Emanuel Verveer,my dad, my hero

By David Verveer




chapter 1

Introduction

Those stories are, just like my own tale, spiced with probabilities, and are based on their personal comprehension of a situation and colored with their convictions, which include non-consciously a trial of improving their own image in the eyes of future readers. One has to remember that history is always a mirror of the writer's insight. Not with-standing the above, one has to understand that all historical facts are created from memories (correct or incorrect) by eye witnesses and researchers.

Trying not to stray away from historical reality and by controlling my personal feelings about these days, I made an attempt to built up a story of a very gifted person, caught into the whirl stream of the second world war, fighting for a cause, which after all, might not have been his from the beginning, enduring betrayals and cowardly behavior of his countrymen, as my father saw himself patriotic Dutch on the first place and Zionist Jew second, a controversy which logically can not work.

It is painful, that those Dutch civil servants during the occupation got their priorities mixed up, by thinking that serving their new masters "the Germans" was more important to the nation, than the well being of their Jewish countrymen and citizens, especially the bizarre betrayal of the NSB, (even though, based on my own experience, one such a Dutch Nazi, who suspected me in being Jewish child, did not report his suspicions to the SS, and even allowed his own daughter to play with me, a fact which provided me with a certain safety net).

In order to write a readable and interesting biography, you need to report personal tidbits, which make the reading more interesting, but here I really needed to fish in low water, as nobody was available to fill in those spice details. I was only 3 years and one day old when I saw my father for the last time. Further more, our family handled the prewar and war experiences as taboo and memories to forget and ignore, which is certainly not a very good way to deal with war traumas, but as I read very common by Holocaust survivors.
Only now, when we are aging, we are sufficiently strong (or is it, weak) to be able to face the abnormalities of our youth, and try to write about it, most likely as a form of self-treatment of our post traumas.

I received much help from my brothers, sister and cousins with data, copies of documents, information and memories, which helped to compile a complete and authentic document, However, if any of the future readers of this work are able to provide additional data, or / and corrections, please send it to me, so that I can include it in a new corrected version.

My father had only a short period of time to live, during one of the most traumatic eras of Europe. He lost his life in service of his fatherland but his life story should not been seen as a tragedy, as I am sure he enjoyed every day he lived. The sad part of his story is that that the sacrifice giving his life, has been proven futile, as the design drawings of the Ijssel line defense plan that were found in his possession when caught red-handed, were never used, and final victory over the Nazis was accomplished much later (7 months) and required sacrifices of many more lives and suffering. But as said before, my father considered himself a Zionist Jew, but this did not clash with being a Dutch Patriot and joining the resistance he considered as his duty as citizen.

Having said this, the precise spot where my father was arrested appears to be a crucial shackle in the War, as both the Allies and the Germans were fascinated with the dike system around the town of Zwartsluis, as demonstrated further on in my story. Interesting that years later, the NATO organization (during the Cold War) rebuilt the fortresses on site, in order to prevent possible invasion by the Communists.









Chapter 2

The origin of our family

You will ask yourself, why does he go back in family history, in order to write about his dad, but those data, in my opinion, are essential for comprehending the reasons for my father's actions and deeds, and why my parents would not to trust the Germans by going voluntary to the transfer and concentration camps.

The information on, why and how the first Jews appeared in Holland (around the time of the "Eighty Year War" between Spain and the revolting Dutch provinces, and of the inquisition in the last part of the 15th century), does in actual fact refer to another group of Jews, the "Sephardim Jews", who were banned from Spain and Portugal in 1492. However, the majority of Dutch Jews, including our family, descended from different group of Jews, the "Ashkenazim Jews" (Ashkenazim, are Jews who arrived from East and Middle Europe, using the Yiddish language).

Those Ashkenazim Jews arrived in religious tolerant Holland during the 16th century, in small trading groups, slowly but surely spreading from town to town. Those Jews were mostly small time traders, traveling from market to market, passing merchandise and handling money, eventually, commercially covering the entire European region. These Jews were extremely religious and would not be caught out on Sabbath (Saturday) without being able to pray in a synagogue, with at least 10 adult men, as required for the "Minyan" prayers.

This means they would not travel on foot and cart for more than 20 to 30 k m's during the week, in order to be able to return home safely on Friday.

But if the new target market town would receive the traders positively and would give them settling permits, they would form a group (colony) of traders, including community servers such as kosher bakers, butchers, a rabbi, teachers, etc. to enable .Jewish life in the new town (with at least ten adult men).

Local rulers would encourage the Jewish traders to settle in their midst, both in order to boost their local economy and to receive information on what is happening in the European political theater. Many times those Jewish traders would become eventually the personal bankers and backers of the regime.

One of the first of such Jewish communities was in Aalten, in the eastern corner of the Netherlands, just over the German border, but during the 16th century these Jewish .migrations would slowly cover the entire Netherlands.

It is untraceable when our family first settled in the Netherlands, or from which region they came in / or outside Europe. We know now most registered details of my direct father- line going back to 1750, when the first Verveer (our family name Verveer dates from 1812, when our forefather who chose this name at The Hague municipal registry) was born in Amsterdam, and wandered from town to town, until he reached the Hague, where he and his descendants continued living uninterrupted for more than 150 years (mainly in the Jewish quarter) until the Holocaust ended all this.


The Jewish quarter (called "de buurt" or "wijk R") was a relative small area, in the center of the town, where (mostly) Ashkenazim Jews lived around the synagogues, the Jewish schools and kosher shops. In 1850, 61% of the Jews in The Hague lived in the Jewish quarter (about 2,200 from the total of 3,600 Jews in The Hague).

This Jewish neighborhood has never been a Ghetto, Jews were never forced to live there, nor were there any gates or walls to divide between the Gentile and Jewish populations. According to the researcher I.B. van Creveld, who wrote about the vanished Jewish neighborhood, The neighborhood housed during all times more Christians than Jewish Inhabitants.

In 1850, the Dutch Jews were still a socially isolated Yiddish speaking minority, whose contacts with the gentile population was mostly restricted to peddling and market trading. The Jews of those days were extremely religious and social mixing with the Dutch simply did not happen. They conversed between each other in Yiddish and with their gentile customers in a local developed language, nowadays named Bargoens, (a kind of Dutch slang, dated from the 17th century) which is a mixture of Yiddish, Dutch, Hebrew and German, without any grammar or rules, which still can be traced in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, with some words that entered daily Dutch.

But the refrain from having contact between the Jews and the local gentile population was encouraged on both sides, the Jews distrusting everything Christian, frightened for discrimination of the authorities, on the other side, the Dutch Calvinistic origin looked upon the Jews as murderers of Jesus, considering those funny dressed people, speaking a peculiar language, not to be trusted. The government and administration were more enlightened, but until the Second World War, Jews remained somehow outsiders.

The use of the Yiddish as first language by the Dutch Jews started declining during the time my father's grandfather, Emanuel (Sr.), who was born in 1852, due to the law that also the Jewish communities had to send their kids to a Dutch language taught school, causing slowly but surely, that the younger generation replaced their Yiddish with Dutch as first language at home. A Royal degree in 1857 ordering all Dutch education (irrelevant if Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, public or private schools) should be in the Dutch language. This was the main trigger for rapid assimilation of the Dutch Jewry, and also an opening for speeding up the integration of Jews in the general population, including choice of profession, etc., which had been restricted for Jews only 50 years earlier, now became officially equal for all citizens.

