cream of the fresh milk received from Willem’s farm, when left overnight, was gathered for a week and then poured in a big ceramic jar. A plunger that extended through a hole in the cover of the jar was moved up and down by hand until the butterfat separated into butter. This butter, a bit sour tasting, on a slice of still-warm fresh white bread baked in his mother’s kitchen oven, was a real delicacy. Rye was burned in a dry frying pan on top of the stove whose smoke made the eyes tear and was used as a coffee substitute. Coffee beans were impossible to get. The same way, the petals of the tulips were prepared as a tea substitute.

One day John and Willem, the farmer, butchered a small pig the German inspector had overlooked in the stall behind John’s house. Willem had tied the pig’s legs together and used another piece of rope around its mouth. Late in the evening, when it was already dark, he had carried the pig across the road to Eric’s place. Willem’s family was too afraid of the Germans, and they didn’t want anything considered illegal to happen on their property. Everything went as planned. The pig was lying on a table in the stall. Willem would cut the pig’s throat with a butcher knife, and John stood ready with a pan to catch the blood that later would be prepared into blood sausage, a delicacy in Holland. However, at the moment the knife entered the pig’s throat, the pig jerked, and the rope around its mouth came loose. It started to scream like a “stepped pig.” The animal couldn’t have done a better job to alarm the Germans. Grinding rye and butchering pigs without a permit meant automatic jail sentences. This screaming must have been heard all over the village. The jerking motions of the pig covered both men with its blood. The shock of being discovered by the Germans paralyzed them for a moment until Willem made a slash at the pig’s throat with such force that he nearly cut its head off. The screaming stopped, and quickly they turned off the light. There they stood waiting for the inevitable, too scared to talk or to breathe. In the dark, they heard the blood flowing from the table onto the floor and felt the last life jerks from the pig. At any moment, they expected the Germans to rush into the stall and take them prisoner. For a long time, they stood there, heavily perspiring and listening to every sound in the neighborhood, but nothing happened. With a sigh of relief and still heavily breathing, they continued to butcher the by-now-lifeless pig. This was the first and the last time Eric’s dad butchered a pig in his stall during the war.

After WWI, Germany had paid off huge war debts to many countries and was broke. Nearly 50 percent of the population had no jobs, and a large number of workers were involved with the communist union. All this was the reason that a person like Adolph Hitler, by promising a radical change for all of Germany, became their new leader. When Hitler started as führer (leader), he made many changes in Germany, all for the better at that time. He provided jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped. Germany, who was in a great depression, saw a bright future again. However, one large part of the population was Jewish. The Jews were the bankers, businesspeople, etc., and they controlled most of the wealth Hitler needed to reach his dream of a united Europe (the Third Reich).With his two companions, Goring and Himmler, the day was set for the barbaric destruction of the Jewish population.

It should be mentioned, however, that not all Germans were barbaric and mean. It was only these special groups—the Gestapo, some sections of the SS, and the NSB (Dutchmen who collaborated with the German). This last group was most feared because it could be anyone, even your own neighbor. Most of the regular German forces consisted of men who were forced to join and came from all ranks of life, from city dwellers to farm boys, and they hated these special forces. Some of the agricultural inspectors, most of them farmers themselves in their homeland, were reasonable people, and when handled fairly, they would many times knowingly miscalculate the produce to the farmer’s advantage. If some of the farmers, after several warnings, still tried to make a fool out of an inspector, they took drastic steps, and the punishments were harsh. It was the greediness of some of the farmers who made it harder and harder for the other farmers to assist their neighbors when the war lingered on.

The German dictators were cruel in many ways, but they also changed many things in Europe for the better. Particularly, changes were made for the workmen and the younger generation. For the labor force, anyone who worked overtime got extra pay, and if Sunday work was involved, they got also extra rations of food, cigarettes, and a small bottle of gin. Also, the Germans believed that after they won the war and changed all of Europe into one Germanic master race, their hopes of success lay in the younger generation. Most of the Dutch people are of the German race, so the younger generation had to be strengthened not only mentally but also physically. For the first time, weekly sports and gymnastics were introduced in the curriculum of the schooling system. Also, vitamin C or oranges were supplied to the schools in wintertime and once a week were given to the children.

Also, youth groups were organized, like the Hitler Jugent (Hitlers Youth) for boys and girls in the ages from ten to sixteen years old. The uniforms of the boys consisted of white shirts, black tie, and black short pants; the girls were similarly dressed, except with a black skirt. All carried armbands with a swastika, the symbol of Nazism, imprinted on it. The groups were organized like the Boy Scouts and had summer camps, where the basics of Nazism were taught. When they marched through the cities and villages, they sang beautiful German songs that made many youngsters envy them. Eric also wanted to join this group, because the uniforms, the singing, and the marching were to his liking. His parents, however, knew the real reason of the German minds and wouldn’t hear of it. At that time, Eric couldn’t follow their reasoning and didn’t agree at all with their decisions, but then he was too young to understand and saw only the fun part of this German master plan.

One day the Germans advertised that Adolph Hitler would drive through a close-by town the following Saturday on his way back to Germany. All people were requested to cover all sidewalks. Eric and Nico went to the marketplace to see this Hitler. All sidewalks were full of people, but both had no problem pushing their way to the front. In front of the people, on both sides of the road, were SS soldiers keeping the road clear. After about one hour, a large amount of motorcycles, followed by several cars, went by. In one of the cars was a rather small man dressed in yellowish brown uniform, flat hat, and small mustache. Hitler stood with his right arm stretched sideways, saluting the crowd, who were supposed to give the same greeting back to him while shouting “Heil Hitler [Haile to Hitler]!” It took only a minute for him to pass, and both boys did not know what all the fuss was about.

Within a few years, most items and materials that could be used in the war were not available anymore. One of the first on the list were bicycle tires. Bicycles were the only form of transportation for most people. They would use old rubber hoses, which sounded like flip-flops because the ends were tied together with heavy staples, or they rode on bare rims, which made a hell of a noise. Nevertheless, it was transportation.

Of all the villagers who sat on the stoop at the corner of Eric’s street in the evenings, one person was always the loudest and most talkative of the group. His name was Tom VanDer Wal, a farmer in his midfifties and strong as a horse. Tom always knew and could do everything better than anyone. It made many people angry. One time when he left after showing off again, the remaining men decided that they would teach him a lesson.

After discussing many different options, they decided on a bicycle race without tires around the village. They knew that normally he would win, but one thing Tom did not remember was that one of the villagers, Piet Vlodrop, had an identical twin brother, Alex, living about seventy miles away in another village. Both brothers had not been in contact with each other since early childhood; nobody knew about this. The next Saturday, Piet and another villager went by train to visit Alex, asking him if he would go along with the joke on big-mouth Tom. After listening to the two men, Alex decided to do it.

The plan went as planned.

One Saturday, in a few weeks, the race would be on, and all the racers would ride two times around the village. The first prize would be one hundred guldens; second, fifty; and the third, twenty-five.

This event was highly advertised by the village announcer, who, after ringing his big handbell about every one hundred yards, shouted the latest news. Naturally, this race would be quite an event, and when the day arrived, most of the villagers watched this spectacle. It was a beautiful summer day, and at 2:00 p.m., approximately twenty-five men arrived at the start line in front of the church.

One man shouted, “Get ready… Go!” And they took off.

