From that point on, Henk came to the Seafront on a fairly regular basis, usually accompanied by a cousin. He was finally able to get to know the man who had been such a thorn in his father’s side and who had always been referred to by the Hagenaar children as “the old Waldy,” to distinguish him from little Waldy. He really liked him. He wouldn’t discover until much later how wide the age gap between his mother and her elegant second husband was or what a huge scandal their love for each other had created.
While Henk may have still been uneasy about his new relationship with his mother, Rika picked up the thread as if she had had him at her side all those years. Proudly, she wrote to Bertha:
Henk looks so handsome, I think he has gotten more good-looking. He had a delicious dinner with us and stayed around for tea. His cousin wasn’t with him, which I rather liked. You just want to be alone sometimes, you know, Sis? My children are so different, and I mean that honestly! His friend is a nice boy, but there is something so different about him. Henk is a real, respectable dear, I’m proud of him. I hope he comes back soon.51
At the dawn of 1941, the Netherlands was under occupation, but life had never been better for Rika and Waldemar. That fall, a fat letter arrived from Groningen. It was from Jan, the son Rika hadn’t heard from since 1929, when he left as an eight-year-old boy, following his big brother’s lead. Rika had faithfully sent him letters and presents for years and relentlessly tried to get in touch with him via her other children: “Give Jan a secret kiss for me and after you’ve done it, tell him it was from his mother!!” and “Show this photo of Waldy as a boy scout to Jan, and tell him that he never needs to be embarrassed of his sweet little brother.”52 And time and again, she wrote: “Bertha, write me lots about the boys, it makes me so happy.”
Not once had Jan acknowledged that his mother still existed. But he had recently been thrown out of the house by his father because not only had he grossly neglected his studies, but he also had a secret relationship with a girl who was Catholic, like his mother. Ever since his disastrous marriage had come to an end, Willem had become even more devoutly anti-Catholic than his father was, and the thought of his son converting to Catholicism was too much for him to swallow. As Jan wrote in a letter to an uncle:
I’ve written to Father many times, but his answer was always so disappointing that it has reached a point that I have finally accepted our new relationship. I don’t think things will ever be right with him again. His hate for all things Catholic runs too deep for him to make an objective judgment.53
Laughter was something Rika had always been capable of, but seldom had she looked so delighted as the first time she posed in front of her husband’s camera with her now quite grown-up son. Despite their long separation, it turned out that they still got on marvelously with each other. Like his mother, Jan was a happy rascal full of stories and an urge for adventure. His uncles, who had followed in father Van der Lans’s footsteps and gone into the fruit and vegetable business, went to great lengths to help him get his life back in order. Uncle Marcel arranged a job for him, and as far as his religious education was concerned, Uncle Jan found a priest who was willing to help his namesake make up for lost time. When it turned out that work and school weren’t a good combination, the two uncles created a sort of scholarship fund so that he could study economics at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Due to the rationing of basic commodities, Christmas dinner 1941 was a frugal affair compared to the feasts served at Pension Walda in the past. But for Rika, it was a sumptuous evening, because she found herself surrounded by three of her five children. In addition to Waldy and Bertha, Jan was there with his fiancée. At church, Rika fervently thanked the Lord for “the great joy of having my boy back in my life.”54
Waldy was deeply impressed by his jovial big brother. He had heard heroic stories about him throughout his entire childhood, and now he had suddenly materialized:
He mimics everything Jan does. Sometimes Waldemar says, that’s enough, talk normally! I’ll tell you, my children are absolutely destined for the theater. The best one is Sis—it’s scandalous, but it always makes me laugh so hard. And Waldemar really means it, because the little rascal knows I can’t help but laugh, and it’s not good parenting for Ma to laugh at something Pa has forbidden.55
The only one who remained steadfast in his rejection of his mother was Wim. He had gotten married and taken over a family medical practice in a small village in Friesland. Jan tried to mediate, but:
Wim irrevocably cut ties with Mama at a certain age, and deep-down he is absolutely convinced that there never was and never will be another way. Consequently, he has kept his distance from the Van der Lans family as well. Wim is fully aware that his position is disputable, but he is someone who never does things halfway.56
For once, micro and macro history seemed to be perfectly aligned. Christmas 1941 wasn’t only a joyful turning point for Rika, but for the war as well. When Hitler gave the green light the previous summer for Operation Barbarossa, the great campaign against Russia, he was so sure that the Soviet Union would prove as easily conquerable as Europe that he didn’t bother to outfit his troops for the winter. But the Russians successfully deployed the scorched-earth policy, retreating farther and farther inland and burning everything in their wake. This forced the German armies to spread out across a wide area, creating problems with their supplies. Once the fierce Russian winter set in, the Germans finally met their match, and in early December 1941, the invincible Hitler lost his first major battle in Moscow.
