Re: Questions for the Panel of Elders
Kees Vanderheyden (keesv@sympatico.ca)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 20:09:33 -0400
Dear Sophie and Chris
My school was a big and high brick building with a huge mosaic of John
the Baptist on the facade and a long school yard in front of it. We used
to look at big John the baptist and sing crazy song about him, that I
dare not write here. Inside I dont remember very clearly, but I do
remember that during air raid alerts that we had quite often, the
principal would pull the string of a red siren that would wail awfully
and we would all dive under our pulpits for cover. Later the principal
told us that our wooden pulpit were not safe enough so we had to go into
the corridor and sit with our back against the outside wall. He
explained that this way when the bombs would make the walls fall, the
walls would fall outwards away from us. We wondered what would happen to
the inside walls in front of us. We would sit there nervously, listening
to the slightest sound until the safety signal from the siren. Well no
bomb every fell on the school so we survived safely but not without the
daily drills and thrills.
Rationing. We had rationing books and big sheets of foodstamps. One row
for bread, the other for meat, one for bicycle tires, another for coal.
We had no sugar, hardly ever any butter but some porkdrippings. Bread
looked funny, when you squeezed it, it would stay crushed and look like
clay. We ate lots of porridge and potatoes. My family never went hungry,
but my parents worked very hard to put food on the table. We had no
sweets at all, so no cavities either and we never had to go to the
dentist.
We spent our time going to school as long as there was school, but
during the last months of the war in 44 we had no more classes and
nothing but free time. Free to play, to steal stuff from the Germans,
to watch the bombers in the sky, to roam around, to play war amongst
ourselves, to build crazy plans, play circus with our little dog. Time
flew by. We felt like on holidays. All this looks pretty innoncent, but
don't forget I was then 10 or 11 years old and living in a little
village.
My parents did not go away or fight. We were under German occupation, so
with did not go to the army, there was no more army. Some unmarried men
and women did fight in the underground, but that was less common with
people with children to take care of.
Our house was only slightly damaged. A big window was blown out by the
blast of a bomb that fell at some distance from us. There war more
damage in other part of the village. Our church tower was blown to
pieces by allied gunners who seemed to ajust their big guns by aiming at
church spires.
I hope I have answered your questions, if you need more information
tell me I'd be delighted to help out.
Kees Vanderheyden
the Dutch schoolboy, now living in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Canada