Emanuel (Sr.) still was a merchant who sold furniture, but Joseph, his eldest son, became a "Master carpenter" (a professional title of foreman and master craftsman), who specialized in ship furniture dressing. This peculiar choice of profession was very rare for Jews, who by tradition, kept to professions related to trade or community service (butcher, rabbi, doctor, lawyer, banker, and teacher) but a Jew becoming a Master carpenter, was still something peculiar. He worked until the War by H.P. Mutters & Zoon, The Royal Dutch Manufacture of Furniture, a world wide known firm, specializing in ships furniture.

During Emanuel (Sr.) 's time most Jews lived still near and around the Synagogue, being religious and poor, but in the new era of liberalization (following the French revolution and Napoleonic reign in Holland), encouraged the financially comfortable Jewish families to leave their crowded Jewish quarters, into new mixed neighborhoods outside the quarter.

The Netherlands was financially thriving mostly on the shipping trade with the new world and the Dutch colonies, and functioned as transfer port for the Eastern European countries. Logically, in this environment ship furniture manufacturing was a good rewarded profession, and Joseph was considered comfortable in comparison to those Jews still living in the Jewish quarter.



Chapter 3

-The Verveer / Spiero clan

Jewish families, (the Verveer and the Spiero families), originated from the 50 Jewish families originally living in the Jewish quarter of The Hague but now living outside the neighborhood. The 2 families were very close, and when Joseph (Emanuel Sr. eldest son) married Heintje (Hendrika) Spiero, one of Joseph's brothers married Heintje's brother, and one of Heintje's brothers married Joseph's sister.

Such multiple family connections between two Jewish families happened often in those days, as socially those families met frequently at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other social locations, went together on trips and holidays, jointly were in business etc. My father had numerous cousins and nephews who were related to him from both his father's and his mother's side. Family was extremely important in those days; we are talking now about the years 1920 – 1930.

Europe was getting ready for a new war, Germany looked for revenge for their defeat in the First World War, but Holland was an island of tranquility in the midst of all this, with Gentile and Jew alike, enjoying life.



Chapter 4

The disappearance of our black sheep

Heintje's oldest brother enrolled in the Dutch Colonial Army, a deed uncalled for by Jews of that time, and was sent to serve them in Dutch Indies (Indonesia of that time, which was a Dutch colony) There he set up a family, (married twice, had 8 children and eventually was killed as an old man, ex service man of the KNIL (Dutch Army) by the Japanese occupier.

He was our family's black sheep and never again re connected with our families; only recently, after our investigation with help of Internet, we have discovered what had happened to him and where he spent his life. . His break with the family, especially with his parents was in those days a very dramatic move, as the family was very close.
Such a family banning, was part of the Jewish family traditions of those days, which did not allow people to break with religion and tradition, and people crossing this fine line of behavior were punished with banishment, specially if marrying outside the faith (even marrying with Sephardim was frowned upon) or not accepting parental decisions.

chapter 5

My father's early days

Joseph and Heintje, my grandparents on my father's side, had three siblings, the oldest Rebbecca (Betsy) was born in 1898 died at the age of 28 .She had been ill for many years, I don't know what illness she suffered which eventually killed her, more details I did not discover, as my late mother, last survivor of that generation, joint the Verveer / Spiero family clan long after Betsy's death, but I presume they knew each other, as my mother, as very young girl, was employed by the giant Jewish Mall, the "Bijenkorf" where Betsy worked as well, until her death and it might be very logical that my parents met, when my dad, as young boy, visited his older sister at work.

Joseph and Heintje had a second daughter, Katrien, she was the mother of my only cousins on my father's side (Eef, Joop and Henny).

My father Emanuel Jr. was born, the male child, a late comer required to continue the family name (he was 9 years younger than his sister Katrien). I don't know much about his childhood, only that he was a very gifted student, with strait A's in all studies, especially in technical subjects.



Only one generation earlier, Jewish children were automatically send to work at the age of 12 / 13, in order to provide an addition income for the family, but my father's family, sufficiently comfortable financially, allowed my father, a bright student to complete his primary and secondary (technical - carpenter) schooling, and even allowed him to complete his study as building engineer and architect at The Hague Royal Academy of Arts (more or less, an unheard schooling for Jews of those days).

The Royal Academy for Art in The Hague is the oldest Academy in Holland that opened its doors on the 27th of September 1682. Famous Dutch painters, such as: Johannes Bosboom, Isaac Israels, Willem Maris, Johan Hendrik Weisenbruch and George Hendrik Breitner studied there.

During the rule of King Willem I, the Royal Academy added the faculty for schooling of Civil Engineers and Architects

p.s. My father and my brother Joseph (Bob) studied at the Royal Academy of Arts

Chapter 6

The Netherlands after the Great War, absorbing refugees

The First World War broke out and was fought all outside the Dutch borders, the country managed to stay neutral and not- involved. The monarchy's last and strongest support had been broken, and finally even Hindenburg, himself a lifelong royalist, was obliged, with some embarrassment, to advise the Emperor to give up the crown.
The following day, the now-former German Emperor Wilhelm II crossed the border by train and went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout the war. Upon the conclusion of the in early 1919, Article 227 expressly provided for the prosecution of Wilhelm "for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties", but Holland refused to extradite him, despite appeals from the Allies. The erstwhile Emperor first settled in, and then subsequently purchased a small castle which was to be his home for the remainder of his life. From this residence, Wilhelm absolved his officers and servants of their oath of loyalty to him; however he himself never formally relinquished his titles, and hoped to return to Germany in the future. The Weimar Republic allowed Wilhelm to remove twenty-three railway wagons of furniture, twenty-seven containing packages of all sorts, one bearing a car and another a boat, from the former home at Potsdam.
Cartoon picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II

But The Netherlands did not only gave the Kaiser a new home it also became a safe haven for different kind of refugees, "the Jews" fleeing from anti-Semitic Eastern Europe (especially Poland), pausing in Holland on their way to the USA. These Polish Jews, many of them remained in Holland, nearly doubled the number of Jews in the country. Most of them only spoke Yiddish, were very religious, and did not integrate into the existing Jewish communities of Ashkenazim (a generation of which mostly did not anymore speak or understand Yiddish) and / or Sephardic Jews. Some of these Polish Jews managed to make in the next years huge fortunes (even during the war), and buy their safety with money.

Hitler's climb to power in 1933 meant bad news for German Jews. Hitler had used strong words, both verbally as well as in his book which he had written earlier while he still was in prison. It was quite clear what he thought about the Jews and the Jewish race in general. His book was called "Mein Kampf "– (My Struggle) in which he described the Jew as his enemy. Now that he was in power in Germany, the Jew automatically became the enemy of Germany, of the Reich - Empire. Many Jews saw in Hitler and the Nazis a real threat to their freedom and even their lives. Because of this threatening environment, a large number decided that leaving Germany would be the only answer for them. Many applied for a refugee status in the Netherlands as the Netherlands had shown true colors by maintaining neutrality during WW I, and expected it to also stay neutral during the next conflict in Europe. How wrong they were!