Had the German leader been a full-blooded politician, he could have chosen to consolidate his position and offer his people—who had followed him with doglike devotion into his wars—a period of peace. But Hitler’s desire to conquer was so overpowering that he could not stop at defeat. Being denied his Russian victory seemed to spoil the game for him, and from that point on he was after total Armageddon. The first victim would be the country he had specifically chosen for his empire, which had then dared to disappoint him. On November 27, he announced in a radio address: “If the German people are no longer strong enough and prepared to sacrifice their blood for their existence, then they shall pass away and be destroyed by another, stronger power . . . and then I will not weep for the German people.”
In the early morning of December 7, 1941, Germany’s most important ally, Japan, bombed the American war fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The attack was as surprising as it was destructive. America declared war on Japan, Hitler declared war on America, and by then there was hardly any part of the world that wasn’t involved in the European war. Curaçao and Suriname were occupied by American troops to safeguard the raw materials so precious to the war industry. As Prime Minister Gerbrandy, leader of the Dutch government in exile in London, predicted: “This war will be won with waves of oil and shipments of bauxite.”
Waldemar’s final ties to his homeland had now been severed, and when the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies in 1942, his contact with his sister was cut off abruptly. Every evening, he listened tensely to the news from the front on English radio, hoping to hear that the Allies had invaded Europe, the continent that couldn’t hold out much longer. But Berlin was well aware of the vulnerability that the western coast of the Nazi empire presented; thus, the order was given to build an over sixteen-hundred-mile-long line of defense along the North Sea coast—the Atlantic Wall. Two major bases were soon to be established in the Netherlands: one in IJmuiden and the other in Scheveningen. And a thick line was drawn down the topographic map, straight through Pension Walda.
Rika and Waldemar hardly noticed anything at first, though more and more German observation posts were cropping up on the boulevard, beach, pier, and the roofs of the major hotels. The number of bookings for the coming summer season dropped dramatically, and money became so tight that Rika was forced to sell a portion of her furniture in March and borrow from one of her brothers. “I am a victim of the war,” she wrote to him apologetically an
d promised he would get his money back as soon as the warm weather returned and the first beachgoers showed up on her doorstep.57 In early April, however, the occupiers declared both the beach and the dunes off-limits. This was a death sentence for both Scheveningen and the guesthouse alike.
If Rika and Waldemar had hoped to be able to stay on the Seafront regardless, their hopes were shattered one month later. The mayor of The Hague ordered that 309 houses in strategic locations be vacated; a police officer arrived at number 56 to deliver the terrible news. The Nods family was summoned to hand over their house keys at police headquarters by May 22, and in exchange, they were assigned a temporary residence in Rijswijk. In a few weeks full of confusion and haste, Pension Walda disappeared, and with it everything that Rika and Waldemar had put so much love and effort into building over the years. “Here in Scheveningen, everyone is packing their bags. Mama is already lugging around big suitcases,” wrote Jan, who was living with his mother at the time.58 Waldemar took one last photo of his son on the beach, standing at the edge of the surf in a jacket a bit too large for him. It was an unusually chilly and overcast spring day, and the round pavilion at the end of the pier behind him looks like a sea palace in the mist. Just as the first inscription in Rika’s guest book had been written in German, so was the last. It came from one of their military guests, who, after having felt so welcome in their home, was forced to move on. “I felt at home here with the Nods family,” he wrote. “Too bad I have to go. Duty calls.”59
(L–R) Eugenie, Lily, Waldemar, and Hilda Nods, Paramaribo, 1921.
The Waterfront in Paramaribo, 1920. Tropenmuseum Collection, Amsterdam, coll.or. 0-410.
The warehouses of the Royal Dutch Steamboat Company in the port of Paramaribo.
Tropenmuseum Collection, Amsterdam, coll.no. 60006866.
The SS Oranje Nassau in front of the Surinamekade in Amsterdam.
National Maritime Museum Collection, Amsterdam.
Rika van der Lans on the occasion of her first holy communion, 1903.
The Van der Lans children circa 1911.
(L–R) Jo, Bob, Rika, Marie, Bertha, Mien, Jan, and Marcel.
Rika at the age of seventeen, 1908.
The Hagenaar family, Den Bosch, 1922.
(L–R) William, Wim, Bertha (“Sis”), Jan, and Rika.
