On this evening, nearly every child in the village became Audrey’s own. They converged on the building of the N.H.V. on Stationsstraat, where the toys were taken. It was the place where Audrey had conducted her dance lessons for village children, and now it became Toyland for a teenager as grateful for the opportunity to distribute presents to children as the children were grateful to receive them.
A makeshift Sinterklaas, portrayed first by one of the boys in white and later by a member of the Red Cross, wore a false beard but not a mitre on his head. A white helmet would have to do. On his arm he wore a white armband, both helmet and armband designating the saint as a Red Cross noncombatant. He had arrived in an ambulance with its markings covered instead of on a white steed. The children delighted in the toys they received from Sinterklaas via Audrey this evening; they loved even more the opportunity to be out among their friends and breathing fresh air after weeks spent cowering in cellars while the battle raged and later while the bombs, shells, and rockets rained down. If the small ones had ventured out in the past couple of months, it was to gather food, or firewood, or to deliver a message from one member of the Resistance to another. The children were so very much depended upon, their missions life or death in some cases, and now they could merely be children and celebrate a grand old Dutch tradition.
For adults like the baron, Ella, Meisje, and even Audrey, since she had long outgrown a belief in Sinterklaas, there was still a celebration to be had—the night of the surprise. This tradition involved the drawing of a family member’s name and then the selection of a gift, with the point of the tradition being to praise or call attention to the recipient in clever and loving verse as the gift is presented. It was an evening of celebrations across Velp that was free of both British artillery and German raids and a brief respite from the relentless gloom of war.
Gallows humor, a Dutch specialty, ruled at the Beukenhof. Audrey would remember later, “It actually was a marvelous time because people needed each other more than ever and depended on each other. And you borrowed each other’s books … and you sat around the table eating a hutspot (stew) made with everybody’s potatoes, you know? And I have a family with a wonderful sense of humor. Both my grandfather and my aunt, my mother and friends. In many ways it was quite a wonderful period.”
By the beginning of December, people in Velp began to notice on clear days, up in the sky, a single white line tracing its way across the blue. “Slowly they blow away,” said Steven Jansen of the vapor trails. “Now the lines appear in the east, then in the west or north. Only in the southern sky, the areas liberated, do you not see these stripes in the sky. They resemble condensation trails from planes, but that’s not what they are. Then the solution comes. It is the mark of the new German weapon, V2.”
These “vengeance weapons” were rockets forty-five feet in length and carrying a one-ton warhead. They were remarkably machined and well tested, with a range of up to 200 miles. They had been stationed on the western coast of the Netherlands, but now with the Allies in control of the coastline, all the artillery units had moved their mobile platforms to the eastern part of the country. Dozens of V2s were launched every day toward the most important target within range: the docks at the port of Antwerp in Belgium, where tons of Allied war supplies were landing by the hour. “Nobody hears, nobody sees this monster weapon,” wrote Jansen from his home not far from the Beukenhof, “as with staggering speed it drops from the stratosphere onto tortured humanity.”
The December weather grew ever colder. When Audrey wasn’t working on behalf of Dr. Visser ’t Hooft, she continued to occupy herself, and many of the children of Velp, with dance lessons. Then on the night of the 15th, a strange new sound carried on the air. At first it seemed to be a truck that was down-shifting on a steep hill. No, no, it was a motorcycle speeding along Hoofdstraat. No, that deep grinding sound, half machine gun, half jackhammer …
Every time the sound went away, it came back again a little later. Finally, the answer was revealed that night, flying low in the sky. Said Jansen, “Velp has been introduced to a new horror: V1.”
“All day long, V1s are flying over in a southwestern direction,” wrote Audrey’s neighbor Jan van Hensbergen who had returned to his house on Rozendaalselaan. “You can’t see them by day, but in the evening you can see a fiery glow in the sky.”
The German V1 flying bombs that would become a part of the lives of everyone in Velp had first been launched from the coasts of the Netherlands and France, so many that this region had become known as the “rocket coast.” About 10,000 V1s with a range of 150 miles each had been launched at London, beginning days after the Normandy landings, with 2,419 making it to target and killing more than 6,000 British subjects in just four months. It was another “vengeance weapon” justified by the mass killing of German civilians in British bomber raids that had gone on night after night throughout the war. By now, millions of Germans had died under Allied bombs.
Each V1 was twenty-seven feet long, with a distinctive jackhammer thrum produced by a pulsing jet engine. The V1 was catapulted off an inclined ramp thirty feet long and carried a 1,750-pound warhead—roughly equivalent to half the payload of a U.S. B-17 bomber in a single death missile.
As more of the western coast of Europe became threatened by Allied advances in the summer of 1944, V1 launch sites were moved east, like the V2s had been. Now, London sat out of range of the flying bombs, but the Germans believed this weapon was too important to sit idle, and so, as with the V2, the Reich pointed V1s at the port of Antwerp. As luck would have it, the Luftwaffe had established V1 launch facilities in Eefde and Gorssel, less than twenty miles to the northeast of Velp, and Audrey and the others in the village were hearing its maiden launches.
