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title: José's WW2 Story

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Those who read this true account will probably wonder how I can recall events which took place 40 years ago. Although some dates have escaped me, my memories remain vivid. The impact of these events had left a deep and lasting impression on me that was never to be forgotten. 

I am by nature a worrier, and at the time, it hadn't occurred to me that I might make note of these incidents; but then, I never imagined that my parents and I would be so deeply involved in trying to save the lives of others. To have kept notes or diaries during the war years would have been impossible, as our house was constantly being raided by the S.S., the dreaded German Gestapo. They found everything we had in our possession; well, almost everything. On several occasions, my parents came very close to being shot immediately without a trial. 

Readers might also wonder why I have waited so long to put my story on paper. I have been asked several times to speak at my children's school and I have done so; but I never really found adequate time to chronicle my experiences. 

We were a family of six: father, mother, aunt, sister, brother and myself. We lived in Antwerp, Belgium and were of Dutch descent. My story starts from the year 1938. I was eleven years old and born in Antwerp in 1926, but considered Dutch as my father was Dutch. In Europe, no matter what country you were born in, you always had to take your father's nationality. During the war, this came in very handy. 

My father was born in Heer, Maastricht in the Province of Limburg; my mother in Etten near Breda, also in the south of Holland. When we reached the age of 16 years, the Belgian government gave us the privilege of becoming Belgian citizens for free, but the three of us decided against this, and always remained Dutch. In a certain way, I was happy about this as it helped me quite a bit during the war years to do the work I did. 

In 1938, we lived in the suburbs of Antwerp in a town called Merxem. It was very inconvenient for the new school we were attending, as we had to take a long trolley ride twice a day, so my parents decided to move to Antwerp closer to our school. We settled in 169 Lange-Leem Street, a large 5-story house with 13 rooms. Right after we moved to our new house, there was a lot of talk everywhere about a man named Adolph Hitler and war. As an eleven year old, this made a big impression on me. All I heard was the word "war." Also, people talked about the terrible things the Germans had done in Belgium during World War I, just 20 years ago, and how they might come back and do the same thing again. This really worried and frightened all of us. The new house we had moved into was almost next door to the Jewish committee, a place where newly-arrived refugees would gather daily to try to get some news about loved ones they left behind in Germany. More and more Jewish people would arrive every day; our neighborhood was getting very crowded, and the refugees kept begging my parents to please let them have a room in our house as we had plenty of space. At first my parents refused, until the Antwerp Police came to the house one day and begged my mother to please help out. Finally my parents relented. 

Antwerp is a large diamond trade center and it was run mostly by Jews. The Jewish immigrants were well received by the Belgian people. In 1938, the Belgian government allocated six million francs toward the relief of German refugees. 

Our house became very crowded, and in a few months we had approximately 20 Jewish refugees living in our house. Every night my mother would invite them to come and have a cup of tea with us and listen to Hitler on the radio. 

Most of the refugee families, who lived in our house, had left Germany in such a hurry, they had to leave their children behind to be cared for by trusted German friends. These families were longing for their children, and my mother offered to travel to Germany on the pretense of doing business and then smuggled these children into Belgium. She did this five different times. 

On May 10, 1940, I was thirteen years old. At 6:00 a.m., the news came over the radio that Germany was at war with Holland and Belgium. The dreaded day had arrived. Our house was upside down, people rushing in and out, they all wanted to get away, but where to? Our Jewish friends were frantic and talked about getting away to Switzerland, as that country was neutral and not at war, and our refugee friends felt they would be safe there. In addition, many non-Jewish people were trying to leave. The Belgian government made the announcement that only Jewish refugees were allowed on the trains to Switzerland as their lives were at stake. Trainloads after trainloads left. Most of our friends left with just a small suitcase and asked my mother if they could store all their valuables they weren't able to take, and my mother was happy to do so. Our attic was bulging with linens, silver and trunks full, etc., etc.

The country was overrun with German spies. Within a few days, the news came that Rotterdam had been bombed; 78,000 people were made homeless, and close to a thousand people had been killed. People from Holland came to Belgium trying to get away from the German Army -- mostly on bicycles, on foot, baby carriages, all trying to get to Oostende and England across the channel; it was a mad city. After one week, my parents decided we, too, would leave and try to get to England, as the talk was spreading that all eligible men from the age of 16 would be sent to Germany to do forced labor. My cousin of 16 would go with us. My aunt and uncle moved into our house as there were still refugees there who believed that the Germans would not touch them as they were living in Belgium now and not in Germany. How wrong they were! My mother was frantically searching for transportation for us. She found a large flat-bed truck and paid an enormous price to have the owner drive us to France. We left at 12:00 noon and arrived at the Schelde River a half hour later where we had to be put across on a ferry boat. We waited until 4:00 that afternoon for our turn. As we were crossing the Schelde River, German Stuka planes flew over us and machine-gunned our ferry. We had to jump off the truck and hide underneath. When we reached the other side of the river, we got off the ferry and the Stuka planes came back again. We had to get off the truck again and jump into ditches on the side of the road. After a few minutes, the planes left and we were on our way to France. It seems we had a better chance of getting a ship to England than if we had gone to Oostende, a port on the English channel. 