Already since the announcement, Tom had shouted and proclaimed that he would be the winner. It would be a cinch. He quickly paddled to the front because he knew that at the first corner, some people would slip into one another. After the first round, Tom was ahead, as everyone expected. There were about ten riders left. The remaining fell around the corners or gave up.

Piet had started also, but halfway through the second round, he was far behind and drove into an open barn door, as planned. One man standing at the last corner would give his brother, Alex, a sign to get on his bicycle as soon as the racers came around the third corner. Alex was dressed identically as Piet. When Tom made the last corner, short of winning, he saw that “Piet Vlodrop” was in front of him.

Unbelievable! How could that have happened? he thought.

Perspiring very heavily and with his last power, Tom tried to beat Piet, but he finally lost by one bicycle length. He was so upset that he didn’t even wait for his fifty guldens for the second prize winner and drove straight home. This was such a disgrace for him that he didn’t join people at the stoop for several weeks. When he finally showed up, he was a changed man, and some of the organizers felt really sorry for him. But they decided not to tell him until many years later.

Eric, standing on the finish line, was also very surprised that Piet had won the race. He also didn’t know what had really happened until some weeks later, when he overheard the whispering of some of the men.

By now, the Americans had entered the war and from their English bases, many night, the heavy bombers would fly over Holland to flatten cities in Germany. When the sirens blasted waves of back-chilling sounds over the village, everyone ran for cover to their basements. Eric’s basement was very strongly built with steel beams in the ceilings, and every time the siren went off, Willem, his two sisters, and his father (Willem’s mother had been dead for several years) would come over to hide out in the basement until the danger passed.

The basement had a stuffy, humid smell. It had a dirt floor, and besides the racks full of preserves, which his mother had made (some of them were years old), half of the basement was covered with potatoes and apples. Also, a big clay jar filled with brewing sauerkraut stood in a corner. This gave the air a sour smell.

Most of the time, it lasted an hour or so before the siren would blast again to deliver the message the danger had passed. But once in a while, the bombing came very close. Some of the German cities bombed were within forty-five kilometers or about thirty miles from Eric’s village. The vibration of the heavy bombing made the jar of preserves shudder, and the thundering noise of the explosions made everyone plug their ears with their fingers. On most of these particularly dangerous nights, his father was not present, as he was working afternoon and evening shifts. But then Eric sat beside Willem on the wooden bench against the wall. Every time a heavy explosion occurred, Willem, who had his arm around Eric, would pull him closer against his body as if to protect him. Eric felt these automatic muscle spasms in Willem’s arm and felt safe.

In the middle of the bombing, amidst the crying of the females and the loud praying of everyone involved, Johann’s nervous bladder always gave way, and quickly he interrupted the whole shebang by standing there, jumping from one foot to the other, asking everyone gathered to find an empty jar or can for him to relieve himself of his agony. Paul, Eric’s younger brother, was at that time only a few years old, and he sat most of the time on Martha’s lap, not knowing of the dangers involved. He would yell at every explosion “Boom!” while looking as if he had discovered something new.

One evening, however, when the sirens again blasted the surroundings and Martha and her three sons were already in the basement, Willem opened the basement door and shouted, “Martha, come up and take a look! The whole neighborhood is lit up, and it looks like daylight. Look, these airplanes are throwing out white lighted balls on parachutes.” This produced such a light that the whole neighborhood changed from darkness to nearly daylight. Within minutes, all hell broke loose. It rained bombs, and the earth shook so violently as if the world was going to end, nearly destroying all civilization. Crawling and falling over one another, they made it back into the supposedly safe basement. The constant eerie whistling of the bombs followed by tremendous explosions, which shattered and broke the jars of preserves, dumping their contents all over the floor, made this panic-stricken group of people scrunch so closely together, waiting for the inevitable. For the first time, Eric felt the seriousness of their situation and expected at any moment the final explosion. Even Eric’s little brother, Paul, held tight on his mother’s lap, felt and saw the panic. He scrunched himself so closely to Martha’s body that later she witnessed pinch marks of his tiny hands all over herself.

Wave after wave of bombers came over, dropping their bombs. After about twenty minutes to a half hour, which seemed like an eternity, a stillness unequalled came over the area, and it was as if the earth was holding its breath for a last onslaught. Everyone sat there, not yet believing that as if by some miracle, they were safe. Only the candlelight was playing games with the shadows on the wall. The shock of stillness was broken when the door of the basement swung open, and John came stumbling down the steps. His whole body was shaking. He fell into Martha’s arms and then collapsed onto his knees on the basement floor. His clothes had been torn to shreds, and he was bleeding all over his body. Cuts on his face and a deep gash on the side of his head had transformed his whole head into a bloody mess.

“Thank God you’re all safe,” he uttered, still out of breath. This incident broke the tension, and now everyone realized the bombing had stopped.

“My god, John, what happened? Are you badly injured?” Martha cried and, with Willem’s help, pulled John to his feet.

“No, I think there are only cuts and bruises of the many times I fell down on the way home. They were bombing the coal mine. I had a feeling of what was going to happen when the whole area was lit up. I immediately left my job, jumped on my bicycle, and tried to make it home, but I guess I was too late. The bombs were falling all around me, and the shockwaves of the explosions threw me many times off the bicycle, besides falling over the residue of exploded houses. All around me, the buildings were on fire, and many times, I ran, fell, and got up again, carrying the bicycle when it was impossible to ride. It was hell, and I didn’t believe I would make it home, but I had to. Somehow I had to.”

When finally the siren signaled that the danger had passed, they came out of the basement and witnessed the red sky of the burning houses and buildings close by. Except for two barns and one elderly farmer killed, his village had miraculously escaped destruction. The villages around the mine were all aflame. Hundreds and hundreds of people were killed, and many parts of the surrounding villages were completely wiped out. It could have been a real disaster if some of the bombs had hit the main shafts of the coal mine. It would have trapped thousands of coal miners still working underground. It still took them nearly twenty-four hours before enough emergency repairs were made on top of the mine to get the lifts in operation again and bring the miners to safety and into the arms of their crying loved ones.

Not until years later after the war did the Dutch government finally get the answer to this bombing from the American government. It had just been a mistake. Instead of bombing the German coal mines on the other side of the border, they had bombed the Dutch coal mine.

Nearly every evening, Eric would help Willem by milking cows and feeding all the animals, including his best friend, Max, the horse. After the work was done, they would sit together in a stall on a large wooden feedbox, talking about the happenings of the day.

One evening in July 1943, Willem said, “Eric, you better go home. It is already dark outside, and you know that the Germans are very tough when you are still on the street after dark.”

Eric looked around and answered, “Our house is only fifteen feet from yours.”

“Yes,” Willem answered, “but the Germans are very careful because of all the resistance movements are at nighttime.”

Eric left and after saying “Good night.” He started crossing the street. Everything was dark because all the windows had to be covered with black paper. He thought that he heard someone shouting, but it didn’t register. At once, he saw a flash of light, heard a sharp sound, and felt a tremendous hit like a sledgehammer against his top right leg. The impact made him fall on the street. It was a very sharp pain, but quickly it changed into numbness. He tried to get up but couldn’t. When he touched his leg, he felt warm blood. He screamed for his dad. John, who was home, heard the shot and Eric’s screams. He ran into the street, grabbed his arm, and pulled him through the porch to safety. The Germans had shot twice at him but missed. Once inside the safety of the porch, John carried his son to the kitchen and laid him down on the couch.