For those in Velp, the V2 was just another weapon of war flying high overhead, like the bombers they had been seeing and hearing for years now. But the V1 became a real concern and a deadly menace when one of these flying bombs malfunctioned and fell in the Veluwe just outside the village. Then another saw its engine quit and down it came even closer to town. Soon the pattern became clear: After launch, the V1 would reach altitude and the autopilot would take control just to the east of Velp, if not directly overhead. But on many of the V1s, the controls were faulty, and the bomb meant for Antwerp might just fall from the sky or fly crazily and menace the village. There was no way to predict what was going to happen when the V1s were heard throbbing in the sky, and they flew over several times every twenty-four hours, every day and every night. It was always worst late at night with no other competing sounds, just the “snoring in the fog,” as Jansen phrased it. The snore of a streaking evil that could kill at any moment. And the Germans were producing V1s at a rate high enough to launch them continuously.
Audrey, along with everyone in Velp, shared these troubles, not just the threat of the V1s but also of disease as the lack of nourishment, water, and cleaning products and the high number of citizens and onderduikers packed into town brought an outbreak of typhus. In December, Audrey received three typhus inoculations along with other Velpenaren. Diphtheria also broke out, and scabies developed among people who for centuries had prided themselves on cleanliness. One member of the Airborne who ventured into an Oosterbeek cellar to treat a wounded civilian at the height of the battle noted, “The men were surprisingly neat, in good suits. They were very quiet and courteous, and there was no excitement or fuss.” Comportment, even in the most trying conditions, meant everything to the Dutch.
Conditions now as winter deepened were trying indeed. The population was growing weaker as the supply of food decreased. The bread ration was cut from 900 grams per week, already a pitiable amount, to 800. Bread was counted upon because so many other foods had already run out, and now the slices were paper-thin, even for children.
The shortage of coal drove Audrey and others in Velp outside to find wood to burn in stoves for warmth as winter’s grip tightened. Fences and railings that had survived the desperate search for fuel in
previous winters disappeared around town as if by a sudden termite infestation, and trees fell to midnight axmen. Bombed-out homes were picked clean of every decent scrap and splinter. The Velpenaren found ways to keep going day upon day as they listened to Radio Oranje for the latest news of the war on the Western front.
One day they learned of a German attack across a broad front only 120 miles south of Velp, down in Belgium. Massive formations of German Tiger II tanks had broken through Allied lines in the Ardennes Forest, and with this latest development following soon after the British defeat at Arnhem, with V1s and V2s relentlessly pounding the Allies, it looked as if the entire course of the war might be shifting in Hitler’s favor. If that were to happen, and with the lack of food and fuel, with disease on the rise, there was little doubt that this would be the end of life for Audrey and every other Dutch citizen who called Velp home.
30
Peace on Earth. Yeah, Right.
“Food was very scarce, especially in the last few months of the war,” said Audrey. “In the area where I was living it was particularly serious because [of] the battle of Arnhem, one of the bloodiest of the war….”
But there was bloody, and then there was bloody. The latest bloody battle raged in the Ardennes region of Belgium, with the Germans pushing hard to puncture Allied lines and make a mad dash to recapture Antwerp. Such a calamity were that to happen, with the Reich restocked with supplies, all of Belgium falling for a second time, and the war dragging on for years perhaps, by which time Hitler might unleash more of his terror inventions.
Across the Netherlands, all attention focused on the latest word delivered by those critical fifteen-minute broadcasts from Radio Oranje. Nearly a half million German troops were fighting in the snow in Belgium, pressing forward behind more than a thousand Tiger II tanks, the kind Audrey knew so well from seeing them parked in front of the Beukenhof, steel monsters ten feet high that were so heavy they tore up cobblestone and paved streets with equal ease. Now they were tearing up the lines of American soldiers who found themselves cut off in the forest and facing their own starvation diets.
Tensions increased in Velp as events in Belgium played out; each day for the van Heemstras centered around Radio Oranje broadcasts. Opa couldn’t be seen trudging over to Jan Mantel’s house four times a day, so he most often waited until nightfall and caught the eight o’clock broadcast. The German radio operators clomping up and down the steps at irregular intervals only increased anxiety as any suspicious activity after curfew could mean immediate arrest.
In Velp, conditions worsened. The British army pushing north from Nijmegen threatened the Germans in Arnhem, so the moff had blown dikes in the Betuwe, flatlands south of the Rhine, to stop any troop movements. Heavy rains and floods cut Velp off from Rheden to the east. With that way closed, a vital source of food went with it. Then a deep cold snap signaled the dead of winter, and the skies were low and cloudy. Houses froze on the inside, even the one room that theoretically could be heated—but wood burned faster than coal and left behind less residual heat. Overhead, V1s shot through the sky from east of the IJssel toward Belgium in support of the Ardennes offensive. They flew over at all hours, their throaty growl unnerving everyone in earshot, and after dark when there wasn’t low cloud cover, the fiery exhaust trails provided a fascinating and horrific sight. Worst of all, enough were malfunctioning and dropping from the skies that the Velpenaren held their breath until each had cleared the village and continued on its deadly sojourn.