There were long lines of refugees on foot and every time we had to stop, people were trying to crawl onto our truck. We could not keep them off and they begged my parents to let them on. They offered large sums of money which my parents would not accept. They let everybody who could crawl up come with us. At 10:00 p.m. that evening, we arrived on the French border with about 30 extra people in our truck. We were not allowed to cross the French border; it was only open for the military, but we were told it would be open the next day. The Belgian Police helped us find a place to stay overnight and put us up in a beautiful castle. It was empty because the owner had left for England a few days before. It had beautiful grounds and there was plenty of room for all of us. The next day we were told that the border was still closed for refugees, which we had now become ourselves. As soon as our driver had discharged us the night before, he returned to Antwerp. Now we had no transportation, and quite a few trunks and suitcases. My parents went out the next morning to look for some kind of transportation. There was nothing to be had, and we were forced to purchase a second-hand pushcart. We could not believe what we saw. We stayed another three days in the castle; after that, we loaded our pushcart with our belongings. We were told that if we went to the town of Menen, we could cross the border there into France. We pushed, all of us, and were now in the lines of the refugees.

I will never forget the following three weeks, getting bombed, and machine-gunned in the fields and on the roads by the German Stukas. We saw many people being killed trying to dodge the bullets from the low flying planes, but with a lot of luck no one in our family was hurt, although we came very close. In the following weeks, we did try to get to Oostende but missed the last two ships leaving for England. It was luck because both ships were bombed in the channel and all lives on board were lost. I thought how horrible it would have been if we had been on one of them. Within two weeks of our trip, Holland, Belgium and France capitulated. 

We went back to Antwerp. Within a few days of being home, my father was forced to work in the German military bakery. On our three week flight, we had driven 350 kilometers, and walked 107 – all for nothing. The refugees left in our house were happy to see us, and now also realized that they should have left for Switzerland with the others. The food in the stores started to dwindle very quickly and within six months, all provisions had been taken to Germany -- trainload after trainload. There were still a lot of Jews left trying to find hiding places and my mother found quite a few of them for our Jewish friends. Toward the end of 1940, a lot of our schools were being closed, as so many children became ill for lack of food. Busloads of children were leaving every day to stay at farmhouses in the country. In addition, busloads were going to Holland, and being Dutch citizens, we were told to go to Holland and we did. While living in Holland, I reached 15 years of age and received my Dutch Identity Card (Persoonsbewijs). It became very handy the following two years. I was not officially a Dutch citizen in Holland, but also a resident of Belgium, as I was only on vacation in Holland so to speak. One day my cousin told me that my parents were picked up and put in prison. I became very worried and could not imagine what my parents had done to be put in prison. In the meantime, we were all separated. My sister stayed at a candy store, my brother at a farmhouse, and I at a butcherstore. We all missed our home and parents. Hearing that my parents were in prison worried me considerably and I had a feeling that it had something to do with their helping the Jewish people escape. 


Early in 1942, we all came home again to Antwerp – my parents had been let out of prison. By now the black market was well established. To survive, we had to purchase food through the black market. Although if you were caught, you would be put in prison for one year. My mother and I went to the farmhouses. It would take us a whole day on the train, then we would go around the ferries in the Province of Limburg, stay overnight at one certain farmhouse. There were 12 children there who had become more like a family to us. They also helped us find hiding places in the rural farm country for our Jewish friends. Then on the third day, we would come home again on the train with our butter, eggs and ham – all we could hide and carry besides being a few thousand francs lighter. When we would arrive in Antwerp, the state police would be looking for people like us, even though the food was strictly for our personal use, and not for sale on the black market, it didn't make any difference. We had specially made coats with large inside pockets, with the sleeves sewn closed at the end, and they were carried very loosely over our arms so as not to draw suspicion. We put the butter into the sleeves and when we got home, it would be almost melted – but it was worth it. By this time, the Nazis had ordered all Jews about the age of six to wear the Star of David on their hearts. It was yellow with a black border, and in the middle was embroidered the word, “Jude” meaning Jew. Every Jewish household was ordered to post a Star of David on their front door. Also, they were not allowed to ride buses or trolleys, nor allowed to walk in the parks or use public restrooms and telephones. 

