Dutchman in New York

Dutchman in New York

Michael van der Hout

Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:46 AM

Jogchem van der Hout, a Dutch Catholic immigrant who eventually made it to Portland.

My dad had always known that, although it was something of a madhouse, there was nothing in this world like New York City. The day he immigrated to New York from the Netherlands in 1948, nobody could pronounce his name (Jogchem, pronounced yo-kum), so he was officially dubbed "Jack." When he first entered the country that morning, the machine to test immigrants for tuberculosis had broken down. Immigration officials let him in anyway. 

As he disembarked, my dad could not believe how cordial New York was. The city actually threw a parade with marching bands, in honor of the newly arrived immigrants. In fact, even the archbishop and the mayor showed up. To top it off, all the beer in Times Square was free. My dad felt so honored, that he paraded down Broadway, right alongside the marching bands, waving at the crowds, waving to all his new countrymen.

He was never much of a drinker, but, given the festive commotion in the city that morning, my dad decided to sit down and have a beer with his new fellow Americans. Under the subway tracks, he found a bar that looked as small and unnoticeable as Holland. The place was full of men, who were very kind. With all their demonstrative, affectionate gestures, my father figured that he must have come upon a French bar, so he began to speak French with the patrons. They appeared to be quite pleased and even began giving my dad their telephone numbers and inviting him to stay with them. When it became clear that he had mistakenly entered a gay bar, he stepped out and called his Aunt Jenny, who was working as a governess.    

As he searched for a nickel for the pay phone, my dad realized he only had a twenty-dollar bill. Crossing the street, he saw an impeccably well-dressed black man standing on the street corner. My dad explained his dilemma to the gentleman, who kindly handed him a nickel. He thanked this gent profusely, handing him a piece of paper and a pencil so that he might write down his name and address. My dad wanted to mail the nickel back to him. The man refused to do any such thing. My dad humbly and stubbornly persisted. Soon, the man began yelling at my dad, telling him to go away or he would call the police.

As my dad stood in the telephone booth, speaking with his Aunt Jenny, he saw some fellow walking off with his suitcase. He dashed from the booth and chased this character five blocks down the street and actually got his suitcase back.

He would eventually move to Portland, but that night, my dad could hardly sleep from all the excitement of the day's activities. What a town New York was.

The day he had arrived was March 17. 

Uncle Marius's Casual Escape, the Potato Fields and a Month of Sundays, Indeed!

     In May of 1944, it looked as though my Uncle Marius would have no choice but to adjust to another change of plans, near the end of his eighteenth year. The Nazis had already closed the university he was supposed to attend. He was ordered by the Gewestelijk Arbeidsbureau of the Third Reich, to report to service at a Youth Labor Camp, south of Eindhoven. In addition, he was informed that, should he attempt to elude service in the camp as my dad did, his father (my grandfather) would be taken into custody, and held hostage.  So, of course, Marius decided that, perhaps, it might be in everybody's best interest that he cooperate with the occupiers.  How could he refuse?  Was he devastated?  Of course not.

                                  

    At the youth labor camp, Uncle Marius dug ditches for the Germans to use to fight the Allies.  Very much unlike forced labor or concentration camps, each Sunday afternoon, the workers were allowed two to three hours out of the camp for visitors.  One Sunday afternoon, not long after he entered the facility, my grandfather visited Marius. Marius noticed that Opa appeared tense and visibly upset. They walked together, along the road outside the camp, on that balmy Sunday afternoon. When they were out of earshot of the German guards, Opa began shaking. He looked around, then blurted in frustration, "Those sons-of-bitches took my house and my farm!"  He informed Marius, that the Nazis were headquartering in his house. He and Oma were living with his sister, my great Aunt Rina, in Den Hague. It appeared as though my, then, sixteen-year-old Uncle Frits was going to be running my grandfather's truck farm business, under strict orders from the Nazis.  My grandfather advised that Marius leave the camp. "Get out of this place, like your brother did!"

