Personal recollections of WW2

[Condora]

Another thing your memories bring to my mind:
the puritan pilgrims - I always thought they had the same mind set that existed in the Netherlands at that time, it seems to confirm it. I also remember Van Gogh's drawings when I read what you wrote...

One thing that I find not so amusing, is that when I watch european movies (early 40s, until the early 50s), they all seem to more or less picture the same kind of experiences/difficulties we had in Portugal.

Later on, there seems to be a progress everywhere, but in Portugal, where things stayed the same.
I don't know if the "single sardine and a loaf of bread" dinner for the whole family, or "bread soaked in red wine" breakfast was the case in the rest of Europe, but it was common during the war, and it stayed that way longer then it should, waaay into the late 70s!
(you'd only need to go 20kms away from Lisboa or Porto to have no electricity, or runing water... I remember still using petrol lamps and getting water from the well almost into the 80s)

People used to think of portuguese people as a small-people country, it was true until quite recently, and I put the blame mostly on the kind food most people had: as soon as it changed, we had a jump-up from 1,60m average height (I think that's slightly below 5 feet) to almost 1,80m (not yet 6 feet, but getting to close for my self-esteem... ).

I'd like to know if you remember something like that, and when did it change into the "almost-standard" we have now...

 

[fass]

@Condora:
Interesting comments! I've been to Portugal a couple of times, to the Açores and Madeira too but I don't speak the language well enough to appreciate the various versions of it. Spain is an interesting linguistic scene: there are major differences between Catalan and Andalusian, of course and then you have the Basque people who speak a language that is not related to anything!

As regards the Puritans: even although there were (and are) many fundamentalist protestant areas in The Netherlands, in the 19th century there still were groups that thought all their fundamentalist neighbours were sinners nevertheless. Some of these sects then followed their self-nominated preacher to the USA, which may partly explain why there are still so many sects there.
Things were no longer so extreme in 1940, but even during the war, there was yet another split in one of the protestant churches. The reason was a fundamental disagreement on the question whether the Serpent in Paradise had really spoken to Eve or whether that should be taken in a symbolic sense… I'll discuss some aspects of religious life later on. In the 1960's, most aspects of life in the Netherlands had become recognizeable to the present generation.

Finally: most people on Earth have stereotype mental images of other people. Even today, with all the traveling, that is true because on vacation most people only see the swimming pool of the hotel or camping… Portugal's development (especially in the country) was slowed down by the type of government until 1978 or so, but then it rapidly improved! However, around 1990 I've seen villages in the Serra do Caldeirão where time has stood still…
The growth spurt you mention is typical of improved conditions, we've had it in the Netherlands too. People born during the last war years here definitely suffered, their dental condition is below standard, for instance.

Marcel: thanks for the picture, I'm still not prey to Mr Alzheimer!

 

[Condora]

Eh eh...
Spain is even WORSE than you think: they also have galician (from Galiza, the NW-most region, right above Portugal), bable (from Asturias, home of Fernando Alonso, stuck between the gallegos and the basques), and I think there's some kind of dialect to the East, apart from catalan. As for Andalucia, I'm not completely sure, but I think they are a bit like the people from the Azores: they speak almost the standard language, but in a way nobody understands!

"Time-frozen villages"
Yes, there are. Most of the young people left, and as only older people are left, the villages are bound to become deserted. In a couple of them, there are a dozen old people, a younger couple, and a single child...
who never gets to meet other children, and nobody is sure if it's better to reopen the local school, or move the child to other village (usually, these villages are far away from everything).

The ssserpent sssspoke, with a lisssp.
Religious discussions still manage to surprise me...
'Did Jesus own the clothes he wore?

 

[fass]

Start, part 6

First, prepare yourself for a horror story, which is insufficiently known even to many Dutch people of the postwar generations.

A ticket to Hell
The most portentous change was the compulsory introduction of an identity card, a small folder, rather, for all people over 14 years of age. This was by far the single most damaging action any Dutchman took against his own people.
Even today, this "Persoonsbewijs" (I'll call it the PB from here on) would be almost impossible to counterfeit and for that time it was truly amazing. Special paper, special ink, microscopic lettering for the background, a watermark, a sealed photograph and fingerprint were some of the protective measures. But the decisive factor was that there was a copy of the PB, kept in bomb-proof vaults and totally inaccessible except to the German security services. This meant that even if you were somehow able to produce a perfect fake, a check in the vaults would immediately reveal that there was no such PB on record. Nowhere in Europe – not even in Germany itself – was there anything remotely comparable as regards security, the system was totally watertight.