He pulled down Eric’s blood-soaked trousers. “You know that you’ve been shot. You should have come home earlier. I will bandage it, but we cannot go to the hospital until tomorrow morning.”

Eric had a very painful and restless night. Early the next morning, Willem covered the horse-drawn wagon with straw, which would soften the bouncing of the wagon, which had two big wooden wheels and no springs. After they arrived at the hospital, he was laid down on a stretcher in the hallway. He had to wait because during that same night, a town just over the border had been bombed and many were wounded, soldiers and civilians alike. These people were divided over several hospitals in the area. After several hours, two medical assistants carried Eric to one of the operating rooms. They wanted to stop Eric’s father from entering this room, but John did not want to hear of it, and he forced himself into the room.

The doctors looked very tired and had blood all over their uniforms. One doctor, seeing John’s determination, told him to take a seat in the corner. When they removed Eric’s bandage, they noticed that the bullet had also broken the thigh bone. One doctor looked carefully at the wound and said, “We have to remove that leg. An infection has entered it.”

When John heard this, he immediately jumped up and said “No, you do not take his leg off!”

“It can turn into gangrene, and then his life will be in danger,” answered the other doctor.

“How much time does he have before you have to remove his leg?” John asked. He would give his son every chance available.

Being very tired, the doctor shook his head and said, “Okay, it is now noon. We will remove the bullet, set the leg, and wait until midnight. If the color of his leg has changed for the worse, we will have to remove it from just above the wound.”

“Let’s give him that chance,” John replied.

The last Eric remembered was that they put a mask over his face. He woke up several hours later and was in bed in a small room, with John sitting beside him. They had put some splint on his leg and some removable bandages over his wound.

Every time a nurse or doctor walked by, he heard his father say, “Come and look. The color is changing for the better.” But all answered that he had to wait until midnight.

Finally, shortly after midnight, a doctor walked in and slowly removed the bandage. Eric’s father, by now tired and very nervous, kept saying “See? It looks a lot better.”

The doctor carefully inspected the wound. “I have to agree with you,” the doctor answered. “It does look better. I think that the danger is gone. You better go home and have some sleep. You deserve it. The nurses will take over from here. I, too, will go home because all the wounded people kept us busy for nearly twenty-four hours straight.”

John kissed his son on his forehead and said, “We did it, son. We did it. I will see you later.” Then he left. He had not only saved his son’s leg but also his future.

Willem and Nico visited him many times, and Nico mentioned, “Amazing what some people will do to get noticed.”

After eight days in the hospital, Eric left by taxi with John and Willem. He still had to use crutches for a while, but his healthy body made him run around in no time.

Wednesday and Saturday were Eric’s best days, because there was only a couple of hours of school in the morning. These two afternoons he was free and could enjoy everything this beautiful environment had to offer. Most of the time, at these mornings, the teacher would read for an hour to the children. The stories Eric was most interested in were adventure stories. Peary and the North Pole and Amundsen with his South Pole expeditions filled him with excitement and drove his adventurous and searching mind to its limits.

In November 1943, the German anti-aircraft guns shot down an American airplane. It fell like a fireball out of the sky and exploded over the border into Germany. The next day, the teacher read about Amundsen and the South Pole. At twelve o’clock, he dismissed the classes and let them go home. Eric and Nico, with their minds full of their new hero, Amundsen, made a quick decision. They would discover their own South Pole that afternoon.

Eric’s father had made him from electrical pipes a big heavy sled. With Prince, Eric’s dog, pulling the sled and choosing one of the soft-flowing hills around the village as the “South Pole,” the afternoon was set. After their noon meal and a change of clothing, the two adventurers ingeniously put a harness of ropes and old belts together so Prince could pull the sled. It took them a while and some harsh words before he finally subsided to this unusual form of playing. After a couple of mistrials, wherein Prince got completely tangled in the ropes, they decided that Nico would lead the dog by pulling on his leash, while Eric would help by pushing the sled. Running down the street in the direction of the fields, they passed several German soldiers, who laughed at this unusual trio. Reaching the fields, they paused for a moment to give Prince and themselves a chance to catch their breath and to make their base camp like Amundsen had done. A couple of clumps of frozen clay with a stick standing up in the middle made a perfect camp and a direction finder for their return trip.

The latest snow had serenely carpeted the fields. The sky was clouded, and the gusting wind drove the loose snow-like waves over the frozen land. The boys didn’t feel the cold. This was the most perfect weather for their imagination, precisely the harsh weather Amundsen had to withstand to reach his goal. The hill that was chosen for the South Pole was barely visible. The boys, knowing the area like the back of their hands, struggled against this blinding wind to their path of glory. The sled was gliding easily over the hard-blown snow, and Prince, who finally got used to the idea, transformed into a true sled dog.

Suddenly, Nico stopped and showed Eric something strange to the right in front of them. It was a bundle of white cloth slightly covered with snow. A heavy insulated boot of a man protruded, lifeless, from the bundle. For a moment, they stood there breathing heavily from this unexpected scary sight. After some doing of untangling wires and cloth, they came to the conclusion that it was an American pilot lying under his parachute. He was still alive but unconscious. His right leg was strangely lying underneath him. They quickly discovered that the top of one leg was broken. Part of the thigh bone had ripped his heavy pants and covered it with dark coagulated blood. There they stood, staring at this man who came from faraway, lying there helplessly. Amundsen and the South Pole were forgotten. The pilot was dressed in a heavy leather jacket, pants, and insulated boots. Part of the parachute was still connected to him; it had covered and protected him from the wind and the cold.

“What are you going to do with him?” Nico asked. “We just can’t let him lie here to die!”

“Well, what do you think we should do?” replied Eric. “If we tell the Germans, they will take him to prison or maybe shoot him.”

Both decided not to hand him over to the Germans.

By now, they knew all about the resistance movement, and somehow, they would get ahold of them… But how? After some discussion, they found the answer. They would bring him to the nuns’ convent in the village. Sister Theresa was there; she was the only trained nurse in the village. She would help him and surely would not tell the Germans because that would be sinning and a nun could not sin. They had to work fast. This pilot must have been from that bomber that had crashed on the other side of the border. The poor man must have been lying there all night long. They decided that Eric would take the sled and go back to the village to get his friend Willem and together they would tie the big wooden feedbox, which stood in the cow stall, to the sled. Nico would keep Prince and watch the pilot from a distance so that if someone would see him, he wouldn’t give away the location of their American hero.

Arriving at the farm, Eric came to the shocking conclusion that Willem had left for the city. Eric’s father had also left already for his afternoon shift. There was no one else he could trust. Somehow, they had to do it by themselves. With some rope, he tied the box to the sled and went on his way back to the fields. Perspiring heavily, he began to realize the grave danger this mission could develop into if they were caught. He knew the rudeness of the German Gestapo. Torturing, concentration camp, being shot—these were words he heard daily during that time and not at all strange to Eric. Not only himself and Nico but his parents, the sisters, all of them—he was putting them in danger.

He stopped for a moment. The scared, squeezing feeling in his chest made breathing difficult. It was so easy to tell the Germans of their discovery, and it would be all over with. No one would find out, and even if they did, no one would blame them because they were only children. For a moment, he was panic-stricken, but then the peaceful face of the American made his decision final. Everywhere the rumors went that soon the Americans would come and once again free Holland from these unwelcome invaders. He really didn’t know what freedom meant. For half of his young life, there had been war. How would it be—no more bombings, no more shouting commands on the streets? And how would a big bell in the church tower sound through the village if they would ever get one again?