    So, the following Sunday afternoon, while no one was watching, Uncle Marius donned a NaziWinter coat he found hanging in a shed. He grabbed a bicycle. He looked ahead to the German checkpoint, at the end of the road. Marius knew that he had no papers, but he was eighteen and figured he had nothing to lose. He was going to give this plan his best shot. So, Marius hopped on the bicycle, composed himself, and then calmly cycled a quarter mile down the road to the German checkpoint.  At the gate, he saluted the seated German guard, with a "Heil Hitler".  To this the guard stood at attention, saluted Marius back, smiled and opened the gate for him. Although it was hard to contain himself, Marius nonchalantly pedaled, slowly and easily away, so as not to draw attention to himself. Once he was out of sight, a Resistance fighter gave him directions to go to the van Helvoirt farm,north of Eindhoven. There, he would be given shelter and go into hiding for awhile. Marius furiously pedaled to the van Helvoirt farm. He was greeted by a stern faced, humorless Mr. van Helvoirt, who told him to get some supper and to be up for work in the morning. The van Helvoirts had twelve children. Eight of them were daughters. Never too soon enough, and partly to divert the young Dutchman's attention from his daughters to other matters, Mr. van Helvoirt put Marius to work in the potato fields. Van Helvoirt worked Marius to the bone, long hours, from sun up to sun down. Only ever seeing the daughters from a distance, and finding one of them quite attractive as she sweetly smiled at him, Marius had a multitude of other things on his mind. He was soon weary from the long hours spent working in the fields. He was forever grateful to Mr. van Helvoirt,who risked his own freedom and life, hiding him out on his farm. Marius worked there each day, for the following two months. And now, just like my dad, Uncle Marius had a warrant out for his arrest. The big difference was that Marius was very close to liberation, where he was situated near Eindhoven. At the same time, my dad was slogging painfully through Hell and back.

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    One warm, August afternoon, as Marius toiled away in the potato fields, two Allied P-41 fighters swooped down and flew just thirty to fifty feet right above him. They were so close, that he could see the pilots.  Marius threw himself down upon the potatoes, as the P-41s dropped fire all around him. He was stunned and dazed, as he got up off the ground! That was one Sunday afternoon that he would never forget. 

                         

    September 17th, 1944 appeared to be just another sleepy, Sunday afternoon, as Marius labored in the potato fields.  It was still warm. The air was still. In the distance, he could hear what sounded like the drone of many airplanes.  When he finally looked-up, he had never seen anything quite like it in his entire life. "The sky was black with aircraft!" he recalled. "It was the 101st American Airborne.  I remember, it was 1:30 in the afternoon".

    In no time at all, paratroopers began jumping from the airplanes.  Beneath the roar of the planes of the 101st, these men screamed, "Geronimo!", then dropped from the sky.  The Allies were landing in an open field in the nearby town of Son.  Marius saw one lone German soldier near a farmhouse, poised with a machine gun. He fired away, alone, at the onslaught from the sky.

    Gunfire shattered the air, as more Germans emerged, firing away at the paratroopers. The landing troops fired back. Marius ran for cover, frantically hurrying towards the village. The potato fields near Son were trampled by the men of the 101^st Airborne, and transitioned into a deadly battlefield.

    Later in the afternoon, as the dust settled, Marius encountered his first American. "I will never forget. This man was very tall, and he chewed tobacco.  He carried two pistols, one in each hand, and a machine gun.  He asked where the road was, where he could meet up with the troops. He spoke with a Texan drawl...he didn't smile, or say much else. He kept looking over his shoulders as he walked away towards the road," his guns pointed at the villagers. Marius wondered what ever became of that soldier, who walked guarded, slowly and offensively, back into the jaws of death.

    In due time, Marius learned that what he had witnessed in the potato fields that Sunday afternoon, would become famous, as the first minutes of the nine-day siege known as Operation Market Garden.