This diabolically clever PB was the brainchild of a Dutch official, Mr.J.L. Lentz, a "name of infamy" to paraphrase president Roosevelt. He was an eminently capable official at the Dutch registry office, obsessed with perfection. Although he was pro-German, he was not a member of the Nazi party and his PB was primarily the result of his ultimate goal in life: "to deliver a good piece of work". It was Lentz who suggested that the PB should be marked with two large black "J"s to indicate that the person in question was Jewish. That was convenient for population statistics…
As the food rationing coupons (see below) were only supplied when you showed your PB, and people with a "J" in their PB would be arrested and sent to the concentration camps after 1941, this meant that Jews could not obtain coupons – and thus, no food. Also, Jews were immediately identified by their PB during security checks – at the railway stations, at major bridges or simply on the streets.
Single-handedly, Lentz has thus been responsible for thousands of deaths, his PB could be literally a ticket to Hell. His insane drive for perfection was an important reason why only a small percentage of the Dutch Jews survived, far smaller than for other occupied countries in West-Europe. After the war, Lentz was tried – and jailed for 3 years… Until his death in 1964 he remained enormously proud of his "job well done". He epitomizes "the banality of evil" as a Dutch writer has called it, exactly like Adolf Eichmann.


Three changes
I wrote about the changes that took place when we had become an occupied country, and I should mention three of them in particular.

The first is the introduction of food rationing. For those who have never experienced it: this meant that you had a weekly or monthly allowance of only a fixed quantity of meat, fat, bread, milk etc. In the course of time, practically all consumables became rationed: soap, sugar, matches (they contain chemicals also used for explosives!), coal (the main source of energy then) clothing and shoes. Also, the quantity allowed became less. Yet the nutritional balance of the diet was sufficient until 1944 (I'll come back to that). In fact, medical specialists now agree that it was a pretty healthy diet, reducing the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease! Coffee was one of the first things that was rationed and it was the last to become freely available again…in 1952! For several so-called "luxury goods", substitutes were soon introduced: surrogate cocoa (based on acorns, I think), surrogate tea (comparable to the herbal teas that are now so popular), home-grown tobacco (the quality depended on the grower's ability, some of it was acceptable). Late in the war (1944), even soap disappeared and was substituted by "clay soap", which was pretty useless. Shoes and all leather goods also disappeared (except on the black market, of course) because the German armed forces were "leather-based": not only for boots, but also for all sorts of cases (maps, pistols, ammunition), belts and straps. The British and US armies were "canvas-based", the German armed forces had luxury equipment… In 1943, my usual footwear was wooden sandals in summer, wooden shoes in winter, but even wood became scarce in the end, as I'll show later on.

What is amazing is that this rationing system continued to function perfectly throughout the war, despite mass movement of families to other locations. Preparations had already been made before the war and an entire comprehensive infrastructure was set up for the issuing of rationing coupons, distribution of stocks over the thousands of shops etcetera. The rationing authority became a major employer and if you had a job there you were reasonably certain you were not going to be sent to Germany for compulsory work in the armaments industry.
As mentioned in the above PB story, Jews could not obtain coupons, and neither could people who had gone into hiding for other reasons (and there were several such reasons as we'll see later). One of the best activities of the resistance movement was the supply of stolen or counterfeit coupons to these people so that they could survive.

The second change was the virtual disappearance of motor traffic. Petrol was only available with special dispensation, if your business activities were advantageous to Germany, for instance. The lovely Packards, Hudsons, Chryslers, Lincolns and Delages so frequent in the city of diplomats that was the Hague soon disappeared from the scenery. Soon, cars and motor bikes were requisitioned, like the radio sets. Those that remained on the streets were kept running by switching to gas: either a sort of stove on a small trailer in which wood was converted to gas, or enormous balloons filled with coke-gas from the utilities.

The third change is the combination of a total blackout and a curfew. Nights were really pitchblack and silent, even in the cities. There were numerous cases of people drowning in a canal because they didn't see anything. You only were allowed out with special dispensation, e.g. midwives and doctors.


Bush telegraph
As I said earlier, listening to Allied radio stations was immediately forbidden when we were occupied.
Soon afterwards, all radio sets had to be handed in. The usual sets of that time were large, and handy tinkerers began to build small illegal sets for listening to the BBC. With the large components like valves (tubes, if you're American) of the time, that was not easy. If you were caught, there were serious consequences, so these sets were hidden when not used – sometimes in hollowed-out Bibles… Reception was uncertain because the Germans had powerful jamming stations. Nevertheless some of that information reached the general public by word of mouth. In this era of instant information, you may be surprised at the speed of this "bush telegraph" type of communication, of which I have a classic example:

On September 5th, 1944, there had been a totally spurious announcement on the BBC (I told you this was not always reliable…) that Allied troops were in The Netherlands and had liberated a major city in the South. The country erupted: thousands of people lined the roads expecting to see Allied troops, the national flag was flown and people were congratulating each other. Collaborators fled in droves, there were chaotic scenes at railway stations and on the major roads. That day has been immortalized as "Mad Tuesday" (Dolle Dinsdag, lots of pictures on the web under that search term). The point is that it was on that single Tuesday country-wide, the remoter parts of the country did not have a Mad Wednesday!
End, part 6

Continued next weekend!