Before the 2nd WW, Refugees simply could not expect to receive citizenship nor could they enjoy the benefits of such citizenship from any state they sought refuge in. Refugees simply were not looked upon as full citizens in their adopted new homeland. as sovereign states did not encourage the influx of refugees in their country. Hence they refused to give them the protection and care they owed and showed to their own people. In the years following, from 1933 on, a legal German Jewish refugee was registered exclusively and treated differently compared to that of a regular Dutch citizen. It must be noted here, that under the Nazis, the persecution of the Jews in Germany not only produced a large number of legal Jewish refugees, an equally large number of illegal Jewish refugees crossed, or tried to cross the borders as well. Also the Dutch government did not treat legal and illegal refugees in the same manner. The latter were not welcomed and when caught at the border or apprehended later on, most were simply sent back. The Jewish refugees, legal or illegal, were also not treated by the Dutch Government equally to their Dutch Jews citizens. According the law, a Dutch Jew was a Dutch citizen first and Jew second. Dutch Jews officially carried Dutch citizenship papers. When war in Europe broke out in 1939, mistrust against those unfortunate refugees only increased.

A population census was ordered during 1936. Its purpose was clear: "Each person born in the Netherlands, and continued to live there and who calls the Netherlands his home, is required to register at the City or Town Hall. He or she must have a personal card filled out with pertinent personal data. The card includes the full name, sex, date and place of birth, home address, marital status, occupation and religion. This new Identity card, once filled out, shall follow the owner from 'the cradle to the grave'.

When someone moved, or else left for another country or passed away, the appropriate document must be completed and attached to his or her Personal Identity Card at the local City or Town Hall, thus leaving a perfect paper trail.

Mr. Lentz, director of the Government Inspection of the Population Registry, designed the Personal Identity Card. The new Card Index System was triumphantly hailed with words such as, "No where in the world is a better, more complete, more accurate index system to be found in comparison to ours." The only ones not required to register for this Housing Registry were the wanderers and vagabonds. They did not dwell in homes although they live within the State's boundary lines. The same could be said for Gypsies and caravan dwellers. Of course, last but not least there were the legal and illegal refugees.

In the years following WW I these refugees came mostly from Eastern European countries. Polish Jews, most of them stateless. The latter were Jews who had become stateless because their country of birth no longer existed as a result of the war. New countries came into being which did not recognize these stateless individuals. For individuals we must read Jews because Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe was rampant. After 1933, the Polish and stateless Jews, who were not welcome in Germany, and now also German Jews began to seek refugee status in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, the Netherlands did not have an open-door policy for them. Polish Jews were welcomed less than German Jews because, in general, Polish Jews were poorer. And once within our borders they became a liability. It was extremely difficult for them to find work. Could work be found, it usually meant that a Dutch laborer was out of work. In 1934 a new law became effective specifically aimed at providing work for Dutch citizens rather than for foreigners. This law was called, "Law regulating the performance of labor by foreigners". This law stated that should work become available, Dutch laborers were to have first choice before a foreigner could be hired. No matter how one looked at it, after the Stock-Market crash of the late twenties it had become a serious problem finding work all around, whether one was citizen or refugee. Certainly not having a Personal Identity Card was a serious problem; no permit meant you were illegal. As an illegal one's chances of finding work was minimal.

The problem of refugees seeking asylum in the Netherlands became even more acute following the now infamous Kristallnacht - Crystal Night or the night of the broken glass which took place on the nights of 8 and 9 November 1938. First there had been a large increase in the exodus of Jews out of Austria. This was realized right after the annexation of Austria by the Nazis in March of 1938. Next an even larger number of Jews fled Germany following Kritallnacht. Therefore the Department of Internal Affairs now issued a decree, on the 19th of December 1938, that all Jewish and non-Aryan refugees had to be registered as well, legal and illegal refugees. According to this brand-new decree issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, these refugees could not be entered into the Population Registry. They would not receive a normal identification card like the rest of the Dutch people, rather a separate Card System and a different Personal Identification Card was introduced for them. All men and women were to receive such a special card, for the men the color was light green and for the women the color was pink. Life for the legal as well as for the illegal refugee certainly did not look rosy at all.

To accommodate all these refugees the government opened so-called safe houses which looked more like interment camps because of strict supervision.

These camps were at later stage adopted by the Germans as transfer camps for the Jewish prisoners, on the way to the gas chambers.


Chapter 7

On my mother's side – the Alters

My mother was the youngest daughter, the eight's child of the Isaac Alter family branch, another large merchant family from the same Jewish neighborhood.
She was 14 years younger than her oldest sister Carolina.

The Alters unlike the Verveer's and Spiero's, remained religious. My grandmother, on my mother's side, died when my mother was only 7 years old (1914) from cancer, and my grandfather, heart-broken, became very depressed, and slowly but surely, brought his large family to poverty, losing his business, ending up, serving the Sephardic community in services such as Shamus (concierge) Matzo baker and Grave attendant. The Alter family, an huge clan, several times tried to help him with setting up a new business, but only later in life, when he married his second wife (Elisabeth Poons in 1921, Elisabeth was a friend of my mother's oldest sister Carolina) who was engaged to take care of the younger kids, he manage to recover and even was engaged in small family business enterprises.

Thus around 1925 he regained his family (the Alter clan) respect, and became again socially acceptable. Of course, for my mother, this came much too late, she had been forced to start working being only 13 years old, selling lady cloves at the before mentioned store, the Bijenkorf".
As she was very artistically inclined and creative, after helping a friend with window dressing, she was employed there as window dresser.

My parents met again at the Jewish Basket ball club, (a Dutch variation of basket ball played with mixed male and female players). Social and sport activities of the Jewish population was in Jewish clubs, nobody Jewish would join a public (non Jewish) club.

Somehow the integration stopped with integrated education, but socially, the Jews kept them selves very much apart.

I don't think that my parents were very good players (with my father being small and short) but after a long (normal for that time) courtship of three years, the wedding date was set.

Even though, the Verveer and Alter family were socially apart, this never was thought a problem. But if my mother would have dated a Gentile, she would have been ousted forth-with, like her oldest brother, my uncle Samuel, who married the domestic help in 1937, engaged after my grandmother died in 1914 (his bride, my aunt Frieda Wilhelmine Anna Caroline Hill was a dear and loving German (Lubeck) born, non-Jewish woman). Uncle Saam, (as he was called) was very religious and rather dumb person, his marriage caused his ousting from the family and from the entire Jewish Ashkenazim congregation, and until the war broke out, he prayed at the Sephardic synagogue, where my grand-dad had served during his low days.

In the neighboring country, Germany, Hitler had come to power, and anti-Semitism started to show his ugly head. Holland was by law tolerant with all religions and racism was not yet known, and when a Dutch Nazi sympathizing movement was formed that during the occupation converted into the NSB (collaborators with the German occupier) they did not gain much support from the average Dutchman, however it must be said that during those post war days, Holland definitively became less tolerant with it's by refugees swollen Jewish minority, (and of course also other minorities such as the Gypsies). The Dutch tolerated Jews which were fully integrated, spoke Dutch, dressed and behaved as normal citizens, but those Yiddish Polish Refugees acted and behaved different.