For Eric, this American was the first real person with a message that peace once again would come. He calmed down a little bit and went on. No, he would not give up that easily. If he could help it, he would save this hero, maybe even save his life. Arriving at the scene, he found Nico practically frozen. Standing in this cold wind, his face and lips had turned purple. Prince barked a couple of times, happy to see his master, but he got awarded with a quick slap on his head, which stopped him in his tracks. This stupid dog could give them away.

Hastily they went to work now. It took them quite some time to get all these belts and small cables connected to the parachute off the wounded man. Neither one was afraid of a wounded person. By now, they had witnessed many wounded soldiers and civilians during the bombing periods. The wind caught hold of the parachute and bulged it out. The two had a hard time bundling it up and burying it in a close-by ditch and covering it with snow. Pulling the sled and box over to its side, they now carefully pushed and rolled the pilot into the box.

Pulling and pushing the box and sled up was another matter. It took all their power and energy to finally get it up straight. The wounded man moaned a little bit when the box and sled fell into position. He lay in an awkward position, and the wound on his leg opened up again. Eric took the front, and Nico pushed. Prince was jumping and running in all directions, happy of his freedom and knowing that the direction was home. Once in a while, they stopped, gasping for air, and gave their exhausted bodies a rest. The wound, still bleeding, was dripping into the white snow. While pushing the sled, Nico watched faithfully and ground each drop into the snow with his foot.

Coming closer to the villages, they noticed that the street where the nun’s convent was located had filled up with German SS trucks and soldiers. Panic-stricken they knew this was the end. They would never be able to pass these soldiers without being detected. To protect themselves, the only thing to do was deliver their hero to the Germans. All their efforts had been for nothing. Now feeling exhausted by this unexpected let-down, they carried on, pulling and pushing the sled, now heavy as if it were filled with lead.

Suddenly, while passing a sugar beet pile, Eric stopped. A brilliant idea had flashed into his mind. In the late fall, the farmers would pile up sugar beets in the fields and cover them with straw and then dirt to make a natural protection for the winter feed for their cattle. The dirt would freeze, but the beets protected with this heavy layer of straw stayed fresh. In the winter, the farmer would open one end, and after he loaded his farm wagon, he would close off the opening with straw.

“Why don’t we cover the pilot with beets and leaves? And if a German stops us, we tell him that we’re bringing beets to the poor nuns?” Eric said to Nico while out of breath.

For a moment, they thought it over. Reserve energy, which young people were rich of, streamed through their bodies, and in no time, the box was partly filled with beets and leaves, covering the wounded man perfectly. The bleeding had luckily stopped by now, and with their last energy, they pulled this extra-heavy load past the soldiers. They did not dare to look up, scared that their eyes would give them away.

Stopping at the open wrought-iron gate of the convent, they discovered another unforeseen obstacle. The lane to the convent was way too steep for the boys. After a couple of minutes of indecision, Eric, who had become the leader of their expedition, made possibly the bravest steps in his life. He went straight up to a German SS officer and asked very politely if some of his soldiers could give them a hand, because they were bringing beets to the sisters. The officer smiled and, with a couple of commands, had some of the soldiers push the load to the back door of the convent. With a kind of weak smile, the boys watched as the soldiers left. When they were sure that no one was in sight, they rang the backdoor bell.

A sister opened the door. Seeing the two exhausted youngsters with a box full of beets made her smile. She thanked the two for their goodness but mentioned that these beets were not good for eating. Her rosy color and smile changed quickly when the two told her that they needed Sister Theresa because they had a wounded pilot underneath these beets. She mentioned something like “Oh my god!” and rushed off to get Sister Theresa. Within a minute, Sister Theresa and three or four other sisters came rushing in. In no time at all, the sisters moved the heavy sled and box into the hallway and closed the door behind them. While the other sisters were taking the beets out, Sister Theresa guided the two dead-tired youngsters into a small room and asked one of the sisters to bring some hot chocolate milk for them.

Inside the room, Sister Theresa very nervously told the boys of the danger they had put the convent in and if they would mention only one word of this to anyone, the Germans would find out and all the sisters would be sent to concentration camps. After making sure that the sisters would contact the resistance movement and not hand their hero over to the Germans, they both promised the sister never to mention anything to anybody, not even their parents.

Awfully tired but with a beautiful feeling, they left the convent. The hot chocolate milk felt good and had relieved their sore throats from the heavy breathing. The sled and empty box glided now, feather light, behind them like a silent witness. The sisters had removed the blood from the box and had covered the bottom with some straw. After disconnecting the box from the sled and putting the box back in the cow stall, the two sat down for a while, discussing proudly their deed now that the danger had passed.

A few weeks later, they found out from Sister Theresa that she had cleaned the wound and set the leg bone and that same evening, the resistance movement had picked him up and, within a couple of days, had gotten him over to safety in England. That was the last the two boys ever heard about their hero, but that was not important.

News broke through from the resistance movement that the Allied forces had landed in France. Even before this news finally broke through to the villagers, everyone knew that something had happened. The normal, peaceful village had changed into a nervous commotion of movement of German forces. Shouting officers, heavily roaring tanks and trucks, and marching soldiers made everyone aware that the end of the war was near. These were exciting days for Eric and Nico. Their schoolmaster had closed the school, and both could observe, sitting at the corner stoop at the end of the street, the tremendous mass movement of the German forces. It seemed that they were moving in all direction. This went on for days. Finally, their movement changed to one direction—the German border. The Germans were pulling back, and with it came the sounds of the still-faraway front line.

Months later, Radio Orange reported that thousands and thousands of Allied paratroopers had parachuted around the city of Arnhem, sixty miles to the north, to protect the important bridge over the Rhine River. Fighting was heavy, and loses on both sides were high. In the late seventies, a movie, A Bridge Too Far, was made about this battle. The once-proud and fearful German Army was crumbling. The chaos and pitiful sight of a defeated army was breathtaking. Hordes of dirty, exhausted soldiers stumbled by. Trucks, horse-drawn farm wagons, or even wheelbarrows carrying wounded soldiers pushed by dead-tired comrades as they passed through the villages over the German border. It was a sickening sight. Eric remembered the beginning of the war when the German forces marched through the village while singing marching songs. An older soldier pushing a wheelbarrow stopped right in front of Eric to give his exhausted body a rest. Eric noticed that the badly wounded soldier in the wheelbarrow was very young. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen years old. Eric’s heart jumped in his throat.

This boy was not much older than he was. Eric walked over to the wheelbarrow and took the hand of the young soldier in his hands. A weak smile came on the dirty and painful face of the youngster, followed by a tear that slowly ran off his right cheek. When the older soldier resumed the march, Eric held on to the hand and walked beside the wheelbarrow until the next street, feeling sad about this young man, who was his friend for this short duration.

When the stream of retreating soldiers ebbed, an eerie peace fell over the village except for the sounds of the exploding grenades coming closer, sounds from the Allied forces, who were now in full force pushing forward. Within a few days, the mortars came whistling over the village and exploded over the border on the German side. The village children, being used to and having grown up during the war, quickly learned that as the grenades gave off a whistling sound, they were still in their flight path but that as soon as it changed over into a kind of murmuring sound, they would fall flat to the ground. That was the sound of a grenade coming down. In no time, they became so used to these sounds that Eric and his friends played soccer at the village soccer field while the grenades whistled overhead. Only a couple of times was the game interrupted, and that was when the sound changed and they had to fall flat to the ground. When a few exploded in the village, it was high time to run home.