My mother had befriended this certain Jewish family a few years before the war, who were in the diamond business, and were born and raised in Belgium. The family consisted of an 82 year old father with a long white beard who could hardly walk and had to use a cane, a married son of about 30 with his wife and a one year old baby, and an unmarried daughter about 25 years of age. The son was frantic. He dared not go on the street as he had Jewish-looking features. He also had a beard and was of the Hasitic religion. He begged my mother to please find a place in the country outside Antwerp. It was very difficult with such a small baby and then 5 people in all. My mother had found a place, a beautiful villa in Edigem, about one hour’s ride on the trolley. This couple were old friends of my parents and they agreed to hide the Jews in the attic with the condition they would never turn a light on at night or move a curtain on the window. My mother would bring in most of the food which had to be bought in the black market. Of course, that became my regular job to transport the food on my bike about one and one-half hours one way. But now the question came – how do get this family out to the country. The best time was on Sunday morning when the streets were pretty calm and the trolley cars were mostly empty. After first going to an early mass, my mother and I went to our friends’ house to pick them up. They had been waiting for us and were all crying. We told them not to take any suitcases as it would be too suspicious on the street, and that we would be bringing them later one by one.  When we left the house, they took one last look and cried as they had to leave behind all their beautiful belongings. It was really sad. I will never forget that Sunday morning when we started walking to where we had to take the trolley. We had to hold the old grandfather on both sides as he could hardly walk, and he just shuffled along. We also had to walk in three separate groups so as not to look too suspicious. Also, we had to take three different trolley cars and transfer. The first ride went well but when we had to disembark from the second trolley, the old grandfather could not make it down the steep steps. While we were struggling, a young German navy man of about 21 came up to help us, which we did not want, because our friends were all wearing the yellow Star of David and were desperately trying to hide it. The young German navy man Kriegsmarine picked up the old man from the top of the stairs of the trolley and while doing this, he got the yellow star against his face. He took a shocked look at it, and looked at all of us. We thought our days were numbered, but he gave us a kind goodbye and went on his way. We could not believe our luck and were all shaking in our shoes. When we arrived close to the destination, we entered the house, two at a time. On both sides of the villa, lived German sympathizers. When we all made it safely inside the house, we helped settle our 5 friends upstairs in the attic and we all agreed it was about the safest place for them to be to stay alive. The attic consisted of three very dark rooms. No one was ever allowed to put on lights or even move a curtain. Because if they did, anyone on the street could see the movement and it could become very suspicious. After our friends were settled, my mother and I went back home. 

During the remaining years of the war, my mother and I would bring groceries once or twice a week because the lady of the house was not capable of doing all the errands for the 5 people hiding upstairs. A few weeks later when I happened to go to Edegem to bring more provisions, the unmarried daughter was crying as she had a terrible toothache and could not go to a dentist because it would be too risky to go on the streets. My mother knew she had to do something about this, as soon as I came home and told her about it. My mother left to pick her up and bring her to a doctor friend who could be trusted and promptly had her tooth extracted. A few months later, one evening my father's friend, where the Jews were hiding, came to our house and was frantic. The old grandfather had suddenly died in his sleep and they didn't know what to do with the body. My father decided that the only thing they could do was to bury the grandfather in the backyard. They had to wait until all was quiet and the neighbors had gone to bed. At midnight, my father and his friend dug a hole in the yard, wrapped the old man in a blanket, and buried him.

At this time, my parents decided to move once again to the Jacob Street #55. It was the same kind of house but not as many rooms. In the meantime, my mother had taught me several different places to cross the border into Holland and I really began to know my way around different borders. My favorite place was Wuustwezel on the east side of the highway. During the three years of crossing the border (approximately 200 times), I began to know most of the farmers there. They were always very helpful. Many times when I came close to being caught, they would let me hide in the barns or sheds or would let me come into their homes. I also looked much younger than I really was and would dress accordingly so as not to arouse suspicion. I was very short in stature and that always helped a lot. I now had two passports, one I got in Holland when I became 15 years of age, and a Belgian passport when we returned to Belgium from our stay in Holland. Our Belgian passports had the name foreigner written across, as we were officially Dutch citizens living in Belgium. Officially, I was supposed to turn in my Dutch passport at the border on our return to Belgium. However, no one asked for it and I didn't volunteer to return it as I knew it would come in very handy. The two passports came in very handy for the work I was doing. Once a week, I would go into Holland to pick up certain papers, money, but mostly people, Jews, students, people trying to get to Switzerland and to England to join the Allied forces. The people I smuggled out of Holland would come over to our house for one or two days while my mother would get them false passports. They could not stay longer as our house was constantly raided by the S.S. Many times my mother would bring people by train to Paris where other people from the underground would take them to the Swiss border. It was during this time that my mother told me she had joined the underground. She had gotten official blank passports and a legal rubber stamp. Passport pictures for the refugees were quickly made to be put on the passport so as to make it look legal. When we had been living in our new house a few months, my mother told us that a family from Holland was moving in, and only the father was jewish and the mother a Catholic. They had three children, a boy of 15, two girls of 13 and 14, and a small baby of 2 which belonged to his brother in Holland. His brother and sister-in-law had already been sent to concentration camps, and Mr. and Mrs. Van Gich had taken the baby to hide, and now was living with them. My mother had provided them with false passports. Mrs. Van Gich’s brother lived in Antwerp officially but they did not get along, as Mrs. Van Gich had married a Jew, and her brother told her she should divorce him to save their lives, which she refused to do. 