Chapter 8

My parents wedding and Israeli period



Both my parents were convicted and staunch Zionists, believing that the future of the Jews should be in their own home nation, and both were agnostic, but considered them selves Jews. This looks like a clear contradiction and illogical, but very common with Jews living in the Diaspora. But unlike many of the local Jewish population, they intended to immigrate to Palestine, and not use the word "Zionism", as social discussion theme, suitable for Jews suffering, but not for Jews living in tolerant Holland.

And indeed, they married in 1933 and their honeymoon was a one way ticket to Palestine (a British mandate in those days). My father had participated in a Zionist training camp, but as Engineer, agriculture was wasted on him, he believed that in Israel, construction engineers were required more than farmers.

In Haifa, my dad worked for the famous Architect Harry Rosenthal, born in Posen (today Poland) in 1892. He lived and worked in Berlin where he ran a successful architectural practice. In 1933 he managed to flee to Palestine, but suffered from the sub-tropical climate. In 1938 he immigrated to England, where despite numerous attempts, he did not manage to re-establish his architectural career. He died in London in 1966. He was a fore-runner of the famous “Bauhaus” style. My dad worked for him in 1935.

In 1936, they moved to Ramat Gan, were my dad worked for architect office with International reputation, Clifford Holliday and Pearce Hubbard, who had offices in London, Jerusalem and Haifa. He worked both as designer and supervisor on the new building of the Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv.

Today there is a Discount Branch Bank (which bought Barclays) on the same address, I went to look at the building of today, apparently the ground floor was renovated, but the building (Bauhaus style) remained unchanged.


I considered the highlight of his professional carrier, working and participating in Palestine during the Golden Period of the Bauhaus style (today recognized worldwide).
Israel, Palestine of those days was far from an ideally place to live, not only the Arabs started to revolt and to terrorize the Jewish population, the English Government was indecisive in how to handle the situation, being in principle in favor of the underdog, handling the Jewish majority was not always friendly and according the English tradition of fair play. One of the main problems was that the Palestinian situation did not have "natives and Englishmen”, and most Jewish Pioneers were equal or superior to the British policeman.

In Israel, Palestine of those days, there was a small but strong Dutch group of pioneers, which helped each other and formed a small but sturdy social group, and in overall, the Western Jews were all rather close to my parents background. My dad, who was very quick in learning languages became fluent in Hebrew, but my mother did not acclimatizing very well. She became very homesick for the family, suffered from the harsh and hot climate conditions, frightened by the Arab uprising and killings, and when letters started to arrive from the family with contents such as:, "a new World war is evident, in which Holland again will remain,(like always), neutral and will not be involved, Palestine surely will be in the center of the war, so why don’t you come back, sit the War out in safe neutral Holland and after every thing has passed, you can always return to Palestine and try again".

Thus, with my second brother only 3 months old, in beginning of 1937, my parents with two small boys returned to Holland.
My mother made a promise that they would come back to Israel, when the children were old enough to carry their own luggage, a prophecy which came true 20 to 25 years later, with the Holocaust between those dates.

I would have loved to spike their Israel period with stories, but I have nothing worthwhile to talk about. I saw some pictures of a trip to the old city of Jerusalem, some garden pictures, with my brothers playing, but interesting facts I never heard.

Chapter 9

Back to Holland

In the mean time, the economical conditions of Holland had changed for the worst. Unrest caused by the rising of Hitler in neighboring Germany, requirement to cope with an influx of refugees (mostly Jewish, which did not aid the Gentile / Jewish relations) from the east, reduction in world trade, lose of trading partners, financial crisis in the USA, England, problems with shipping to and from the Colonies in the far East, all contributed to the decline of prosperity in Holland.

My farther had a hard time to find jobs, but being very handy and technically inclined, he always managed to supply us with the necessary needs. He had a motorbike, which he regularly took apart, and after assembly, he always remained with surplus screws and bolts, but the bike performed perfectly.

Eventually his father arranged for him to work for H.P.Mutters en Zoon, the Ship furnishers, where my granddad had worked his entire life. I understand that my dad worked as Ships Carpenter and designer / draftsman. He stayed with this firm from 5 October 1937 until 18th of March 1938. I understand that this was a temporary job in a rather difficult work market.


Chapter 10

The start of the Second World War

I was born in 1939, when we were living in the former fisher village Scheveningen, now a neighborhood integrated into The Hague municipality. I should mention that I was born precisely on the same date that England declared war on Germany, initiated by the German invasion of Poland. It would take another 9 months, until the war also involved Holland, when the Germans bombarded the town of Rotterdam and overrun the country even though, Holland had a signed non aggression agreement with Germany, promising to keep Holland neutral, but agreements and promises never stopped the Nazi Germans.


Holland was invaded by fast military vehicles, parachutists and troops swarming over the long German – Dutch borders.

Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands with the Dutch Government fled to England.

Holland was caught by surprise and with its trousers down, as it was completely unprepared for a war. The popular Dutch monarch Queen Wilhelmina fled to England and the Dutch faced occupation by the Germans, assisted by the NSB, (Dutch Nazi collaborators). Unlike the government, the local administration remained functioning under the occupier, their new boss, the SS. (German Security Police). Those who were suspected not to cooperating fully with the Germans were kicked out of the service, arrested and send to the camps. And in Holland, need for order and efficiency is equal to that of the Germans, even if it would involve eventually cruel degrees against Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Mentally disturbed people, communists, and others.

The Germans, who considered the Dutch as brother German and Aryans, hoped to be able to get the Dutch to forget their independent past, and join the great German Reich as part of the super race, just like the Austrians and Sudetenland Germans, but here they very much under estimated the strong nationalistic patriotic feelings of the Dutch, who venerated their Queen (safely in England), and their freedom.

The NSB, now openly assisting the Germans in running the daily affairs, were shocked and hurt, when they discovered that the average Dutchmen despised them and saw them as traitors.

Indeed, in the first year of the War, the German occupation was hardly felt, the Germans still handled the Dutch with gloves, but their peculiar hate for minorities, specially the Jews, brought laws such as; forbidding the Jews to teach at Universities, followed by restrictions of Jews in Governmental positions, which was followed by ordering the Jews to carry a yellow Star with the word Jood (Jew), restricting their traveling, requiring Jewish owned shops to indicate it in the window.

In the first year of the War, my parents (now with three kids) moved to a quiet tranquil village near Utrecht, in the center of Holland. I think, but am not sure, that my father thought in the country was safer than in a big metropolis, in any case, cheaper, as one could grow his own products. In actual fact, his earlier experience in agriculture helped him to create a vegetable garden which supplied my mother with vegetables and fruits.




Chapter 14

De Joodse Raad (Jewish Council)

David Cohen was born in Deventer, Holland in 1882, he was an expert in papyrology and became a professor of ancient history, first in Leyden, and then in Amsterdam.