Martha was already with the other two children in the basement when Eric arrived. Utterly upset that her son was playing soccer in this dangerous time, she gave Eric a slapping on his head, which baffled him. While blurting his lungs out, the only defending words Eric could bring out was “But…but they were still whistling!” After the barrage of mortars stopped for a while, the explosion in the village had killed a few people and an older nun in the convent practically next door to Eric’s. The nun, who was tired of constantly moving from her bedroom to the basement, was killed right in her bed. A shell fell through the roof, went through her body, and lodged without exploding into the basement floor.

On September 19, 1944, Eric woke up very early in the morning. Something had interrupted his sleep. The daylight was breaking through, and all the indications were there that it would be a sunny day. For the last couple of days, all Germans had left the village. Half awake, Eric heard the sound of running footsteps. Quickly he jumped out of bed and ran to the open bedroom window to find out what was going on. Leaning over the window, he noticed some movement at the corner of the street some fifty yards away. It was a strange-looking soldier with a rifle in his hands, ready to fire. He nervously looked around the corner, observing within seconds everything the experienced mind of a front-line soldier possibly could detect.

Eric remembered that this was practically the same scene he witnessed at the start of the war four years ago, except that these were possibly Americans. Quickly Eric pulled back, his body shaking with the excitement not only from what he just witnessed but also by instinctively knowing the danger he’d been in from the nervous finger of the ready-to-fire soldier. He realized that this was the first American soldier in his village because for the last few days, the villagers had known that the Americans were breaking through. Very carefully, he took another glimpse down the street. Now he saw more soldiers running from one hideout to the next.

Full of excitement, Eric woke up the rest of the family by shouting, “The Americans are here!”

In no time, he got dressed and wanted to run outside, but Martha quickly got ahold of him and warned him that it was too dangerous to go outside now. Eric was too excited to listen but was stopped short in his tracks when at once all hell broke loose.

The whole hillside on the north end of the village was covered with heavy American guns and tanks shooting at will over the village and into Germany. In seconds, the whole family ran for safety into the basement. The thundering noise of the heavy guns were ear-piercing. Martha, sitting beside John on a wooden bench, prayed loudly, a rosary was gliding through her fingers. For a moment, Eric, who was sitting on a big bag of potatoes, closed his ears with his fingers and thought about the wounded young German soldier and hoped that he was not on the receiving end of the mortars. For an hour or so, the shooting went on, but then except for a few guns, it stopped.

About a half hour later, the door of the basement swung open, and Willem shouted, “Come out. We are liberated! The Americans are here!”

Outside, the streets filled up with outrageously happy villagers. All over the village, the long-hidden Dutch flags were hung outside windows. People were shaking hands with one another, and it was perfectly normal for the young ladies to kiss every American soldier they could get their hands on. Soon the roaring noise of an American tank came rolling down the main street, already covered with flowers, followed by a whole stream of tanks.

Eric walked alongside one of the tanks and looked up with admiration and the highest respect to the tank commander, who was in control of this huge noisy machine of war. The tank commander waved back at the happy, well-wishing villagers, and when he discovered Eric, he took something out of his pocket and threw it to him. Not knowing what it was, Eric picked it up from the street, and while watching the commander, who tore off the wrapping paper and stuck it into his mouth, Eric did likewise. It tasted sweet and minty. After some hours, when Eric ran home, he mentioned to his mother, “These Americans have funny candy. You can keep on chewing, but it never gets less.” It was the first chewing gum Eric ever tasted.

For days, the festivities went on. Dancing in the streets, the singing of the Dutch national anthem, and the noise of the drunken villagers gave the Dutch people a time of blowing off the anger, frustration, and depression they had kept inside for nearly five years. No one went to work. The days became wilder and wilder after the liberation. Constantly, the resistance movement, with bands on their arms with the letters “OD” (which stood for “resistance movement” in Dutch), drove trucks and cars, loudly blowing their horns through the villages and cities, followed by hysterical, screaming people to pick up not only German collaborators, their girlfriends and wives, but also innocent people. Someone had only to point a finger at you, and you were branded. Some innocent people in small communities never out lived the shame that was put on them.

Even Eric’s father was pinpointed. One afternoon, a loud, horn-blowing car, followed by hysterically shouting villagers, stopped in front of the house. Not really understanding what was happening, Eric’s parents ran to the dining room to look out the window. At that moment, rocks were thrown through the windows, and one rock cut Martha’s forehead. One of the ODs came into the house and showed Eric’s father that he was on the list of people to be picked up. Both men knew each other very well, and after they both discussed the situation, they decided that it must have been a mistake. Instead of going with the waiting auto, John promised that he would go the next morning to the city hall, where the OD headquarters were located, to clear his name. When the OD person went outside without Eric’s father, the bloodthirsty crowd hurled more rocks through the windows and destroyed beautiful vases and pictures and his mother’s pride and joy, the china cabinet with all the crystal once hand-ground by John in his younger years.

It took a couple of pistol shots in the air for the OD person to calm down the crowd and explain to them that this was all a mistake. Only when they drove away to his next victim did the crowd follow them, but they had left Eric’s family in a state of shock. It took John only a couple of minutes the next morning to clear his name, but it took many years for the whole family to be fully accepted again by some of the villagers.

The five years of building up hatred for the Germans and everything that was connected with them made many of the normal, peaceful Dutchmen into wild, raving maniacs. True, many German collaborators who had assisted the German Gestapo in murdering thousands of Dutchmen deserved everything that was coming to them, but in times like this also, many innocent countrymen fell victim to this uncontrollable revenge-seeking mobs.

Eric went with Nico to a close-by city to witness the degradation of all women who were picked up for being wives or girlfriends of German soldiers or German collaborators. The marketplace in front of the centuries-old city hall was already filled with impatient people waiting for the main event. A loud roar went up when finally the autos arrived with the women, who were already in a state of shock. Rudely, like animals, they were pulled from the autos and pushed and pulled up the steps to the balcony of the city hall. Some women had been picked up early in the morning and were only wearing a nightgown under their raincoats. The events that followed made Eric and many decent people sick to their stomach.

Each woman was pushed forward to the railing. While protesting their innocence, they first got their hair shaven off in front of wildly shouting people. Some of these women fainted but were revived by a pail of cold water thrown over them. Next, they were painted black asphalt swastikas on their bald head. One fairly heavy woman fainted, and while hanging over the railing, one of her breasts protruded from her nightgown. The mob started shouting all kinds of obscenities; this became screaming when one of the beastly ODs painted the breast with tar. By now, many people, including Eric and Nico, had seen enough of this barbarism. They left for home, but their spaces were quickly filled with the latecomers, and the shouting and screaming went on into late in the afternoon.

After a couple of weeks of celebrating their liberation and also committing these outrageous brutalities, the Dutch people calmed down, and the healing of wounds and the clean-up and rebuilding of battle scars began. For Eric and Nico, the days that followed were times of excitement. The schoolhouse was taken over by American forces. All day long, the two practically lived with the American soldiers, and in no time, they picked up some of the English language. English—or, for that matter, the American language—sounded to a Dutchman like someone trying to speak with a hot potato in his mouth. “Chewing gum,” “cigarettes for Papa,” and “chocolate for Mama” were known after a few days, followed by “yes,” “no,” “thank you,” and “okay.”

