Children and War
Friday night Gerco and I had a dinner with some couples from our church. It was lovely and a nice chance to get to know the people that we have been saying ‘hello’ to in the past months a bit more. I sat next to Ati, a lady in her seventies. We talked about our children, interests and where we were from. What a surprise to discover that she had worked in the hospital in Hobart where I was born (and FYI famous 30s actor Errol Flynn as well)! We found out that she knew some people that my parents were befriended with in Tasmania and shared some memories. Then I asked her why she left and she said to me: “There was a big fire and I was so afraid, I just packed my bags and run.”
The fire she mentioned was one of the most disastrous that have hit Australia in history. On an afternoon in 1967 within 5 hours huge parts of Southern Tasmania were on fire, leaving thousands of homes destroyed and 67 dead. My parents arrived in Hobart two years later and still remember being shocked by all the devastation that this fire had brought about. I asked Ati why she had been so scared. “It all has to do with the Second World War, that had left me with so many fears.”
She lived next to a railway line. One night, in the autumn of 1944, right in front of her house a train loaded with German munition was shot by the British air force. Ati woke up from her mother’s screaming: “Get out of the house, right away!” She grabbed her doll, ran downstairs, in the garden and away from the track. In the corner of her eyes she could see her mother throwing the baby in the carriage, running away and dragging along her 2 younger sisters. The train exploded, noise and flames everywhere. She was so scared.
Because they couldn’t return to their home, Ati and her parents moved into the office of her father’s company. Absolutely not a place for a young family to live in. The ware house was taken by the Germans to use as a soup kitchen. You have to know that in the winter of 1944/1945 there was a huge famine in the western part of The Netherlands. Thousands of people died of starvation. Ati remembers clearly the looks of all these hungry, desperate people, waiting in line for a piece of bread, or perhaps a small bags of coals to keep themselves warm. “It was so obvious that something terrible was going on, but I just didn’t understand it at all.”
Her father suffered from tuberculosis. She was not allowed to cuddle him or even sit close to him. Before he had gotten sick he had been in hiding, because the Nazis put all the healthy men to work in Germany. She had been so afraid of loosing him and missed him so much. There was no school, her mother had no time to play with her and her sisters. An other baby was born and Ati had to walk with him for hours, since his health was so bad.
She saw a man being shot by a German soldier, remembers the reactions of all the people around, the emotions and hidden anger. An other house in her street burnt down completely. She had to step over the ashes for days and days. She heard the rumors of concentration camps and people never coming back.
Her parents couldn’t explain to her what was going on. They were too busy surviving. She was only six, too young to understand it all, but definitely old enough to engrave all the images in her memory.
The conversation with this special woman gave all the black-and-white images of WWII that I have seen some color, some reality. It made me realize how brave my grandparents were during the war, how strong their generation has been to build up a completely destroyed country after the war again. How much children pick up and how confusing and scary life can be for them.
I’m never going to fight in front of my children anymore.
Leonie 
wow this is an amazing story!!! if only i was there to interview her and spoke dutch! i didnt know you had a blog, but will enjoy reading it from now on!
heidi