Figure 1.--Here is our cozy little home. Our quiet street became a microcosm of the War. Our little home somehow survived two Gestapo searches. Across the street were Dutch NAZIs. They may have alerted the Gestapo. A policeman lived two doors down, but fortunately was cooperating with the Resistance and warned us that the Gestapo were coming.

By Harty van Engelen

Near our house, on the same street and corner with the Heideweg was a home for elderly people, called Buitenzorg, now occupied by the Germans, thus regular traffic to and from that home, passing our house, always took place frequently every day. But also somewhat across the street from our home, lived Dutch Nazis, the Blokzijl family, never to be trusted. The Dutch Nazis consisted of a group of 100,000 members, mainly of unemployed people. They followed Nazi principles, acting as replacement guards, spying, and supplying many young members to the Russian Front, dying by the thousands. Their leader Anton Mussert, received the death penalty in 1946. Across from them lived a local policeman, van der Laan, who sometimes came to our door with many food coupons that normally Jewish people and others could not obtain legally. Quite frequently Dutch resistance fighters, mainly just after closing hours, raided the distribution-of-food-coupons centres and found ready couriers responsible for distributing the coupons to homes that were known to shelter Jewish people, and our policeman almost next door, was one of the couriers.


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Created: 12:02 PM 12/23/2017
Spell checked: 10:08 PM 1/5/2018
Last updated: 10:08 PM 1/5/2018