On the other side of border, all the German villages were evacuated when the American forces broke through. All the farm animals that were left behind, like horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and heavy oxen, were driven over the border to the Dutch villagers to be taken care of. Most cows and oxen that came over the border to Eric’s village were driven onto the village soccer field. Eric and many other youngsters who worked at farms knew that it was high time for these cows’ overly full udders to be unloaded. Many days in a row, Eric, like the other boys, would carry a pail and a small three-legged stool to the soccer field to milk the cows.

One day, Theo, one of the village boys who had never worked at a farm, seeing Eric passing by day after day to the soccer field, wanted to be part of the group and followed him. Arriving at the field, Eric, knowing that Theo didn’t know anything about farming, showed him how to milk a cow.

“Is that all there is to it?” said Theo, thinking that these farm boys made so much out of nothing. “Which cow should I take?”

A mean streak arose in Eric’s mind. “Why don’t you take the big fat one over there? Then you will have your pail full in no time,” Eric replied.

Theo walked over to the huge animal, thinking how dumb Eric was, milking a meager cow and giving him the big one. Out of the corner of his eye, practically not able to keep from bursting out laughing, Eric watched Theo crawling all around the animal.

Finally, with a hopeless look on his face, Theo shouted, “I can’t find it!”

“What can’t you find?” replied Eric.

“The udder!” Theo shouted. At the same time, he got hit hard by the tail of the ox, who didn’t agree at all with Theo’s searching hands on his belly.

All the youngsters on the field, who had kept quiet while watching this setup, now let loose and laughed and teased Theo, following him down the field. Theo’d had forever enough of farming and had gained the nickname of Ox.

The younger teenagers quickly got used to the American soldiers and started looking for new excitement. One of the youngsters, Hans, who was the village roughneck, started a club. Actually, it was like a little army. Hans was the general. Their hideout was in one of the woods surrounding the village. Marching neatly in rows, using sticks for rifles and fighting an invisible German army in the woods, was a new excitement. Eric, too young but tall for his age, was accepted in this army, and Nico, who didn’t want to be separated from Eric, was accepted as a Red Cross soldier. Secret pathways were laid out in the woods with markers showing misleading directions to the base camp to have intruders walk in the wrong direction for miles.

For a while, this playing satisfied them, but the constant search for excitement made them look to new avenues. It all started with a German rifle one of the youngsters found in the woods. It had a broken stock but otherwise was in good working condition. German ammunition could be found all over, and in no time at all, the rifle was ready for operation. The broken stock of the rifle held tightly against a big rock and the rifle tied down with metal straps elevated by rocks in the direction of a German village church tower opened up a new form of playing. Soon the boys knew the difference between regular rounds of ammunition and tracer bullets. Only a select few were chosen to load and fire the rifle, and Eric was one of them. In the early evening, this group set up the rifle. After connecting a long rope to the trigger, the boys loaded it at the command of the general, but the general would fire the rifle. This could only be done for a few rounds each evening at different locations to stay away from the American MPs.

All that still was not enough, and it went from bad to worse. They needed more excitement. Soon they went over to robbing American supply trucks. If one of the trucks was chosen to be robbed after days of watching what the load was all about, an evening was set for the daring deed. One or two boys would start fooling around in front of the truck, getting the attention of the soldier who was on guard. Once the coast was clear at the back of the truck, the remaining youngsters would rob everything they could get their hands on. Within a matter of weeks, the camp had a supply of rifles, ammunition (including hand grenades), boxes filled with canned foods, and even a box with surgery instruments enough to outfit an operating room.

Naturally, the parents of the youngsters didn’t know about this and still believed that the kids were only playing innocent games. These supposedly innocent games ended up in near disaster for the general. One of the robbed boxes contained fuses and very small sticks of dynamite. This discovery gave the reckless, daring youngsters new ideas. They were going to explode their own bridge. It took them days to build a bridge from piece of wood, rocks, branches, and mud over one of the drainage creeks. The small dynamite sticks were inserted into the bridge, and the long fuses were laid over a higher ridge to be thrown into a small fire. The soldiers would hide behind the high ridge, while the general had his own hideout closer to the bridge. The raising of one hand of the general was the signal to fire. Then all went wrong.

Seeing a raised hand from the general, the boys quickly threw the bundles of fuses into the fire, not knowing that the general was only inspecting the bridge for the last time and, while trying to keep his balance, had raised his arm. After a loud explosion, they found their general unconscious and bleeding all over. The general was lucky, and after a few weeks in the hospital, with only a few broken ribs and numerous cuts and bruises, he could return home. It was also the end of their army because shortly after this incident, the village people, with the help of American soldiers, who by now had found out about the supposedly innocent games, destroyed the camp and punished the youngsters.

The village meadows, school, ballroom, and large homes were occupied by the American forces. Eric’s home was completely filled with high-ranking officers and was used as a central location for the high command. Only his parents’ bedroom was off limits to the forces. Two majors used the remaining bedrooms. The very sturdy basement was converted into a central communications station. A huge bundle of telephone cables protruded from the basement window. From there, the cables ran along the house over the roof and were tied down to the sturdy brick kitchen stove’s chimney. From the chimney, the cable split up into all directions. The large living and dining room, with the open sliding door between the two, were used as high command’s strategy rooms. Maps covered the walls and were spread over two connecting long tables at all times. A guard was posted at the front door and one in the hall between the basement and the living room.

The only city water tap was in the basement, which created a problem. Every time Martha needed water, it was the guard who had to get it for her. Eric and Johann slept between the soldiers on the kitchen floor, and Paul, who was only four or five years old at the time, slept in his parents’ bedroom.

One early morning, while Eric and Johann were still sound asleep, curled up under the army blankets, it happened. It sounded like a direct hit from a mortar. The whole kitchen went black from the root in the chimney. Everyone jumped to the outside for safety. The noise of a heavy tank on the street superseded the shouted commands from the officers. When daylight broke through, the story unfolded. From one of the last counteroffensive actions, a German tank lost its way and ran right through the village. Turning a corner at too wide of an arc while trying to save his hide, the German tank ran right over the steel corner light post. One of the bundles of telephone cables coming from Eric’s house chimney was connected to this light post and had pulled the chimney completely off the roof. The incident left the kitchen in a mess, but that was all.

A few days later, Eric noticed an armored wagon in front of the house with a small triangle green flag on the antenna. More guards were posted all over the house, and it seemed like everyone was more nervous than normal. It was clearly noticeable that someone very important was inside. It had rained for the last couple of days, and the village streets, broken up by trucks and tanks, changed over into mud a foot deep. The constant traffic of high-ranking officers made the house look like the street itself. Late in the afternoon, a group of very high-ranking officers left the basement, and instead of leaving through the hallway, they took the wrong turn and went through the kitchen to the outside. Martha, preparing the evening meal on the kitchen stove, smiled at the highest-ranking officer. While returning her smile, he said something to her while holding the outside door open for the other officers. Martha, feeling the moist, cold air entering the kitchen, said “Shut the bloody door!” while thinking that she had said, “Please shut the door.” The high-ranking officer lost the smile off his face, but then looking at the warm smiling face of Martha, he returned the smile and hurriedly closed the door. The next day, one of the officers, who had Dutch parents and could speak some Dutch, explained to Martha that she had said “Shut the bloody door!” to general Bratley, the general commander of the American forces. She was very embarrassed and made her apologies but never forgot this incident.