 

[Marcel]

Marcel: thanks for the picture, I'm still not prey to Mr Alzheimer!

No, you're not If you click the link I provided you can see the book offered on Marktplaats if you're interested to own it once more.

 

[fass]

@Marcel: thanks for the link, I've made a bid...

3 hours later: and I've got it too!

 

[fass]

Start, part 7

Oppression increases
In 1941 the atmosphere began to change markedly. Many restrictions had been introduced, for instance, doctors and artists had to join Nazi-oriented professional organizations. If they refused, they could not continue their work. Compulsory work in the German armaments industry had also become a threat. A resistance movement had developed, which was often amateurish so that several members had soon been caught and executed. Finally, the Nazis had started an increasingly harsh campaign against the Jewish population. When the first Jewish people were arrested and sent to camps, this led to widespread strikes and to retribution by the Nazis – including executions. The consequence of all these measures was that a sizeable portion of the population began to "go underground": those Jews who decided not to believe the generally held view that the segregation measures were just that (and not aimed at extermination), young men who were at risk of being sent to Germany and members of the resistance who were being sought by the security services. Often, Jewish children were placed with people who looked after them for the rest of the war while the parents went in hiding at a different address – or went to the camps. Jewish acquaintances we had, decided to comply with the German edicts, asked us to keep some valuables for them "until they came back" and then gave themselves up to be deported. Fortunately they did not go to one of the extermination camps and survived the war.
For the thousands of people that went underground, aid was required (money and especially: food coupons and papers) and this was given by various networks, which became quite extensive.

Evacuation
Nowadays, the word evacuation has humanitarian overtones. People are evacuated from disaster areas and given shelter, food and medicines. Not so in World War Two, the meaning of "evacuation" was close to that of "eviction".
At the end of 1941, whole areas along the North Sea coast, with all the towns and villages they included, were declared "off limits" to civilians. In addition, all "non-essential" people were ordered to move from the West. This meant that you had to leave your house and try to find some sort of accommodation with people living elsewhere – you became "evacuees".
We happened to have acquaintances in a village in the vicinity of Arnhem, about 100 kms to the East of The Hague so we moved there, which meant that I was completely uprooted. Instead of living in a house, we now rented a living-room and a small bedroom. Some possessions that did not fit into this reduced space we gave away, some were stored with a farmer. It also meant loss of privacy, from 1942 to 1954 we always shared a house with other people because the war was followed by a severe and long-lasting housing shortage. It also meant my first confrontation with the marked differences I mentioned earlier: in The Hague I had been playing tennis on Sundays, the village was in the Bible belt and frivolous activities on a Sunday were anathema. Libraries, concerts, exhibitions, cinemas, they all became a memory… The most traumatic change, however, was that I could no longer see my brother and grandmother in The Hague every weekend, but only during the school holidays 4 times a year.
We were lucky in finding accommodation with a young and very nice widow whose husband had died of tuberculosis – still a frequent cause of death then. She had a daughter one year my junior, who immediately appropriated me as her protector and factotum – not entirely against my wishes… That pleasant companionable atmosphere, taking meals and doing your homework together, did a lot to compensate for the shock of being uprooted.

War in the air
From the autumn of 1942 on, the streams of RAF bombers really began to fill the nights. Only 15 miles from where we lived, there was the military airfield of Deelen, which became one of the principal centres of the German nightfighter organization. This meant that during the day I saw many German aircraft, mostly Bf110 and Ju88, with some BF109s and an occasional FW189 or Fieseler Storch on a "communications flight" - and we all know what that amounts to…
The RAF night bombing campaign intensified in the course of 1942-1943, which was evident because the bomber streams became more frequent and lasted longer and longer. We were never afraid, it was obvious that their load of bombs was not intended for us and thus the sonorous deep drone was the sign that Nazi Germany was no longer immune. Another sound, a much higher-pitched tone whose significance was unknown to us, was that of a single aircraft circling around. Some people said "they are searching" but actually it was the sound of one of the German nightfighters circling a beacon and waiting to be directed towards its prey. Judging by the published flight paths, some of the aircraft participating in the raid on the Ruhr dams must have flown past very close by, but I have no recollection of such an event.
According to official sources, some 4500 Allied aircraft were lost over Dutch territory, the Zuyder Zee being especially notorious. Crews of the Commonwealth were buried locally and I still find it moving to see impeccably kept graves of young men from Australia, Rhodesia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain next to a 15th-century church in a tiny Frisian village, for instance.
In late summer of 1943, the country began to be littered by mysterious strips of aluminium foil sandwiched between black paper. All sorts of rumours circulated: they were said to be dangerous to touch (they were not, as any kid knew…) or there were secret messages on them … That was the "Window" chaff that caused interference with the German Würzburg radar, but radar was still an unknown quantity to us – although mysterious aerial systems were known to many people as they were simply too large to hide… Window could still be found in the woods years after the war.