He was active in Jewish affairs from an early age - he joined the Zionist movement in 1904 and held key posts in it. He was one of the sponsors and organizers of the Zionist Students Union .and the Jewish Youth Federation.
During World War One David Cohen was active in providing assistance to Jewish refugees, mainly from Germany, and became the secretary of the Committee for Refugees. He was a member of the Jewish Council in The Hague and then in Amsterdam and in 1934 was elected to the Standing Committee of the Union of Ashkenazy Communities.
In 1933 when the Nazis rose to power in Germany, it was on Cohen’s initiative that the Committee for Special Jewish Affairs was established and he became the executive chairman of its sub-committee on refugees.
Following the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, Cohen was among the sponsors of the Jewish Co-coordinating Committee set up in the December of that year.
On 12 February 1941 David Cohen together with Abraham Asscher formed the Jewish Council (Joodse Raad), at the suggestion of the Germans. They both as chairmen taking part in the daily running of the Jewish Council and determining its policy in dealing with the Germans.

During the occupation the Jewish Council under severe attack from Lodewijk Ernst Visser and from the Dutch government –in-exile, for its policy of co-operation with the Germans. This was the background for Cohen’s conflict with Visser, who was opposed to such collaboration.

In the Joodse Raad itself, there was also opposition to Cohen’s policy, but he was always successful in overcoming this resistance and obtaining majority support for his position in the Co-coordinating Committee.

When the Allies broadcast their declaration on the 17 December 1942 regarding hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews being put to death by barbaric means, Asscher discounted the: claims saying:
As far as I am concerned, the reports are nothing but English propaganda, with
Sole intention of inciting the world against Germany.

It is of course very easy to blame the Joodse Raad for the deportation of the Dutch Jews, but that would do grave injustice to them, as they thought that with cooperation with the Germans, they safe-guarded them (they did not know that the Jews sent to the camps would be exterminated, nobody knew in those days.

We were of course fully registered at the municipality, including the important fact that we were Jews. This because historical reasons, as the Dutch did write down in your personal register, the religion you belong to, a fact which made it easier later on, for the Germans to round up all registered Jews. (Incidentally, and not related to this story, the Israeli register also writes down your religion, a practice I very much loathe, .but that relates to retaining purity of the Jewish race. We never learn).


On 23 September 1943, Cohen was arrested with the other members of the Jewish Council who were still in Amsterdam and taken first to Westerbork transit camp and from there to the transit ghetto of Theresienstadt near Prague.
When he returned to the Netherlands after the war, the Dutch government instituted judicial proceedings against him, charging him with collaborating with the enemy.
The prosecutor charges that without the collaboration of the Joodse Raad, far fewer Jews would have been deported from the Netherlands. Cohen was briefly detained and in July of 1951 the Minister of Justice formally dropped the case "for reasons of general public interest."

It must be noted that Cohen's mother, three brothers, and sister were murdered as Auschwitz and Sobibor.

Henriette Boas's review of Jacob Presser's scholarly book, The Destruction of the Dutch Jews [Books in Review, January], centers on her ardent defense of the Jewish Council (Joodse Raad) which in the Netherlands cooperated very effectively with the Nazi murder machine, and thereby facilitated the “smooth” deportation of more than 100,000 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. The results of this cooperation became evident in the Munich murder trial of SS General Wilhelm Harster and his accomplices who were found guilty as co-organizers of the “Final Solution” in the Netherlands.


Chaper 12


It is getting personal

On the 9th of January 1942, my father received the following letter from the “Joodse Raad” in which it was stated that he paid his financial duties in full to the Joodse Raad.


And on the 13th of July 1942, my father was appointed by the Joodse Raad as youth leader teaching Jewish youth the building trade.


This seems (bur I am not sure) to have been an attempt (by the Resistance) to provide a cover for us to remain outside the transfer camps. Which was followed several months later with a type of permit and I.D. (with photo) stating the same. At the time, we had already fled our house.

ID card appointing my father as Youth Leader (Seems to be manufactured by the Resistance).




Chapter 13

The hunting permit has been issued

The precise date of our going into hiding is not certain, I remembered stories of the 3rd of September, right after the Razzias in the large towns, however the local police reported to the SS, that we had left the house beginning of October, just before they came to arrest us, after we had not complied with the order to assemble for transportation at the Adama van Scheltema square in Amsterdam. The order was sent on the 2th of October, for the 8th of October 1942.

It was signed by Aus der Funten, the notorious SS Hauptsturmfuhrer. The following article tells us what happened to this criminal:
DUTCH FREE 2 NAZIS IN PRISON 43 YEARS
• AP
Published: January 28, 1989
LEAD: The Dutch Parliament today pardoned two Nazi war criminals who spent 43 years in prison and sent them home to their families in West Germany.
The Dutch Parliament today pardoned two Nazi war criminals who spent 43 years in prison and sent them home to their families in West Germany.
The war criminals, Franz Fischer and Ferdinand aus der Funten, were convicted and sentenced for their parts in the deaths of more than 10,000 Dutch Jews during World War II.
The vote in Parliament to free Mr. Fischer, 87 years old, and Mr. aus der Funten, 79, ended two days of emotional debate. Opponents of the pardon said they should have stayed in jail for the rest of their lives.
''This is a black day for the nation,'' said Bill Minco, who campaigned against the pardon. Avraham Soetendorp, a prominent rabbi, said, ''We saw this coming, but still it hit us very hard.'' Turned Over to Germans
Mr. Fischer and Mr. aus der Funten were expelled from the Netherlands and handed over to the West German authorities hours after Parliament approved the pardon, the Justice Ministry said. Witnesses outside the prison in the city of Breda, where the two were held, said they saw an ambulance and unmarked prison wagon drive away under police escort.
The West German television network ARD said the two arrived in the country late today. The television showed two frail-looking, gray-haired men step from an ambulance.
Dutch newspapers have reported that relatives of the two men said they were planning to spend their time quietly with their families.
Parliament approved the Government decision by voting against an opposition motion to keep the two jailed. The vote was 85 to 55. ''Let's rid our society of the miserable remainder of the two war criminals' lives,'' Justice Minister Frits Korthals Altes told lawmakers. He said they had become ''symbols and an unending source of sorrow and strife'' to victims of the war.
Inneke Haas Berger, a center-left member of Parliament and the leading opponent of the release, said: ''Time hasn't made things easier. It's just made the pain greater.''
Outside Parliament, several demonstrators waved placards, one demanding: ''Don't make the victims suffer further! Never release the henchmen!''
Mr. Fischer headed a local branch of the Nazi Security Service and was held responsible for the deportation to death camps of 13,000 Jews. Mr. aus der Funten was an SS administrator who oversaw mass roundups of Jews in the Netherlands. Sentenced to Death in 1950
Mr. Fischer and Mr. aus der Funten were sentenced to death in 1950. Their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment.

''It would have been better in cases like these if the death penalty had ultimately been executed,'' Mr. Korthals Altes said. ''I regret having to use the word 'pardon.' This is not about showing clemency to the war criminals.''
Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers told reporters at his weekly news conference that the decision followed months of secret talks with former Resistance figures and Holocaust survivors. Most argued in favor of the release, Mr. Lubbers said.
In West Germany, President Richard von Weizsacker praised the Dutch decision, calling it a humanitarian act.