The school had been closed because the American forces needed the space, and Eric and Nico had constantly visited them. The playground was at a slight incline to the school building. At the bottom of the playground was the inlet iron gate, and beside it were the girls’ and boys’ toilettes.

On most days, some American jeeps were parked against the school building, and for Eric and Nico, these were items to play with. Sitting behind the steering wheel, they imagined that they could drive this thing. One day, while playing in one of the jeeps, they released the brake by accident, and the jeep started to move slowly downhill, increasing in speed. The two did not know what to do, so Nico called out, “Eric, jump!” They both jumped onto the playground, and the jeep crashed into the toilet wall, making a big hole in it.

Hearing the crash, some of the soldiers came running out of the building and chased the two boys. They never did catch them, but from that time on, the big metal porch was closed to all visitors except the army.

For days, Frank, an assistant to an American major who used one of the bedrooms, had given Eric candies and big chocolate bars. One day he motioned to Eric to come upstairs because he had more chocolate. In the bedroom, Frank gave Eric a very large box of chocolate. Eric gave him a piece of it while sitting beside him on the bed. Frank put an arm around him and pulled Eric closer. Eric liked it because he was such a nice man. After a while of cuddling, Frank opened his own trousers and, while smiling, took Eric’s hand and guided it into his trousers. Eric felt strange but also some kind of excitement. He felt that it was wrong, what he was doing, because his parents and the pastor had told him that touching himself or another person that way was not only wrong but sinful and that he would have to tell the pastor in his next confession.

But all these thoughts left him when Frank opened Eric’s trousers and started playing with him. After some time, Eric felt his face blushing, and a strange but very pleasant feeling came over him. Shortly thereafter, this feeling became overwhelming, and he pushed Frank’s hand away. Frank kept on stroking himself and made strange noises until he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped himself clean. Both lay beside each other on the bed, and Frank, now very serious, made Eric understand not to tell anyone—for sure, not his parents.

It had been very strange for Eric (now nearly eleven years old), but it was also very pleasant, and Frank liked it. Many times, they spent time together until after about two months, this group of Americans moved on. Eric never thought that it had been wrong, and he missed Frank.

Some time later, he told Nico all about it and discussed it for a while. Nico did not agree with Eric and mentioned to him that he would have to confess all this to the pastor before he could go to communion again.

“I did notice that you did not go to communion for a while but thought nothing of it. Another problem is,” said Nico, “how are you going to tell our pastor?”

“Oh yes,” Eric answered, “this is a real problem.”

But soon the they found the answer. Eric would drive by bicycle to a village some distance away, where no one knew him, and go to confession there.

“Okay,” Nico answered. “I will go with you next Saturday afternoon because that is the time when priests hold confessions.”

Arriving at this village, Eric and Nico went into the church and noticed a small line-up before the confession booth. When it was Eric’s turn, he told the priest all about his supposed sins.

The priest looked at him through small holes in the sliding board separating the two and said, “Young man, you are not from this village. I know all the children here.”

Eric was shocked. Would he still run into trouble? It was some time before he could answer, but then he lied. “I was driving by your church and want to go to communion tomorrow, so I thought to go to confession here.”

“From which village are you?” the priest asked.

Eric mentioned a different village than his own. The priest gave Eric absolution, but he would have to pray a whole rosary for his sins.

When Eric left the booth, the priest said to him, “By the way, I also forgive you for lying about the village you said you came from.”

On the way home, Eric mentioned the remark of the priest. “How did he know?”

“I don’t know,” Nico answered. “I guess he had this happen time and time again, but who cares? He forgave you for it anyway.”

When the first group of soldiers left the village, a larger division of Americans arrived and moved into one of Willem’s meadows. The large meadow beside the cemetery was covered with army tents, and no one besides army personnel was allowed to enter this meadow. Eric, always looking for a handout, noticed a pair of old worn-out leader army boots lying on the side of a huge pile of empty cans. For weeks, he watched those boots. Leather shoes were impossible to get and were too expensive. The only footwear the youngsters of the village had were wooden shoes. These old army boots would be worth their weight in gold for any youngster. Weeks and weeks went by, and it became an obsession for Eric. He had to have these shoes. Seeing it lying there for everyone to see drove him out of his mind. What about if another boy would notice them and sneak in? He would lose his shoes! Luckily, that a forever-growing pile of cans covered them. Eric, knowing where they were, tied a piece of rope on the fence wire to mark the exact location when the time lent itself for his acquisition of the shoes. Finally, the day came when the Americans moved on.

Eric watched sadly as the Americans packed up to leave. Many of the soldiers had become his friends, and he knew that he would never see them again. For that matter, the whole village was sad, for many of the soldiers had shared their kindness and food with the villagers in return for their living quarters. Many tears were shed when the soldiers climbed into the trucks to move.

Standing in the middle of the well-wishers, Eric remembered his shoes. As quick as he could run on his wooden shoes, he ran to the meadow. Just in time! A bulldozer had dug a big hole and was starting to push the whole pile into the hole when Eric arrived. He still was not allowed to enter the meadow. Watching with eagle eyes, he saw his shoes rolling over and over, finally ending up on top of the pile at one end of the hole. He could cry when the bulldozer covered it all with a thick layer of dirt. For a moment, he stood there. His shoes were gone. Slowly with his hands deep in his pockets, he walked home. What a sad day. Everything was going wrong for him.

At home, his father noticed the sad mood his youngster was in and, trying to reduce this sadness, mentioned, “Well, boy, sooner or later, your American friends had to leave.”

“No, Dad, it is not only that,” replied Eric and told his father the story of his lost shoes.

“Come on, boy. That’s the best thing that could have happened to those shoes! No one will find them, and only you know the exact location under the dirt. Tomorrow morning, early, when all the soldiers have left, we will go together and dig them out.”

Eric’s face cleared up, and after quickly swallowing a sandwich his mother had prepared, he ran outside to watch the last trucks leaving the village. Now he didn’t feel so bad at all anymore and could even smile at the thought of what they’d be doing the next morning.

It took both only a half hour or so the next morning to dig them out. After they returned home, his mother washed off the dirt and put some old socks in the toes of the shoes because they were a mile too big for Eric. Even so, these shoes were Eric’s pride possession and were admired by every village boy. He walked around like Charlie Chaplin, but who cared? They were real leather shoes from his American friends.

To Eric’s chagrin, when the American soldiers left, the village school reopened again. After for more than a month they had been totally free and “played around” with the American soldiers, Eric thought schooling was for the birds. He missed his American friends, but one thing was for sure. After he grew up, he would go to America. Sitting in the classroom again and listening to the teacher, who carried on as if nothing had happened, was too much to ask. It wasn’t easy for the teacher at that time either to drill the now-wild youngsters into their daily routines again. The sturdy hands of the teachers, however, had a reverse affect, and it took them longer than necessary to get the rebellious youngsters back in line.