"The English"
Until 1943 I never saw a single Allied aircraft. The reasons are simple. The British night bomber formations were not visible, of course, and I was in bed anyway. There had been daylight attacks by British bombers and daylight fighter sweeps but they were elsewhere, for instance a raid on the Philips electronics works in Eindhoven. Throughout the war, everybody I knew tended to talk of "the English" when they meant "the Allies". Not the British, but the English. Later on, the Americans were specifically mentioned when reference was made to the daylight bomber streams, but the organization of the armies once the invasion had taken place in 1944 was such that The Netherlands (except for a portion of the south) were not part of the US frontline, but of the British and Canadian. So I never saw an American soldier and eventually we were not liberated by "the English" either, but by Canadians, some of whom turned out to speak French…
End, part 7

 

[Condora]

A Fw189!?
Maybe I will see that one someday... I understand there's one in the Flying Heritage Collection.

Betcha people strongly advised kids "not to touch those strange strips", and all kids promised they wouldn't... having already played with a few dozens.

Peek preview: you were close to Arnhem. So you were at the Market-Garden area? Or were you lucky to avoid it all but the "comings and goings" of troops?

 

[fass]

You're perfectly right, Condora, of course we told our parents we would never touch them, having tried several methods of igniting them already...
And your peek preview will be honoured soon, I'll keep you in suspense for awhile.

 

[Condora]

"Igniting"...
That one had never occurred to me! (I must be getting old... )

 

[Marcel]

@Marcel: thanks for the link, I've made a bid...

3 hours later: and I've got it too!

Great! Must be strange to have it again after 65 years. Hope you'll enjoy it.

Where did you live near Arnhem? I've lived in Wageningen for a few years, which is also in that area.

 

[fass]

@Marcel:
That "Vliegtuigenboekje" has been a most interesting experience. Of course I immediately recognized several pictures, and even some words and phrases I picked up from it originally but never saw mentioned again later, like "schaalbouw" (monocoque construction). But there is more:
- no author is mentioned!
- no publisher is mentioned!
And then the most amazing phenomenon: the British and American military aircraft are shown with the correct roundels. The German aircraft also have the crosses on the wings BUT THEY DO NOT SHOW THE SWASTIKA ON THE RUDDER!!!
I think this is a small act of defiance, as it was produced during the German occupation (there is no publication date either, but I got it as a present in 1942): the anonymous author simply refused to include this hated symbol...
As for the village we lived in: I decided not to mention its name, because I write rather critically about it, but I do know Wageningen well...

 

[B-17engineer]

Very interesting Fass! Have been reading this start to finish and is very interesting.

 

[fass]

Thanks, B17 Engineer! I'll describe my memories of the B17 and B24 next!

 

[B-17engineer]

Thanks can't wait 8)

 

[Bernhart]

brings up memories of Mom and Dad's stories. mom was from Groningen, Dad lived in Brabant about 2 miles from the German border. Mom spoke of the food shortages more so than dad as Dad lived on a farm. She remembers eating tulip bulbs in 1945

 

[fass]

@Bernhart:
Ha, you're of Dutch extraction! It may even be that your father had already been liberated in 1944, while your mother had to wait another 6 months or so. That's the Arnhem landings story that will come up.

 

[Bernhart]

tru enough, Dad says he remembers Canadian troops and polish soldiers possibly armour division?
Its been a few years since I was on the family farm there,( its still owned by cousins of mine) they had a room in the hay mow
were the hid jews during the war, they left the room as a reminder. In 1995 Dad's family got a letter from the israeli government as a thank-you and to say they were planting a tree on some boulavard in honour of our family name. Dad met 2 ladies in Florida shortly before he passed away that were daughters of one of the men that the family hid.

 

[fass]

@ Bernhart:
Yes, some areas in the South were liberated by Polish soldiers, poor blokes - they could not return to Poland after the war because they would have been at least imprisoned by the Communists. Lovely gesture, planting a tree in memory, your Dad surely deserved it.

@ B17 Engineer:
I suddenly remembered a very interesting piece of information about the American bomber crews, prepare yourself for a big surprise...

 

[fass]

THE BLOODY LIMIT!
On Sept. 1st it will be 70 years that WW2 began. The Polish government has organized a memorial ceremony on the Westerplatte, Gdansk, where the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein fired pointblank at the Polish soldiers.
The ceremony will be attended by … president Poetin.
I suppose he'll read the secret clauses of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement of 1939?