The girls went to our Catholic school and to church with us so as to make it look as if they were 100% Gentiles. Mr. Van Gich stayed mostly in the house as he had sharp Jewish features. All our friends were convinced that the Dutch family upstairs were Gentiles.

It was winter and one evening my sister and I were allowed to go ice skating at the Antwerp Sports Palace with my aunt acting as chaperone. Also, every night the Van Gich’s would come downstairs to have a cup of tea and listen to the 700 p.m. news on the radio from the BBC in London. On this particular night when the news was over with, my father neglected to change stations, as one was not allowed to listen to the news from England. My parents went back upstairs with the Van Gich’s to have tea and visit. My sister, aunt, and I had left at 6:30 to go skating. My brother and cousin, who lived with us, were doing their homework in the living room. About 8:00 p.m., the front door bell rang and my brother opened the door, and seven S.S. men stormed into the house. The first one pointed a gun at my 13 year-old brother and demanded to know where the Jews were. “What Jews,” he said, “we have no Jews living here.” My cousin of 17 heard the commotion and ran to the radio to change the station, but he could not make it on time. He stood with his back glued to the radio, put his hand behind his back and quickly changed the dial. One of the S.S. men came storming int the living room, pulled my cousin away from the radio, turned the radio on but it was not tuned to England. In the meantime, the other S.S. men went upstairs where my parents and the Van Gich family were in their apartment. The S.S. men asked to see everybody’s passport. The S.S. men knew the Van Gick’s were Jewish and demanded to know where he obtained their false passports. At the same time, the S.S. men searched the whole house. They found everything but the most important thing, my mother’s famous cigar box with the blank passports and rubber stamp in it. The S.S. men tore everything apart, emptied closets, shelves, tore pictures off the wall, knocked on the walls for hidden compartments. We had a dining room with two large dressers which were very low near the floor. Each dresser had two large legs about three inches off the floor. Behind one of the legs, my mother had hidden her cigar box which luckily they missed. If they had found it, my parents would been shot the next morning. The Van Gich’s told the S.S. men that my parents had no idea they were Jewish, and just rented the apartment upstairs. In the meantime, my sister, aunt and I had no idea what had been going on that evening and left the Sports Palace at 10:00 p.m. as there was an 11:00 p.m. curfew on everyone during the war. Everyone had to be off the street at 11:00 sharp. When we arrived at our front door, my parents happened to arrive from the other side of the street. (After the S.S. had searched our house that evening, they had taken the Van Gich’s with the three oldest children, (not the baby) and my parents to prison). They had let my parents go after Mr. Van Gich convinced the Gestapo that my parents didn’t know they were Jewish. When we arrived at our front door, my parents happened to arrive at the same time and told us to get away from the front door and hide somewhere on the street until the rest of the S.S. o'clock and we were not allowed on the street. About ten houses away, we hid in a little open foyer where we were able to watch our house, and knew that something terrible had happened. Our Men kept going in and out. About 1:00 a.m. whole house was lit up. my father opened the front door, looked left and right very carefully, and called our names quietly. We answered and he told us We were frozen stiff to come in now as all the S.S. men had left. The three of us ran in from standing in the foyer for two hours. the house. My mother was crying and told us what had happened. At the prison that evening, they found out that it was Mrs. Van Gich's brother who told the Germans they were living at our house. We were up all night burning and destroying papers. My mother remarked how lucky we were that they hadn't found her cigar box with the @ Passports. The S.S. men would be back the next morning to pick up all the valuables the Jews had left behind when they fled to Switzerland. The S.S. had sealed our attic doors that same evening. They also found out that I crossed the border all the time to pick up money out of Holland for Van Gich as he came from Heemstede near Amsterdam, and the S.S. wanted to question me about it. My mother told me to leave right away and to go to Holland to hide and also to warn everybody. The S.S. had found a poem my sister Yvonne had in her pocketbook, and wanted to know where she got it. It was all against the Germans. That night at 4:00 a.m., I left even though no one was allowed on the street. I had to walk about two hours to get to the outskirts of the city, and was plenty scared to get caught. A few times, I could hear the German Security Police marching in the middle of the streets with their heavy boots. Usually, there were three of them. When I heard them, I would hide. I made it safely to Merxem where I took the trolley at 6:00 a.m. This was a special trolley for men who worked in the factories and had special permission to be on the streets before 7:00 a.m. When I got on the trolley, all the men looked and stared at me, and I suppose they must have been wondering what I, a girl, and so young, was doing here so early. The trolley would go as far as the Polygoon, and there I would have to take the black steam trolley which had a black stove in the middle of the floor to keep warm. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. at the border. Then I walked for one and one-half hours through farm country and crossed the border into Holland. I hid in Holland for four weeks. In the meantime, the morning after Van Fich’s were picked up, the German head of Security Police came. His name was Holmes. He was tall and blond with a pockmarked face and wore a large came with a saber underneath. It was the first time my parents met him, and there were many more times after this that my parents would have to face him. He came to our house in a big black car and told my mother and father to get into the car. Then he told my sister to get the little two year old baby ready. As my sister was dressing the baby, he questioned my sister about the poem that was found in her purse. She told him that she had found it in the bus in Holland and just picked it up, which wasn’t true. He told her that if she didn’t tell him the truth, he would send her to Siberia. “I am sorry,” she said, “but that is the truth, and she kept on dressing the baby. The baby very innocently said “hi” to Holmes. Holmes then proceeded to give the baby a slap in the face for saying “hi” to him. After this my sister and the baby were told to get into the car to be taken for questioning. In the meantime, three large trucks arrived with Jewish prisoners to empty our attic of all the personal belongings our Jewish friends had left behind when they fled to Switzerland.

