Armageddon - Max Hastings [303]
The Germans needed more slaves, both in Holland and in the Reich. When they demanded labour to dig defences at Venlo, no one reported. In consequence twenty local hostages were shot, likewise ten in Apeldoorn. These examples produced a reluctant trickle of workers. Vastly more men were required, however, for industrial labour. Fifty thousand Rotterdammers were rounded up and shipped to Germany. Women offered butter, chocolate, brandy, even their own bodies, to their rulers, if their men could be spared. Families slept in terror of the tramp of German boots on cobbles in the night, and the cry of “Aufmachen! Aufmachen!”—“Open up! Open up!”—which signalled the seizure of husbands and sons. In all, some 300,000 Dutch people were deported.
One day, Bert Egbertus’s mother was detained in a German round-up and held for ten hours. She came home at last at 2 a.m. The boy had lain alone in his bed, sick with fear, since 8 p.m. In the absence of light and heat, there was nowhere else. His father already lived in terror of discovery, after returning illegally from German labour service. Like some 300,000 other Dutch people, Egbertus was a “diver.” Officially—and for ration purposes—he did not exist. So too were Jan and Tom Wempe, sons of a government official living in Apeldoorn. The Germans hounded their father when they failed to report for labour duty. Instead, the boys began months in hiding behind a false wall in the loft. “Don’t worry. We’ll pray, and it will be all right,” said their father. So it was. The Wempes were fortunate enough to remain undiscovered. Many others were found, and suffered. Even for divers, the excruciating boredom of confinement seemed pain enough. The Wempe sons, twenty and twenty-four, read the same handful of books again and again and again. Their brother Theodore thought himself fortunate to have work for the Resistance. “The strain of such a life was very bad for family relationships,” he said. “To have two people sleeping in the same bed, to conceal their presence in the house, is not nice.”
By November, the weekly ration for Dutch people had fallen to 300 grams of potatoes, 200 grams of bread—five slices—28 grams of pulses, 5 grams each of meat and cheese. In total, this was about a quarter of normal human food intake. “Too much to die on, but too little to live by,” the Dutch observed bleakly. The ration allocation provided just 900 calories, against the 2,500 of the British people, who were suffering hardship enough. People ate nettle soup, chaff and rye bread. Willem van den Broek’s mother, who was pregnant, ate the starch she used for ironing in a desperate attempt to strengthen her body. Dogs and cats disappeared, as they were eaten by their owners or anyone capable of capturing them. “My mother was crying all the time,” said Hans Cramer. “She couldn’t bring herself to eat even when there was food. All our energies were devoted to survival.” “The drapes have been torn aside,” proclaimed Radio Oranje, broadcast station of the Free Netherlands, on 7 October, “bleeding and tortured Holland is exposed to the gaze of the world.”
The Dutch prime minister in exile pleaded with Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, Bedell-Smith, for the liberation of his country by 1 December, before the worst of winter came. Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands, son of the Dutch queen and leader of the Free Dutch forces, appealed in passionate terms to the Allies to hasten liberation. Eisenhower responded coolly