                           

This is a draft for a telegram my Uncle Marius sent out in September of 1944.  Although faded after so many years, it reads, "God be praised-we are free! Liberated from the devil Hitler".       

    

    Although the Allies liberated the city of Eindhoven, they failed to secure a straight road north to the bridge at Arnhem and the Zuider Zee. In the nine days of Operation Market Garden, allied dead were between 17,712 and 19,350 dead, plus casualties; German casualties numbered 7,500 to 10,000. By the end of the week, on Saturday, September 23rd, 1944, my Uncle Marius joined the once crippled Dutch Army.  The soldiers weren't trained, so mostly they did light duties like directing traffic for the Allies, and guarding radio stations.  In 1945, Uncle Marius proudly went into France with the Dutch Army.                                 

                                             

This photo of my Uncle Marius with my grandparents was taken on May 5, 1945, Liberation Day in Holland.  My grandfather lost a lot of weight from both the food shortages, and from worrying about his family and farm.

 

    April 8th in a Corner of the World

Kofi Atta Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations was born on Sunday, April 8th, 1938.

    In Japan, they celebrated Buddha's 2,501st birthday on that same Sunday, April 8th, of that same year.

    On that day as well, Asteroid 2911 was discovered.

    On Sunday, April 8th of 1938, my Aunt Pleuna, then a day-dreamy, eighteen-year-old Dutch farm girl with her life ahead of her, posed for this photo in the garden. She loved the beauty of things and above all, she loved her Queen Wilhelmina, and often times dreamt of royalty.
                                  

   In 1938, there was no such thing as the United Nations, just the equally ineffectual League of Nations.  There was also no such thing as World War II or Amersfoort Concentration Camp...not yet at least. In fact, on January 2^nd of 1939, year Adolf Hitler made the cover of Time magazine as the publication's "1938 Man of the Year".

 

Two years, one month, two days, and a few miles from this April 8^th, 1938 photo, Aunt Pleuna would wake to the roar of German Luftwaffe planes in the sky. She would hear the screams of an entire congregation, incinerated in the fireball that consumed their medieval church. The World would never be the same again. She would never forget that morning. 

                                    

                                                                                                                                                         

     (Left to right below) My grandfather, Uncle Frits with Pieter Peck; Uncle Marius and my grandmother, in the back yard of their old house on Sunday, April 8th, 1938.  Had my grandparents and uncles known that it was Buddha's special day in Japan, no doubt they would have toasted the old deity with "Sherry for the ladies and Geneveer for the gents".  What if my grandfather somehow learned that in the decade after his 1977 death, a Japanese corporation would buy a considerable part of his beloved truck farm, tear down the miles of greenhouses he so laboriously put in and replace them with one huge computerized greenhouse many miles in diameter, thus covering all of his cherished canals?  Well, he was a businessman. He might have been impressed by their productivity. But, then again, he was always a Hollander first, and loved his dreamy canals.

                   

     Below, is my dad on that Sunday afternoon in April, 1938, in another corner of the world, bouncing a "voetball", as he would for his soccer team.  Do you see the ball flying towards heaven in the top left hand corner of the photo?  No doubt, my dad was more focused on that worn athletic orb, than some celestial body the world was watching one April afternoon a long time ago, which a young Dutchman couldn't see with the naked eye.

                                             

 

              In Hiding, In Darkness

     Under Nazi occupation, Hollanders were not allowed to participate in their favorite past time: dancing.  This was partly because the Nazis didn't want Dutch citizens to congregate, for any reason. So my dad's next assignment with the Dutch Resistance was to run a dance hall speakeasy. It was on the second floor of an old building with window shutters, in the town of St. Oedenrode. There, the townsfolk could go to dance. They began covertly doing just that, in the evenings of that September of 1943. The first few days they trickled in, but it soon became a real success and the big secret of the town. 

    But one rainy night, on the evening of November 30^th, 1943, the dance hall was raided by the SS. My dad was placed under house arrest.  As the SS was clearing the hall, he was temporarily placed in a back room, where there was an open window.  The Germans thought they would deal with him later. But, my dad was alone in a room with the door was closed. He quietly stepped over to the open window and, from it, was able to make an easy escape. Of course, he ran for his life in the pouring rain.