My parents and sister were taken to German Headquarters. There they put my sister in front of Mr. Van Gich and he was told to tell my sister to her face, “Yvonne, did you know we are Jews?” My sister looked shocked and said, “No, that’s impossible, you can’t be Jewish, the kids go to our school and church. I don’t believe you.” “Well,” he said, “we are.” My parents got yelled at for not knowing my whereabouts. They said,”You just let your daughter go anywhere and not know where she is.” My  mother said, “I am sorry, I have no idea where she is.” Later, they took my father to the Gestapo Headquarters where both Van Gich and my father were beaten very badly. The Gestapo wanted to know where the passports came from. Mr. Van Gich saved my parents’ lives by not revealing they came from my mother. He told them he had bought the passports from a man he met in a cafe in Antwerp at the Keyserlei. For two days they made Van Gich go to that certain cafe to see if that man still came there, but of course, he never came.

My parents were in prison for six months and then, all of a sudden, were released. We were allowed to visit them once every two weeks and had to stand in long lines outside of the prison, sometimes for hours. My parents were very grateful to Van Gich for not telling where the passports really came from, as my mother always said, “We crawled through the eye of a needle.” While my parents were in prison, the cells were only large enough for two people but five people were put in them. My mother always wanted butter for her bread but there was none in prison. So we used to empty a tube of toothpaste from the bottom part, clean the empty tube with boiling water, pour melted butter in the tube and sealed it again at the bottom. My sister, brother and I spoke German fluently. We learned it from the children of our German refugees, and the Gestapo was always very impressed and used to ask us where we learned to speak so well. Of course, we never told them where we really learned it, and instead told them that my grandmother was German and she taught us. This always gave us special privileges when we visited our parents in prison. If they only knew! When my parents came home after their six months’ stay in prison, they decided to move once again. This time we moved to the Ooievaarstraat. It had a large beautiful store in the front and living quarters in the back, with a long enclosed driveway going to the end of the house. At the end was a large workplace with all the bakery machinery which my parents had purchased in the hope of starting a wholesale pastry business as soon as the war ended. This one particular day, my mother told me that she wanted me to go to Holland to pick up four boys who wanted to go to England. They were college students and were being forced to work in Germany in the factories, which they refused to do. My mother told me to drive them home. She would make their passports and bring them personally to Paris by train. She told me they would be waiting at her sister’s house in Zundert about one hour’s bike ride over the Dutch border.

![Screenshot 2025-04-05 at 18.05.36-min](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ByZmrRRaJl.png)

On my trip over the Dutch border into Holland, I would walk one and one-half hours or ride my bike over the back roads and farm fields. I had my two passports; one Dutch, and the other Belgian. As soon as I entered Holland, I would hide my Belgian passport and take out my Dutch passport. Many times when I would be stopped by the border guards, I would show the appropriate passport. If I was asked what I was doing, I would tell them, “I am trying to buy butter and eggs for our family.” My mother’s oldest sister, a widow, lived in Zundert, Holland, a small town 10 miles close to the border. She was well known as she owned a large nursery business by the name of “de Bie.” If the Dutch border patrol stopped me, I would just have to mention her name and say she was my aunt and they would let me go. But it wasn’t that easy with the German patrol, especially with their German shepherd dogs. I didn’t meet them too often as my mother had gotten a time schedule from the underground. Just when the border guards would change shifts, they would go back to their headquarters. In the meantime, I would slip over. Sometimes they did change schedules, without our knowledge, and I would be caught, but as young as I was, I could talk my way out of it most of the time. I am sure if I had been an adult, it wouldn’t have worked so well. I also acted very innocent and naive, and no one would believe that I had smuggled people and important divisions back and forth. I realized and knew the important work I was doing. 

