Friday 10th October 2025
Bé's wartime story
Berendina (Bé), 94, lives at Shottermill House, Haslemere. She shares memories of growing up in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation
“We lived in the village of Odoorn in the Netherlands. In the first years of the war we didn’t notice it so much as we lived further away, however in 1944-1945 we were afraid as you could really see the Germans. I was 14 years old and I noticed a lot more at that age. The Germans were everywhere. As a family we talked about it and, if I was frightened, I would talk to my father.
My mother had a nervous condition, and we were nine children at home, and because of that my father wasn’t sent into a labour factory to work for the Germans. We lived on a farm, and we had a garden so we helped to get food that we grew from our garden such as salad. When the green beans were picked the buckets would be full. We had a few pigs at another farmhouse where our labourer lived and once a year a butcher would come to slaughter them and my mother preserved the meat in jars. Pork and beans was a Sunday meal, we ate what we could grow.
On the farm, we grew potatoes for a factory that produced powdered potato and starch. The Germans sent my father papers to document what was produced on the farm and then sent to them. However, my father would give some food to local people and help provide for them as well.
My uncle worked in the Dutch resistance helping to move Jews and refugees underground. My father was very different rather being more peaceful and accepting. My uncle chose a different way during the war and was more active. Because of this, the Germans would search for him at his farm, so he would sleep in all sorts of places around the farm such as the chicken coop.
In April 1945, my uncle was captured along with 29 others. He had been brought up in the Reformed Church and they believed in the cross. As a family, we had prayed so hard that he would be free and we talked about it. He had been in prison for about a week when they were taken by the Germans to the woods and shot. Before his death, he had written a note to his wife which said he was ready to die. When we had heard of the news my father went straight to my aunt’s house to be with her and her nine children.
When the war was over and the Nazis and collaborators had been dealt with, we felt safe, and we helped one another. I remember the tanks passing through our village with Polish, Canadian and American soldiers. They gave out cigarettes and peppermints and things, there was so much going on. There was singing and so much happiness that the war had ended. We were very sad about my uncle’s death but through God we could forgive what had happened. Thankfulness of being liberated overcame us. The churches at this time were full, we realised that God had freed us through the Americans and English to overcome, and we were so thankful.”
Read more stories...
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