But as I related before, when the Police arrived on the 8th of October to arrest us, we were already long gone, see the following correspondence between the brave Temporary Dutch Mayor of the Municipality Mr. Blauwendraad, (NSB) the police and the SS. Concerning the Jewish criminals Family Verveer.

The next letter is in German by the next Mayor addressed to the Security Police section Selection of the Jews in Amsterdam, 1 Adema van Scheldema square,dated 6th of October, Concerning the Jewish Family Verveer

Hereby I have the honor to inform you, that yesterday afternoon we confirmed that the above Jewish family by name Emanuel Verveer, living in this municipality at the address of the Provincial Road B24b, in Maarsbergen (Municipality of Maarn), have vacated their home, most likely on the night of the 4 of October or the night between the 4 and5 of October.

The family consists out Husband and Wife and 4 still young children.
They do not have permits to travel or leave their house.

I need to mention that yesterday afternoon some people of the central corps of Jewish Affairs from Amsterdam visited here in order to prepare a list of contents of the Verveer's possessions. In their presence we locked officially the dwelling. The food we found was gathered in my presence and donated to the poor in our municipality.
Further more, I report to you, that I made a request for arrest and search in the General Police paper.
Signed by the Mayor of Maarn


The next paper is the request for arrest by this brave Mayor :( translated out Dutch)
I like at this point to remind the reader, that the writer is a Dutchman, a fellow citizen, a public servant appointed to serve and protect the population of this town, he issued the Hunting Permit, not the Germans!

The Mayor of Maarn requests:
Search, arrest and prosecution of the following people of Jewish blood, which, without suitable permits, changed their whereabouts:
Name first name birth date born in living in
Verveer Emanuel 11 April'09 The Hague Maarn
Alter Henriette 25 June'07 the same The same
Verveer Itzchak 19 Nov'34 Haifa The same
Verveer Josef 19 Sept´36 Ramat Gan The same
Verveer David 2 Sept´39 Den Haag The same
Verveer Chaja 24 Sept´´41 Maarn The same

9 of October 1942
At the attention of the Department of Justice
Department General Police Paper
in The Hague

I hereby request, the enclosed list of Jewish persons to publish in the forthcoming addition of the General Police Paper
signed
The Mayor of Maarn.

Letter from the Temporary Mayor of Maarn to the Commissioner of the Province Utrecht, concerning Jewish dwellings, written on the 5 of December 1942.

Concerning your writing dated 28 of November 1942, 4 chapter B, no 89lam, dealing with the following subject, I have the honor to inform you, that in this municipality two buildings were cleared:
1 -building, in Tuindorp neighborhood D15, were last lived the Jewish family Belifante,
2 – building situated on the main provincial road H24 b, lived in last the Jewish family Verveer.

The contents from these buildings, from which we prepared a detailed list, are stored in an empty classroom of the public school in Maarsbergen, and locked. I need to mention, that this municipality, as I wrote you before on 23 of November, no 2538 does not have any storage space available, guarded by police.
However, near the school lives the local commandant of the regional police, who currently is placed elsewhere for a period of two months.
The storage in the school house does not disturb the education.
This storage action was executed on advice of Mr Lange from Doorn, in name of the Kreisleiter (ring leader) of the N.S.D.A.P.
There are no empty dwellings or Jewish houses in this municipality. I like to bring to your attention that one of the cleared buildings is already in use (see my writing from 18 November '42, no 3589)
The temporary Mayor of Maarn.


I wont bother the contents of the correspondence on our furniture and use of the building where we lived (rented), as these are not important, besides the fact that there was of course no mentioning of our rights, what so ever.

This letter is written by the NSB Mayor of Maarn D.Noordam, informing the SS on emptying the dwellings of the Jewish families Belinfante and Verveer, and telling the Germans where they stored these items, and who supervised on the this action.
Please note: Both Dutch collaborators and the Germans kept strict order in all their crimes.

Dirk Noordam, the Mayor of Maarn, serving the Germans, died on the 8th of September 1944, at the age of 63.




Chapter 14

In hiding


Mr van Heuven Goedhart, a friend of my father and part of the Resistance

One of our neighbors was Mr. van Heuven Goedhart, a socialist and politician, who became befriended with my father, and eventually introduced him to the resistance organization, people who were prepared to make the life of the Germans more difficult, and later on, were operated through instructions of the Dutch Government in Exile in London.

Van Heuven Goedhart fled later during the war to England, became Minister in the Government in exile, after the war continued as Minister of Finance, and later on became Commissioner of Refugees Affairs for the United Nations.

The resistance organization was like a chain of people who only knew 2 or 3 shackles, so that betrayal would not endanger everybody. This of course was a good policy, but also led to people after the war, claiming to belong to the resistance, while in some cases, they were found to be Nazi collaborators.

In 1942 the Germans advised the Jews to go voluntarily to transfer camps, for their own safety, and would be able to return to their homes after the fighting subdued.
Most (80%) of the Jewry believed the German promises, and voluntary went to the transition camps, (from where they were transported to the concentration camps for annihilation).

Most of our family, friends and relations considered it safer to oblige the Germans, and of course they could not have known that in this enlightened era, a civilized nation such as the Germans, the producers of great Humanists, would initiate mass murder of people, only because they did not belong to the Aryan super race. My father would argue with his family that the Germans could not be trusted, but at no avail, the Dutch Jews still believed that the authorities were there to help you, not to kill you. 99 % of our family was killed in the gas chambers of Poland (most of them, as early as autumn 1942).

More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were killed in the concentration Camps; only 20,000 which went into hiding survived somehow the war (most of them mentally cripple).

The voluntary drive to get the Jews to go to the camps, was however in- sufficient to reach the target of so called "Juden rein" (clean of Jews), and thus, with lists supplied by the Municipality register, the remaining Jews (still home) were round up (razzias) and transported to the camps. They started with Amsterdam were most of the Jews lived, and later on continued in Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Groningen, Haarlem, etc.
People were considered being Jews according the German law if 2 of at least his/ her grandparents were Jews.


In September 1941, my sister was born, my mother as Jewish woman, could not go to hospital (Jews were forbidden to get treated in Dutch Hospitals), and my mother, assisted by friends and family, gave birth to my sister. It was lucky my sister was a female, as getting a circumcision would have been an additional handicap.

Nearly a year later, in the autumn of 1942, our family was cautioned by friends involved in the resistance movement, to go into hiding, and a day after celebrating my 3rd birthday, (3 September 1942, of course, we are not certain on the precise date of leaving our home) the family was split up, and everyone was taken by a resistance member to a safe (?) haven. Of course as family, we could not stay together, as traveling was forbidden, and large group (6 people) would attract attention and endanger all of us. This is the last time we saw each other, until reunited after the war, without of course my father.

We were now hunted as animals, and we depended totally on the goodwill and courage of the Dutch to hide us.


We changed addresses continuously, as staying on would cause neighbors to talk, and collaborators (NSB) to report to the SS. I personally passed from place to place an estimated 13 times, the last times on the back of the bicycle (I was at the time 4 years old). Moving Grown-up people was more complicated, and false papers, provided by the underground, were only a last resort to escape arrest by the SS.(My dad did not look very Aryan).

