20: Postscript

Throughout the Thirties, Father was the manager of the Tiel branch of the Bank of Amsterdam. At first we lived in Tiel, where I was born, and later we moved to Lingedijk in Drumpt, which is just outside Tiel. 

Mother and Father with Carel, ca 1930

In 1938, when Father was transferred to the bank’s main branch in Amsterdam pending an expected transfer to a branch in Bussum, we moved to Naarden. Father commuted daily to his office in Amsterdam, at first by bus, and later by train.

Before that, he had been offered a manager’s post at a branch of the Bank of Zeeland. By accepting this job he would have had to forfeit his pension from the Bank of Amsterdam. I presume that was his main motivation for turning down the offer.

If he had accepted the job offer, we would have moved to Zeeland, where we would have found ourselves in the midst of bloody fighting, first in 1940, and again in 1944. Not only would we most likely have lost all our possessions, but we might not even have survived the war.

On the other hand, if Father had stayed in Tiel, we would also have been in trouble. We would have been evacuated, together with everyone else in Tiel and Drumpt, in 1944. 

Fifty years later, Jan Daalderop, who lived in the same street as we did,  described to me what happened to him, his mother and his sisters. His father had already been shot by the Germans. It was a miracle that the rest of the family survived. The evacuees braved harsh weather on their long walk to safety. There was no food. They had to leave all their possessions behind. 

The Germans later sent these to Germany, ostensibly as “gifts, with love from Holland”. It goes without saying that nothing ever returned.

It was actually quite amazing how our family made it through the war. Nobody was killed or wounded, not even Mother’s relatives in Dutch-Indonesia: two sisters, their husbands and two children. Mother did catch TB in 1944/45 and it took her a half year to recuperate, but she recovered completely. I was found to be “Mantoux-positive”, which means I must have suffered a light infection, and it has given me a lifetime immunity.

I will always be grateful we came through without suffering any real losses. But I'm also grateful to have experienced this difficult time firsthand. 

Today there are so many people who also, for a variety of reasons, have a very hard life. Due to my war experiences, I can understand a little better what it must be like for them. 

What I cannot comprehend is why people, especially under difficult circumstances, waste food so easily. During the Occupation we never wasted a morsel, and afterwards we never did either.

I hope this description of my experiences during the dark years between 1939 and 1945 will help to explain what life was like to those people who never had the opportunity to have been there themselves.

C. F. Th. von Ziegenweidt

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 1998