     A farmer named van de Ven lived just outside of the town of St. Oedenrode. He hid my dad in his barn for the next six months, as arranged by the Resistance. While hiding-out in the van de Ven barn, my dad learned that Frans, the 58-year-old coach of the Dutch underground soccer team de Onderduiken, died of mysterious causes on February 24^th of that year, 1944. I don't know if my dad snuck out of hiding to attend the coach's funeral, but, somehow, he obtained a funeral card of the deceased. I wouldn't be at all surprised that he went to the service. He had been taking a lot of risks during that period in his life. The funeral card reads, "He felt sorry for the mother and said 'young man, I say unto you, stand up'."
                                 
                                          

           Photo of my dad standing in front of the van de Ven barn where he hid out, circa 1944   

    Hiding out in the barn, my dad spent much of his time drawing pictures, making funny faces and telling stories to the farmer's daughter, about seven years of age.  The little girl or "het kleine meisje" was thoroughly delighted with her father's guest. Still, after four months of this, he was wanting for something else. He was wanting to go to a beer hall, to socialize. The Resistance gave him an alias of "Pieter van Hoorn". My dad used this alias in his nights out on the town. 

                                                                             

    At the pub, he met a lot of women, but became very fond of one in particular.  He would meet this pretty woman at the pub. Sometimes, he would even visit her at her house, not far from the pub.  One night when he was with her, he made a slip and forgot his alias exposing his true identity.  Afterwards, he became scared, even paranoid and withdrawn. He hurried back to the barn, into hiding.   

    Many nights passed, and he longed to see the pretty woman again.  One night, he left the barn and discreetly wandered the night streets back to her house at the edge of town. Along the way, he picked a bouquet of flowers for her, from the gardens he passed in the dark.  When he got to her house, he found the front door ajar and riddled with bullet holes.  He pushed the door open. Inside found the girl, lying dead on the floor, near the entrance. My dad stood over her bloodied body, in shock and horror.  Just then, a mysterious man, a groundskeeper my dad gathered from the garden rake he carried, walked from out of the shadows.  This man firmly placed his hand on my dad's shoulder. He identified himself as a Resistance fighter.  "I am sorry," the man solemnly remarked as he too looked down upon the lifeless girl. "She was bragging to her friends that she knew a Resistance fighter.  She felt that this man was hiding, was under cover because he used an alias. She was talking. We can't have that."   

    My dad put his head down. He laid the bouquet of flowers upon her lifeless body and closed her front door.  And, the two Resistance fighters went their separate ways, back into the night at the end of another deathful, gray day in Europe of 1943.  

   On May 31st, 1944, my father was officially arrested by the SS in the van de Ven barn, in the town of St.  Oedenrode.  From there, he was sent to Kamp Vught, where he was tortured and interrogated.  From Kamp Vught he was transferred to the nefarious Kamp Amersfoort and his descent into hell.    

                    

    Later that year, the allies took cover at the van de Ven farm, where my dad had hidden for six months. As the Nazis advanced north into St. Oedenrode, the farm was burned to the ground under heavy German artillery fire. There is brief mention of the burning of the van de Ven farm in Army accounts that became part of the book and movie A Bridge Too Far,as van de Ven was hiding out other Resistance fighters.

 

"Mijn Klein Jeep Jeep!", a little of what was left behind and some of what was taken.

“Mijn Kleine Jeep Jeep!” a Little of What Was Left Behind and Some of What Was Taken

   Many Jeeps were left behind in Holland, after the War. They became very popular with the Dutch farmers, who utilized the handy multi-faceted vehicles to do farm work and other chores. In fact, the Jeeps were so popular that even a song entitled "Mijn Kleine Jeep Jeep!" was written and recorded. Replacing the sound of a brass instrument in the melody was the "beep beep!" of a jeep horn. In this photo, Aunt Pleuna is in the driver's seat of the Jeep. Seated behind her are my grandmother and my dad, with neighbors, after the War. My Uncle Frits is atop the hood to the left of a Canadian officer.  Can you see the dog Pieter Peck on the right, behind the jeep?  