At this stage we have to mention that it is wrong and not historically correct to declare all Dutch as good people, and all Germans as bad. The behavior of individuals depended mainly on their worry for their own survival, and believing in authority and brutal strength. It was very easy to hate Jews, even when most of them never met a Jew in his life or even did not know how a Jew looked like. The thought that if the Nazis told them, that Jews were guilty of all crimes possible, it must have come from something, nobody in his right mind makes such accusations in vain.

I don't know anything about places where my father hided before he reached his last refuge, a shop keepers' family De Jongh in Oudehorne Friesland, the north western province of Holland, where the independence loving Friesian people dwell, who more than any other region in the country, severely hated everything connected to German and German culture.

The Friesians, a people who through the times retained their own language, tried for more than 200 years to tolerate the Dutch, certainly were not prepared to submit to those invaders. The resistance was fierce, and many Friesians lost their live in anti German actions, during the war.

Frans and Froukje de Jongh were of my father's age, and soon became very good friends.

Oudehorne was and is a rural village, far from anything military important and as refuge for my father, an ideal hiding place.
The shop was situated on the main road, between those beautiful large farmhouses which were also the barn for livestock and the storage of fodder.


My father was an over-achiever. Overachievers are similar to perfectionists, but overachieving is usually seen in a more positive light.
Overachievers do not have the rigid belief that that everything must be perfect. Commonly overachieving is used to describe students that perform better academically than anyone else. However, it can also be used to describe someone who achieves high grades and is active in numerous clubs and committees.
Usually being an overachiever is only a problem when it affects the person's socially, mentally, and physically. When this occurs, the person feels compelled to do as much as possible, even at risk to their health and relationships.

My dad could not sit put, he always had to do something, being very handy, Dad would repair all things broken down from farm machinery to fixing the roof. He soon settled in and even started to deliver groceries on a bike. He became fully accepted by the village as "de Jongh's" relation out of the town. He did not look Friesian (as they are tall and blond, while my dad was small and wiry) but those people from the west, all looked rather peculiar.

My parents were able to correspond by letters carried by the resistance, but on a very irregular base, and without writing any details, names or places.

In one of my father's letters, which I read (as they were saved by my mother), he tells us about a pilot downed by the Germans, who managed to escape, with the NSB looking for him, including the house and hiding place were my father was hidden, however he was lucky, and they (so he thought) did not see him. It might have been that the NSB agent, reported him to the SS, who put a trail on him and eventually arrested him.

He wrote that he reads a lot, but has problems in studying; as he can not concentrate (he intended to study law, after the war).
He also wrote that he, when the coast is clear, works in the garden, walks and rides on a bike, and is continuously occupied with repairing and fixing equipment.
Reading his letters, you can see his utter frustration with the situation, which is quiet understandable.

It should be noted, that he was hiding around 30 km from the place where my mother and brother were hiding, a fact both never knew at the time.



Chapter 15

The resistance

The Resistance Organization however, had not forgotten my father and his engineering knowledge, and by order from London, they asked him to discover (or actually to rediscover) what dikes in the complex dike system of Northern Holland when bombed would put large strips of the country under water, and thus, would complicate possible German mobility, with their heavy artillery.

Holland is in actual fact, a huge river delta of three major European rivers, the Rhine, The Meuse and the Schelde, with secondary rivers such as the Ijssel and the Eems. Most of the soils in Holland are created either by river sand and clay, coming from the Swiss and French Alps, most areas are below sea level, kept dry by dikes and continuous pumping (in the old days by wind mills, later replaced by pump stations) the surplus water lands surrounded by dikes (called polders). This dike system is a very delicate, integrated system, which generally depends on several lines of parallel dikes, the first one, serving low tide, the second, the rain and melting snow filled rivers, and the last, the largest distance away from the river, to contain the emergency high tides, caused by Western storms and the high tide, influenced by the position of the moon.



In history, this dike defense system was utilized to complicate attacks from enemy forces, but due to the fact that Holland had managed to stay out of large European wars for more than 150 years, the need for such inundation systems was considered abundant, and very complicated to operate, specially because the 3 fold dike system, in actual fact only contains the water of a relative small area. Having said all this, the Allies in London thought that if bombarding certain dikes, the German mobility would be slowed down, it would help during a surprise major offensive, (in our case the Market Garden offensive on the Rhine bridge in Arnhem).


The Ijssel River is in actual fact one of the tributary rivers (delta branch) splitting from the Rhine, flowing north starting from the site near the town Arnhem to the Inland lake Ijsselmeer-lake, (originally open to the North Sea, but closed in with a dike in the late nineteenth century. Inundating the entire Ijssel River dikes, together with bombarding the bridges would effectively cut of the entire eastern provinces from the west, and thus complicate the mobility of the German troops.

Most Northern dikes near the Ijssel-lake (in the upper area in the above drawing, were the target area for the allied attack, as they suspected that the rest of the dikes would collapse, due to the chain reaction of sudden changes in the water level on both sides of the dikes.
Thus my dad was sent to find and draw the critical point in the dike system near the small town of Zwartsluis. We suspect that a local NSB (Nazi collaborator) had reported to the SS (German security police) of a suspicious person living in Oudehorne, and the SS had been following him on his trip on the bike to Zwartsluis.


There he was arrested and taken to Steenwijk. We are not sure about the precise date but assume it was around the 10th of September 1944.
The precise area were my father was arrested, indeed interested the Germans, and in order to secure the area from being inundated, they built in autumn 1944with the help of forced labor (under the auspicial supervision of the NSB and SS) , dikes which would stop the waters, if the Allies indeed would bombard the crucial dike system. These works were gradually stopped, when the war was getting into a stagnant stage, due to the Market Garden failure.
Operation Market Garden was an military operation fought in the Netherlands and Germany in 1944 It made large-scale use of airborne troops, instead of the original plan to inundate the Ijssel valley, the Allies planned the alternative of securing a series of bridges over the main rivers of the occupied Netherlands, to allow rapid advance by armored units coming both from the West and South. The strategic purpose was to allow an Allied crossing of the river, the last major natural barrier to an advance into Germany. The planned rapid advance from the Dutch-Belgian border into northern Germany, across the Maas and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Ijssel), would have outflanked the German armies and would have made possible the encirclement of Germany's industrial heartland.
The operation was initially successful with the capture of the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen, (20th of September) but it was a failure overall since the planned Allied advance across the Rhine at had to be abandoned. They could not secure the bridge at Arnhem, and although they managed to hold out near the bridge far longer than planned, the operation failed as the British XXX Corps did not arrive to relieve them. The Rhine remained a barrier to the Allied advance until the offensives at Arnhem in March 1945. Due to the Allied defeat at Arnhem on the 17th of September 1942, the north of the Netherlands could not be liberated before winter and the ('Hungerwinter') took tens of thousands of lives, particularly in the cities of the (the triangle of Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam) area.