When I left that certain day to pick up the four boys, I took the trolley all the way to the end near the Belgium border. Then I started my long walk along the back country roads into Holland. As I passed the last farmhouse before entering Holland, all of a sudden a young S.S. soldier, dressed in black, jumped out of the barn where he had been hiding in hopes of catching smugglers and came toward me, pointing his rifle straight at me. He told me to stop and show my passport, and asked me in Dutch where I was going. I was surprised to see a Dutch S.S. man as a border patrol and this was something new to me. I told him I was going to Holland to pick up some clothes I left behind a year ago when I lived there, and that I needed them for school. Also, I told him that I had asked the authorities for a visa several times to pick up my clothes but was refused, so I decided on my own to go this way. This was my usual story if I was caught crossing. He started to talk to me about school, and this and that, and afterwards told me to go ahead but if I happen to be stopped again, not to say that I had seen him. He also asked when I would return and I told him the next day. He said that if I came back at a certain time, he would be there again and he would let me go through. Of course, I knew I could not trust him so soon. When I arrived at my aunt's house, I told her the story. I was unable that day to bring the four students back with me. The next day, when. I crossed back into Belgium again with my make-believe school clothes, he was waiting for me at the same spot. We talked for a long time. He then proceeded to tell me how he hated to be in the Dutch S.S. but was forced by his father to join. His father was a high-ranking S.S. man. He also told me that if I wanted to go into Holland again, he would help me. He gave me his schedule and I told him when I would return. When I arrived home, I told my parents what had happened, and that I could not take the chance of bringing the four students back. My mother told me to be cautious but to hear him out. A few days later, I went back and he was waiting for me. He told me he would do anything to get out of the country and wanted to run away. I asked him if he would like to meet my parents. I mentioned to him that my mother knew some people who could help him but I would first have to ask my parents' permission. I told him not to come to our house in his S.S. uniform. After about five trips back and forth, he would come to our house on Sunday afternoon as he had no civilian clothes and was not allowed to wear them. I would meet him somewhere outside Antwerp with some of my father's clothes. If he had ever been caught in civilian clothes, it would have been curtains for him, and he would be treated as a deserter. When he was at our house that first time on Sunday afternoon, he poured his heart out to my parents and told them that he really would like to go to England to join the Dutch Army. After a few such visits, my mother told him she could help him get out of the country but that he would have to help us get the four boys over the border as they also wanted to go to England. He agreed to help and told us when it would be the best time. When I brought the four students across, he saw us although we did not see him. That same week, my mother brought all five boys safely to Paris by train with no trouble at the French-Belgian border. 

One particular day when I arrived in Holland on my many clandestine trips, my mother's brother, Uncle Frans, asked me to go next door to the neighbor's house. I asked him why. He said,"You'll see. When you go into the house they want to ask you something." I was very curious and wanted to know what this was all about. When I entered the living room, there were four boys sitting on the couch behind a bookstore. They spoke French but very little German. All four boys were very ill and undernourished; the youngest was 18 years old and was suffering from tuberculosis. They all had bleeding blisters on their feet. The bookstore owners, who had taken them in, proceeded to tell me how they got there. French boys in Holland, I could not imagine how they got there and what they were doing there. They were originally from Paris and had been forced to work in the German factories, at which time Germany was being bombed day and night. One night when the factory they had been working in was bombed flat to the ground.They had been working the night shift, but just before the bombing, had been changed to the day shift. The boys had taken this opportunity to run away. The factory was located near the Dutch border, in the north of Holland. They ran all night and hid themselves during the day, and had crossed the German-Dutch border successfully. After a few days, they arrived in the northern city of Groningen, and were picked up by Dutch people who were related to the family of the bookstore owners. They had purchased train tickets to send them South, and that is how they arrived next door to my uncle's neighbors.

The people of the bookstore knew that I brought people over the border, and asked my uncle to asked me if I would be willing to take the chance and bring them to Belgium on their way back home to Paris. I was able to speak French and German, and spent the whole evening explaining how we would go about it. The next day,we boarded the bus separately and sat in various places. No one was allowed to talk to one another, and I told them to follow me and to do as I did. The bus driver, who had known me since I was six years old, was also a German sympathizer and oddly enough knew of my work but never said anything. I used to give him black market tobacco and other things. He also was not allowed to make a stop just before arriving at the border, but at my request, he always did. Many times during that bus ride, a German patrol would enter the bus to check passports; this time I was lucky, no patrol.The boys were extremely nervous but I tried to calm them down by giving them a little smile. About three miles before the Dutch border, I motioned to the driver to stop. I got off and so did the four boys. I told the bus driver I would see him next week and he knew that I would bring him black market goodies for the favor of stopping where he wasn't supposed to.