                             

In this photo, Aunt Pleuna is in the driver's seat of the Jeep. Seated behind her are my grandmother and my dad, with neighbors, after the War. My Uncle Frits is atop the hood to the left of a Canadian officer.  Can you see the dog Pieter Peck on the right, behind the jeep?  

                                                                                    

Quonset Huts that the military left behind after the War were also very popular with the Dutch, for their simplicity and practicality. Many Hollanders living along the Rhine River and the North Sea converted the Quonset Huts into summer beach homes. Many of those are still in use to this day. Here, we see my Aunt Pleuna, on the right, with a couple of her lady friends, standing in front of a Quonset hut, with Dutch curtains in the window, after the War. 

                                

Over a century ago, there numbered 10,000 windmills in the Netherlands. By 1923 only 3,000 remained.  After 1923, the Netherlands lost many windmills, as the result of storms and fires, but especially because of the War.  At the end of WWII, 850 windmills remained in Holland. Since that time, many have been rebuilt. Today there are over 1,150 windmills, mostly in the province of South Holland.  This is a photo my dad took in the 1930s, of a windmill near his hometown. It sustained heavy damage in the air raids of World War II.
                                  

                                                               

                                             And this is the same windmill in 1965

                                     

    After Liberation, it became customary for American G.I.s to hand out Hershey chocolate candy bars, to the newly liberated Dutch people.  My Aunt Pleuna recalled American soldiers along the road in her hometown, passing out the famous candy bars to the townsfolk.  She told me how these young soldiers looked so healthy and well-nourished but appeared visibly shaken by what they had seen in their short time in the Netherlands.  These men had no idea that the small country had been so plundered and devastated, or that the Dutch people had been starving and suffering so very tremendously under Nazi occupation.  

                                                             

Aunt Pleuna added that some of the American boys broke down in tears, overcome with anguish as they reflected upon some of the atrocities that they had encountered north of her town.

One G.I. recounted ragged, emaciated Dutch waifs along the roadside that swarmed to the soldiers for chocolate.  In their malnourished state, the big sad eyes of these children's wan, hollowed faces lit up at the sight of the sweet, delectable gifts from the Americans. 

And for a brief moment, the thin orphans were smiling, happy children again, revisiting their youth as they devoured the scrumptious chocolate bars.

“I happen to be one of these poor chocolate souls. I had just turned ten years old and would wait by the concert hall in Heerenveen for the soldiers to finish dinner, and I hung out for leftovers.  Then during the day, I would pass the hotel where at times some officers had a coffee break, and one of them would say "if you can say Freckle Queen I will give you a piece of chocolate".  I had no idea what freckle queen meant. but I did anything for not only chocolate but any bite of food.  I had filthy hair, bomb holes in my coat, boots with the toes cut out and no socks. I must have been a sight.  The last year I had lived on one watery bowl of soup kitchen soup and the rest I found on the field past the train station of Heerenveen, like the odd potato or root vegetable, and at times, some weed sprouted up here and there.  And, of course, I got good at digging tulip bulbs from the park.  I must have been a skinny, ugly little runt.  Between age eight and ten, I never grew one inch or gained one pound.  So, it sure brought back memories.”
Anneke

 

In another moment, they became sad and old and sick from starvation, as they coughed and cried as only a child would cry, and held their bloated stomachs in nausea to stoop over and chunder the first real treat they savored. From time to time I often wonder what ever became of the poor souls.  It was a long time ago. We'll probably never know by now. 

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       My Cousin Arie-Jan, Uncle Wim and Aunt Pleuna during food rations in Holland in 1946

                                                    

                                                 copyright 2009 Michael van der Hout