Chapter 17

Zwartsluis 1944

In the autumn of the year 1944, the German army decided to construct a new Ijssel Defense Line along the river Ijssel, in order to stop an Allied attack from the South Eastern direction. After D-Day, the day of invasion at Normandy (6th of June 1944), the Allies advanced extremely fast and the German occupier began to feel trapped. Even though, the failure of Market Garden offensive at Arnhem in September 1944, the Germans expected soon a decisive attack of the Allies, apparently from the East rather than the south, and as defense Line they intended to rejuvenate the Ijssel Line (a dike system when bombed would inundate large areas and complicate mobility in the rural areas. The OT (organization Todt) was responsible for the execution however the Wehrmacht (German Field Army) were the executing force. The Germans intended to use Dutchmen as forced labor, who were gathered in the region through razzias (razzia is an organized man hunt by police, NSB and German army, who arrested every man older than 16 years old).
The people caught in the razzia were put to work on the Ijssel Line under the jurisdiction of the Grune Polizei (the Green Police, German soldiers used for police activities). Most of the forced labor managed to escape and go into hiding, but due to the refrain of the Allied advance northwards, the Germans lost interest in the re-creation of the Ijssel Linie, which were stopped mid winter 1944/1945.

My father had been caught by the SS in September 1944, approximately around the Market Garden Offensive with drawings of the current situation of the dikes and defense works in this area.

The Organisation Todt (OT) was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany eponymously named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure. The organization was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in pre-World War II Germany, and in Germany itself and occupied territories from France to Russia during the war, and became notorious for using forced labor. The history of the organization falls fairly neatly into three phases:
•A pre-war period from 1933–1938 during which Todt’s primary office was that of General Inspector of German Roadways (Generalinspektor für das deutsche Straßenwesen) and his primary responsibility the construction of the Autobahn network.
•The period from 1938, when the Organisation Todt proper was founded until February, 1942, when Todt died in a plane crash. During this period (1940) Fritz Todt was named Minister for Armaments and Munitions (Reichminister für Bewaffnung und Munition) and the projects of the Organisation Todt became almost exclusively military.
•The period from 1942 until the end of the war, when Albert Speer succeeded Todt in office and the Organisation Todt was absorbed into the (renamed and expanded) Ministry for Armaments and War Production (Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion).


Chapter 18

The Enemy

The following chapter is a free translation from a Dutch booklet written by Mr. H. Spreen, who researched this episode as historian, living in the area.
He described the entire situation, but also deals in detail with the murder of 8 additional people, who lost their lives, 6 of them, including my father, were executed on the 13th of October 1944 at Kallenkote. I tried to include only the information relating my father, as he was in actual fact, included in the execution, but did not belong to the same group of local Dutch patriots, but as was stated somewhere, being in service of the resistance, and also a Jew, he deserved the death penalty.

Drs Spreen starts his story by explaining the political situation in the area, and the culprits who executed the killings.

During the year 1944, it appeared that the military strength of Germany continuously weakened. The Soviet armies advanced in East Europe, and in June 1944, a successful landing by the Allies had been accomplished at Normandy. The, Allies advanced very fast and overrun France and Belgium, Brussels was liberated on the 3rd of September 1944, when the Government in London started the rumor (early and incorrect) that the Allied forces had reached Breda, it caused the so-called "Dolle Dinsdag" (wild Tuesday) which panicked many NSB people but mostly the German soldiers.
The liberation of southern Netherlands went relatively fast, but the Allies got stuck at the bridges of Arnhem (over the Rhine and Ijssel rivers).The Market Garden battle end September, as mentioned before, was lost, which would be decisive and cause enormous human life losses in all the areas north of those rivers, including the administrative area administration of Steenwijk, were my father was held in prison.

During the successful offensive of the Allies in France, special German terror commando units "so called Einzatzkommandos" fled via Belgium and Germany into occupied Northern and Eastern Netherlands were they were ordered to defend the Ijssel defense Line and conduct counter espionage to prevent getting stung in the back.

One of the units landed in Steenwijk around the 12th of September 1944. This unit would kill and terrorize the area until the end. It was commanded by the SS Haupsturmfuhrer Kurt Stiller, and consisted out a group of criminals from Austrian, German, Hungarian, Rumanian, Belgium and even some Dutch. The group had around 20 members, and until then had been stationed in Madelein Lez Lille in Northern France, severely terrorizing there the entire region.

Before this elite corps had been active on the soviet fronts, where they were responsible for dealing with the Jews, Partisans, and People with contagious diseases, or shortly said, anybody who did not fit in the concept of the German "Lebensraum" (life dream). These criminals have around 90,000 cold blooded murders on their conscience.

Their actions in the Steenwijk area were directly ordered by Adolf Hitler in his declaration of 30th of July 1944, where he stated that the German judgments were weakened. In response, Hans Albino Rauter, the SS leader in the Netherlands met with Ernst Kattenbrunner, head of the SS security and gave personally the order that arrested resistance prisoners should be executed immediately without any form of legal process, and their houses burned. After the "Dolle Dinsdag" this order became a practice.

The SS ordered infiltration in the Dutch resistance movement, an order which eventually was the cause of betrayal of the 5 additional prisoners executed together with my father. Until the arrival of the Einzatzkommandos in Steenwijk, the area had been apparently relatively quiet, a fact that irritated these terrorists very much ad with the help of the local NSB, infiltration in the form of Nazi spies which acted as British pilots shot down in the area. By trying to help those soldiers to get back to the Allies units around 100 km south, they in actual fact betrayed the existence of several resistance fighters, who were arrested and executed.

My father, who had been kept in jail, together with the other 5 people was taken to the execution area, and after reading their death penalty were shot.

According Mr Spreen, the following lines were written about my father: "E. Verveer was a professional technical Engineer and according P.Habener (commander of the death platoon) worked for a Dutch firm (most probably, according false papers provided by the resistance) which was contracted by the German Wehrmacht. He was arrested in Zwartsluis by the Zollgrenzshuts (border police – I suspect the Green Police). When arrested he was in possession of secret notes of the Ijssel fortifications. Due to the fact that he was also a Jew, he was given the death penalty.
The above mentioned Fritz Habener was arrested by the allies after the Germans laid down their arms, and the Dutch military court preferred to hand him over to the French, as in Holland there is no capital punishment like in France.
In June / July the French Military Court in Lille handed him the death penalty on charges of murder, assassination, injury, torture, illegal confinement and robbery.
I could find no records, if the execution really took place.


Chapter 19

Epilogue

Some additional data has to be added.
The municipality of Steenwijkerwold, under which the jurisdiction of Kallenkote falls, contacted the municipality of Maarsbergen, the village from where we fled in 1942, and informed them on the death of my father, and included the question, if they were prepared to accept the body of the deceased. Their answer was that they would not accept the body and burial (costs) as Mr. Verveer had disappeared from the village several years back, without permit or leaving a forwarding address.

My father was buried near the execution area, at a local cemetery, and in (I think 1951) the Dutch Government erected a memorial stone on the grave.
However, the War Grave commission bought the grave, and since then is responsible for the maintenance of it.
Anually it functions as memorial for fallen freedom fighters of the Second World War and school delegations visit the Grave.

Near by, on the execution site, a memorial stone was placed, mentioning the victims of the 13th of October 1944


Would my father have survived the war, he would have enjoyed his four children, his four grandchildren and his thirteen great grand children.
He was born 100 years ago in one of the most violent eras of the world, he lived only a short period of time, but in his way, he made an inpact on the world, a real hero.