It was summertime; the wheat fields and bushes were thick with foliage. That was very good for me as there were plenty of places to hid from the German patrols. When we had walked about three-quarters of an hour, we were nearing the border crossing.I hid the boys in the wheat field and told them not to talk or move from there until I got back. I wanted to check the road ahead of us before going on. When I arrived at the end of the road, I looked to the left and to the right and I got the biggest shock. On the right of the border crossing about 300 feet was a German border guard with his bicycle, a rifle over his shoulder,and a German shepherd dog. I quickly pulled back and stood frozen for a moment and was sure that the dog had heard me. What if I would be picked up; where would the boys go? I wasn't concerned for my own safety but I could not let the boys get caught after all they had been through. I waited a few minutes, and didn't dare move, but nothing happened. I started to walk back very quietly and slowly – thank God for the thick bushes and wheat fields. I started to run, looked back, and dove into the field where I had hidden the boys. I told them what I saw, and told them not to move or speak. We stayed there a couple of hours. I came out of my hiding place and checked the border crossing once again. Everything was clear. I ran back and got the boys and told them to move fast and one by one they crossed over to the other side into the farmhouse where I hid them in the barn. I then went into the kitchen and asked the lady if I could go through her back yard, over the water ditch, under barbed wire into another field where cows and horses were grazing in the field. We then came to another farmhouse and I knew the people there. We hid there for a while. After checking the road to the highway, we started walking the backroads to where we had to take the steam trolley to Antwerp.I prayed that there wouldn't be any passport check on the trolley as the four boys had no identity cards whatsoever. All went well going into Antwerp. When I arrived home, my mother was surprised to see me with the four French boys. I told her what had happened.The boys stayed with us two days while my mother made their passports for the trip to Paris and home. A few days later, we got word that they arrived safely across the French border. They thanked my family, and especially me, for all we had done for them.

During that time, there were so many false passports being made, especially in Holland, that the German authorities decided to have all Dutch citizens have a special stamp put on their passports. To get such a stamp, every Dutch citizen had to go to the City Hall to get one. Since I officially lived in Belgium, I could not go.Now I was unable to use my Dutch passport. However, within a few weeks, through the Dutch underground, I got a false passport and put the stamp on myself. I had hoped that no one would check my new stamp.

At this time, the black market was getting to be quite a thriving business in Holland as it had been in Belgium. A lot of people were making fortunes. To stop this, the German authorities ordered all newly printed money in Holland. People who had made a fortune had to account for how they made it. The Germans would announce such a change only a few days ahead of time. My mother happened to have 600 Dutch guilders in her possession and did not want to lose it, so she told me to take the money to her sister. A person was not allowed to have foreign currency in their possession. My mother's sister could account for the money because she owned a large business. She would then exchange our money for the newly printed Dutch guilders. As I was getting ready to leave, I took the money and put it inside my bra. My mother saw me and told me that it wasn't safe to hide in the usual place as it was a lot of money to lose. In those days, 600 guilders was a lot of money. It was a snap for me to smuggle this money into Holland, or so I thought. My mother insisted on a better hiding place because I was getting very careless. So my aunt sewed the money in my raincoat, inside the sleeves under the arms, between the lining. When I left, I tied my raincoat on the back of my bike as I was headed for a four hour bike ride. There was no need for a raincoat but it was a good hiding place. When I arrived near the Belgian border, I usually would stop in a certain cafe where many smugglers used to meet, and where I could leave my bike in storage if and when I took the trolley and was too tired to continue.