One day, after the Americans had left, they were followed by the English Eighth Army (called the Desert Rats) for a well-deserved rest after their fight against Rommel in Africa. All over, soldiers were moving into the houses in the village, and Eric ran home to find out if they had some English guests too. Coming home, however, he found a commotion going on in the long covered hallway between the house and stall. He was amazed seeing soldiers moving large boxes, kettles, pots and pans, and a long gasoline-operated stove with many burners from a large truck in front of the house and into that hallway. Eric didn’t know what it was all about, but he sure was happy and wanted to make friends right away with one of the soldiers who was installing the large stove.

The soldier, however, having a terrible time putting the stove together, shouted when Eric came close by, “Get out of the way!” At the same time, he gave Prince a kick on the behind, which made the dog run into the garden, howling along the way. He stopped and looked back, questioning the reason for all this.

When the soldier, without saying anything more, continued with this installation, Eric thought, What a mean son of a bitch! How dare this guy kick Prince and be so mean to him? He only wanted to be friends.

Going into the kitchen, Martha explained to Eric in a happy voice, “Eric, we have the kitchen here for the English officers. Actually, they call it the officers’ mess. From now on, we will have good food. The cook, the kitchen aides, and some of the officers are already moving in. Did you notice the big guy with his black beret hanging over one ear and an old broken pipe in the corner of his mouth? That is the cook, one of the soldiers told me.”

Noticing Eric’s lack of interest, she asked, “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you happy? Isn’t that good news?”

“I don’t like the English soldiers,” Eric replied, and then he told his mother what had happened.

“Well, I guess you two were in the way. It is already late in the afternoon. Dinner has to be ready by six o’clock, one of the soldiers explained to me, and the cook hasn’t even installed the stove yet.”

“I don’t care. He had no right to kick Prince.”

The rest of the evening, he kept himself occupied by watching the serving of the evening meal to the officers in the living room. Some of them smiled at him while passing by, but Eric ignored them. He didn’t like the English and really missed his American friends. The following day, when Eric came back from school, he passed the cook again in the hallway. Stirring with a big spoon the contents of a large kettle, he looked and smiled at Eric. Not yet forgetting the events of yesterday, Eric passed him without answering his smile.

This man has an ugly face, Eric thought. He even has a couple of teeth missing. Yet there was something friendly in that smile that stuck in his mind. Maybe he had been wrong yesterday and had misjudged the man.

He knew his mother had a small bag of sugar cubes in the kitchen cabinet from which he would sneak one every once in a while. He was going to try again to make friends with the cook, and to show his goodwill, he would give him some of the sugar cubes. If that didn’t work, that would be it. Then he would never try to make friends with this man again.

He could easily sneak some sugar cubes as his mother was getting a pail of water from the only water tap they had, which was in the basement. When Eric entered the cook’s domain, his fists full of sugar cubes, he walked straight toward the cook and, without saying a word, pushed the cubes into his hands. For a moment, the man looked surprised, but then he smiled.

While rubbing his big dirty hands through Eric’s hair, he said, “Thank you. I am Louis, the cook here.” And continuing without taking the pipe out of his mouth, the rest of his words were lost.

Eric, now happy, smiled back at him and answered, “I am Eric.”

Without further saying a word, Louis looked around for a moment and then took a big knife, cut a huge slice of white bread, covered it with marmalade, and offered it to Eric. Accepting this return gift of friendship, Eric sat down on a box. Smiling and licking his lips, he showed Louis how much he appreciated the gift and that it was delicious.

Then Louis noticed Prince standing at the end of the hallway, ready to jump out of the way if it would be necessary again. He cut off a piece from the side of bacon hanging from the wall and threw it to Prince, who, not knowing what came at him, jumped away a couple of feet.

“Come on, boy. Take it.” Eric called Prince back.

Hearing his master’s friendly words, Prince turned back and, after eating the handout, slowly yet carefully walked over to Eric and sat down beside him.

Louis petted the dog and said, “Good dog, good dog.” While looking into Eric’s eyes he knew that they had become friends. For the rest of the English occupancy, which would be five to six months, Louis took very good care of the rest of Eric’s family, but for Eric and Prince, he would always do that little extra.

On Christmas Eve 1944, all day long Louis and his assistants had been cooking and baking all kinds of specialties for a Christmas party for the officers, and in the early evening, all ranks of officers were arriving from all over the neighborhood. The laughing, cheering, and singing went on late into the night. Early Christmas morning, the officers were so drunk they were falling all over the furniture. When finally most of them were gone and Martha had a chance to look into the room, she noticed that most of her beautiful furniture was lying in shambles on the floor. Furious and with tears rolling down her cheeks, she yelled at the remaining officers. They couldn’t understand her, but it didn’t take a brain to realize what she was saying. Louis, who had heard her hysterical screams, pushed her calmly but surely out of the room and tried to explain to her that he would take care of it.

John, who had finally fallen asleep after all the racket, woke up and, coming into the kitchen, found Martha standing by the kitchen stove, still crying.

“John,” she said, “they ruined all the furniture. Go and look at it. It’s a real mess.”

Louis then turned to John and tried to explain to him what he would do about it, but John couldn’t understand him. Two days later, after everything was cleaned up by the soldiers, a big army truck stopped in front of the house, and the most beautiful pieces of furniture were moved into the rooms. It was gorgeous and very expensive furniture with beautiful hand-cut wooden armrests.

Louis had fun when he saw the questions on John’s and Martha’s faces. “Germany,” he said. “A lot of furniture in Germany.” They had gone over the border by truck and robbed the home of a wealthy family who had evacuated anyhow and left their furniture behind.

In January 1945, Prince got sick. Listless, he would lie in the corner of the kitchen and wouldn’t touch his food. Eric was helpless. He tried everything to get Prince back on his feet again, but without results. Even Louis’s best pieces of meat from the kitchen were left untouched. Shortly thereafter, Louis grabbed Eric by the hand when he returned from school and guided him to a spot in the garden.

He said, “Prince is dead. I’m sorry, so sorry.”

For a moment, Eric stood there, looking at the spot, and then it dawned on him what Louis was telling him. Very upset, he ran into the kitchen and asked his mother what happened. Knowing her son was heartbroken, Martha explained to him as easily as possible that earlier in the morning, Prince had become so sick and was suffering quite a lot. Louis, seeing the suffering of Eric’s friend, had carefully carried him into the garden and ended his misery with a bullet.

Both Nico and Eric were heartbroken for days. Their really true friend was gone, and it left a tremendous empty space. They had marked the spot with a wooden cross roughly nailed together, and many times even years later, they would return to this spot and talk about the many adventures he had been part of. He hadn’t just been a dog. He had been a friend that would have given his life if necessary for his two comrades. Louis tried everything to relieve his young friend from his burden, but to no avail.

When the time finally came for the English soldiers to move on again, the rough and tough Louis hugged Eric as if he were leaving his own child and then, without looking back, stepped into the waiting truck and drove on.

Ironically, it was a German soldier at the beginning of the war who had pushed Prince as a puppy into Eric’s arms. Now at the end of the war, he had been shot by an English soldier.

Shortly thereafter, the rest of Holland was liberated, and within months, Germany surrendered. But for Eric, the war had ended when Louis and his truck left the village.

In 1946, to the utmost happiness of Eric’s parents, Martha gave birth to a daughter, Eric’s only sister. Eric was now twelve years old. His brother Johan was fourteen, and Paul was about six years old. The newborn, called Elly, was for John and Martha a dream come true. After sixteen years of being married and having three sons, they finally had a daughter.