A Surinamese man in Goeree, 1927. On the motorcycle, from left to right: Bertha, Jan, Willem, and Wim. Seated, from left to right: David Millar next to an unknown man and Rika with baby Henk.
Rika with her children, December 1928.
(L–R): Bertha, Henk, Rika, Jan, and Willem.
Waldemar and Rika on the Azaleastraat in The Hague, January 1929.
Waldemar (second row, third from left) with handball team, April 12, 1929.
Waldemar on camping trip with Wim, summer 1929.
Waldemar on camping trip with Wim, summer 1929.
Waldemar and Rika on the beach with Bob and friend, 1929.
Rika on the beach.
Waldemar swimming in the Zuiderpark, The Hague, summer 1929.
Waldemar kayaking with a friend.
Rika and Waldemar, The Hague, 1929.
Rika with the newborn Waldy, The Hague, December 1929.
Apprentice accountant Waldemar, 1931.
Waldemar with colleagues.
“Sonny Boy.”
“Sonny Boy.”
Waldemar’s brother Decy in the jungle: “Sending warm greetings.”
Hilda Nods, Holland, November 1931.
The young Nods family, summer 1932.
Rika and Waldy, The Hague in 1933.
Waldy, spring 1933.
Bertha and Henk’s last visit with their mother for a while, summer 1933.
Father and son on the beach in Scheveningen, circa 1933.
Father and son at the beach in Scheveningen, circa 1933.
Waldy at the beach in Scheveningen, circa 1933.
The two Waldys at the beach in Scheveningen, circa 1933.
Waldy at the beach in Scheveningen, circa 1933.
Waldy and a friend.
Pension Walda on the Gevers Deynootweg.
Pension Walda on the Gevers Deynootweg.
Pension Walda on the Gevers Deynootweg.
Pension Walda, 1933.
Pension Walda, 1933: “Mama with her employees!”
Rika and Agnes, 1933.
After a swim: Rika with her two Waldys on the balcony. Scheveningen, 1934.
Rika with her mother in front of Pension Walda, Gevers Deynootweg.
Rika briefly reunited with son Henk and daughter Bertha. Seated: Waldy and Henk. Het Roomhuis in The Hague, 1935.
Rika with her flourishing family during a time of crisis. Scheveningen, 1936.
Waldy with Topsy.
Waldy with a new scooter.
Waldy and his father.
Waldy with a rabbit, 1937.
With Topsy on the Seafront. Scheveningen, circa the late 1930s.
Climbing up from the beach to the guesthouse on the Seafront.
Rika with sister Jo, in the living room on the Seafront.
The Zeekant, seen from the boulevard. The Hague Municipal Archives Collection.
At the Pension Walda on the Seafront. (L–R) Waldy, Waldemar, Rika, Bertha, and Topsy.
With guests at Pension Walda.
Map of The Hague, 1938. The Hague Municipal Archives Collection.
Bertha and Topsy, with the party hall on the Scheveningen pier in the background.
Waldemar on holiday.
Christmas 1939.
On the eve of the war, spring 1940.
On the eve of the war, spring 1940.
On the eve of the war, spring 1940.
Bertha, Topsy, and Rika, Scheveningen, 1941.
Rika, 1942.
Waldy (center, first on the left), “Quick Steps” Catholic soccer club, The Hague, 1941.
Jan, Rika, and Bertha, September 1942.
The Blue Tram on the way to the Gevers Deynootweg. The Hague Municipal Archives Collection.
Waldy and Rika, September 29, 1943.
In preparation for a possible Allied attack, the Germans ordered the pier to be burned in 1943. NIOD Collection.
Betty Springer.
Resistance hero Kees Chardon, “the little lawyer.”
Jew hunter Kees Kaptein, “the greatest Jew crusher in the Netherlands.” National Archives, The Hague.
Sign of life from Rika, tossed from the train on the way to the Vught concentration camp, May 10, 1944.
The gates of Neuengamme, where the post office was likely located.
The gates of Neuengamme, where the post office was likely located.
The Cap Arcona in its glory days.
Letter from Waldemar Nods from the Neuengamme concentration camp, block 1, July 2, 1944.
Letter from Waldemar Nods from the Neuengamme concentration camp, block 1, July 2, 1944.
Map of the Bay of Lübeck, with X indicating where the sinking of the Cap Arcona occurred. Hannie Pijnappels.
The Cap Arcona on fire, Bay of Lübeck, May 3, 1945. Neuengamme photo archive.
The Boy Between Worlds Page 10