It was in the middle of strawberry time and the cafe where I always stopped to get information from the smugglers who came back from Holland to see which side of the border was least patrolled, the east or the west. They informed me that the Germans had doubled the border patrol on the east side, my favorite crossing. So, I decided to take the west side which I knew very well and had just a few weeks before brought an Englishman over the border who had been shot down over Holland. During the time I was in the cafe,I noticed that there were only men there. As I was departing on my journey, a young mother about 24, asked me if I was going to Holland. I said yes. She asked if she could go with me. I said I was sorry but I preferred to go alone, but she could follow me far behind as she had never crossed before. I had both my passports in a leather bag which was tied in front on my steering wheel. How-ever, I neglected to hide my Dutch passport. As I was going along the country roads which were only wide enough for a bike, there were many trees and shrubs -- good places to hide. I was almost in Holland, when all of a sudden two German soldiers jumped from behind a bush with their rifles pointed straight at me, and ordered me to stop. I was not afraid, and told them in German, "O.K., hold your horses, I am not running away before I could show my passport." One of them went into my little bag which was tied on my steering wheel. He pulled out both passports with my picture on them. They asked me where I was going. I told them I wasn't there to smuggle anything, but that I was going to Holland to pick up my clothes which I left behind a few months ago. I always told them the same story. They did not question me about my two passports -- that was to come later. They then told me to follow them to a place in the woods where they had about 30 men hiding. They were all sitting on the ground, all smugglers who had been caught that day. I was the only girl among them. I was told to sit there and wait. My lady friend must have seen I was caught as I never saw her again. I had been caught many times before, but was always let go. Not this time, I could not talk my way out of it, and then there were my two passports with the new false stamp on one passport. The Dutch passport in a way was O.K. However, I had left Holland about 1-1/2 years ago, yet I had the newly issued stamp on an old passport. I supposedly hadn't been in Holland since then. We all sat in the woods and were not allowed to speak. The two Germans kept catching more smugglers. We were about 40 altogether, and I was the only female and 16-1/2 years old. When we had been sitting there about one-half hour or more, we were told to get onto our bikes. One German rode in the front and the second one all the way in the back of the long line. After we had been gone awhile, we arrived at the German border patrol headquarters. It was a large beautiful house and looked like a castle without a moat around it.We were told to put our bikes against the wall of the house and were ushered inside. The house had very large rooms with no furniture in most rooms, only chairs facing the wall. The men were told to sit on the chairs facing the wall, hands high against the wall. They put me in the kitchen in front of a large table. There were Germans running around all over. One came with a couple of large baskets of strawberries, dumped them on the table, and ordered me to clean them. They kept me in the kitchen all night and well into the next afternoon. I slept with my head on the table that night. In the meantime, my aunt was waiting for me. Also, my mother had expected me home the same day I had left. I knew they were very worried, wondering what had happened to me. I knew I would be questioned. Around noontime, I was led into this beautiful large ballroom size room. As I entered it, there was a very large desk with a high-ranking officer sitting in front of it and another office standing next to him. He had his hat on, and a silver saber was dangling low next to his trousers and was pacing back and forth.The German sitting behind the desk started to question me, where did I live, where was I going, why was I going, why wasn't I smuggling like all the others. I told them the same story about my clothes left behind in Holland. He said I should ask for permission to go to Holland and request a visa. I answered that my mother had requested this several times but to no avail, and that I was sick and tired of asking, and decided against my mother's wishes, to smuggle myself into Holland to get my clothes. He said I have two passports here both belong to you, which is the real one. I answered both of them, and explained the whole story to him how I had obtained them. He got very mad and started screaming at me. He proceeded to rip my passport to shreds and threw it against the wall. What a nasty temper he had. He never questioned me about my newly acquired stamp. I guess he didn't notice it. After he calmed down, he asked me, "How come you speak German so fluently." I said,"Oh, we were raised in Germany by my grandmother who is German."He was flattered, and liked that answer. If he only knew where we really learned the language. It always helped me tremendously being able to speak German so fluently. After all the questioning,I was led back to the kitchen and waited. A while later, I saw the first female; she was German. She told me to come with her to a small room next to the kitchen. She told me to get undressed. She checked all my clothes, felt the collar of my dress, the hem and so on and could find nothing. I knew by then they suspected me of more than just smuggling food over the border. After that, a German soldier took me outside and asked me which bike belonged to me.I pointed to it. There must have been 100 bikes all over the place.He took my bike and started to check it all over. I was very worried about my raincoat with the money sewn under the arms. He looked under my saddle, unscrewed the bell. At that point, I had to do something. I got mad, took my raincoat off the back of my bike, threw it on the dirty sandy ground and said, "What on God's earth are you looking for?" "I have absolutely nothing with me." He looked at me and at that point just gave up. We walked back to the house with my raincoat left on the ground. I did not dare to pick it up so as not to draw attention to it. It was the only piece of garment they hadn't checked thoroughly. After about one-half hour,I was told that a soldier would escort me back over the border into Belgium. By then it was in the afternoon. The man who escorted me back told me he was 68 years old. As we were walking part of the way, he told me that his son, who was in the airforce, was getting married, and he was not allowed to to to the wedding in Germany.He showed me pictures and talked to me about his family. He was a real gentleman. I told him I had to get to Holland to pick up my clothes, and that I was going back. He said, "Don't come this way this week, they have doubled all the border patrols." Then he said,"Try next week, I am sure you'll make it." We said goodbye after we got to Belgium, and I went on my way home. Half way home in the town of Polygoon, I noticed my mother on her bike looking for me. I yelled Ma. She yelled from across the street, "Where have you been?" I said, "I got caught, " I yelled back. "What about the money," she said. She knew she didn't have to worry about me because I always made it.