Most nights, artillery boomed off to the south and across the vast flat expanse could be seen muzzle flashes like lightning in the distance. Was it the Ardennes battle moving closer? Was Gelderland again to become the front lines, and was the combat going to be street to street, house to house, and hand to hand?
Day after day, the Germans pounded Americans in the Ardennes. The Velpenaren wondered if this would be the end of everything. Said Steven Jansen, “For the first time in months the moffen go singing by the village.” In his diary he captured the renewed bravado that Velpenaren heard from the occupier: “Now that the new weapons are ready,” he quoted them as saying, “you will experience something! No Anglo-American will remain alive in Europe. Hitler wins the war!”
Radio Oranje said that the brave American troops in the Ardennes were dying by the thousands and that relief couldn’t reach them because of the same bad weather that had been plaguing Velp. Worse still, Germans were wearing American uniforms and speaking fluent English, then infiltrating the lines and murdering Yanks. Everything was going wrong at once.
Five days after the first announcement of the German attacks, the Americans were pushed back into France and surrounded near a town called Bastogne. That same day, Audrey heard a number of distant thumps from the south, down Nijmegen way. That sound always made hearts stop because of what it could mean. In seconds shells whistled through the air and rained down on Velp in a series of explosions that tore up the earth and blew houses to splinters.
Several shells hit near Stationsstraat. The ambulance bell clanged and rescue personnel scooped up victims. The dead were lying on the main street and its sidewalks alike. After a quiet period more thumps sounded from Nijmegen and there was nothing for Audrey to do but seek shelter with others at the hospital where she was working and ask God for mercy. In came the heavy shells in booming explosions that knocked people off their feet a quarter mile from the impact site. On it went for two more hours until after seven in the evening. Then Audrey was among those caring for civilians injured in the attack.
Worst of all, there was no way to know what the Allies were trying to hit in poor beleaguered Velp, which remained the most important village in the entirety of the country. Were they going for Seyss-Inquart at his home on Parkstraat, or Rauter in his on the Velperweg, or a barracks or anti-aircraft battery? None of it made sense anymore, and there was nothing to do but light an oil lamp, if one could be found that worked and if there was fuel to power it, or light a candle, and sit huddled together for warmth. On nights like this one, it was just the four of them—Audrey, Ella, Meisje, and Opa.
“We entertained each other,” said Audrey, “and it helped carry our minds away from the horrible life we were leading. We could do it, too; we lived in another world during those nights around the fire.” Meanwhile, overhead, the V1s continued to grind their way west toward Antwerp.
Jan van Hensbergen captured the mood on Christmas Day in wartime Velp in his diary entry written just down the street from Audrey: “Peace on earth. Yeah, right. In the wonderful weather there are a lot of planes up in the air. Attacks with bombers in the direction of Dieren. Heavy artillery fire during the whole day. Is this going to be the last Christmas during war time? You would lose your optimism. Also the V1s are flying over peacefully.”
The dawning of 1945 brought snows and deepening hunger that was worst in the west, where in places like The Hague and Rotterdam the ration had been cut to just 500 grams of bread a week—not enough to keep people alive with the cold and outbreak of disease. Yet it was also bad in Velp, where the pitiful ration was holding, but even potatoes were in short supply for more than a month, with no new orders being filled. The River IJssel had frozen over meaning no boat traffic could bring food. Velpenaren could be seen digging through the snow into frozen earth in potato fields desperate to find anything the farmers may have missed. Those who had hoarded potatoes now put a high cash price on them or traded for clothing or blankets that were needed to keep the cold at bay without adequate heat in the homes. And that was another problem: The Germans had stolen so many coats and sweaters and blankets for the people in their bombed-out fatherland that the Dutch had too little left with which to keep themselves warm.
The only constants through January were Germans on the streets of Velp, snow, and hunger. The SS Panzer offensive in the Ardennes had ultimately failed. Hitler had risked everything on this attack against the Americans—all he had remaining of his army. He had never respected those Americans as f
ighting men, but they had held out. Then the weather broke, and Allied air power turned the tide and broke the German army.
Now the moffen in Velp were more desperate than ever for food and equipment, including even the few bicycles that had remained operational. More homes were confiscated to quarter reinforcements moving into the area to shore up the defensive line in Arnhem—by now German boys as young as fourteen or fifteen and men as old as sixty were showing up; this time it was Kerkstraat in South Velp near the railroad line where families must evacuate, although a villa was commandeered just a street over from the Beukenhof as well. If it could happen so close by, then Opa knew their home could be next.
Tempers grew shortest toward the end of the month after what had proven to be the most brutal winter weather in generations—every winter during the war had been worse than the one just past. Lack of food and fuel and the incessant passage of V1s over the heads of the Velpenaren drove many to the brink of madness. The sentiment expressed by Henri van der Zee, then age eleven, represented the experience of Audrey and everyone else who lived under the V1s: “We always listened tensely for the rumbling sound overhead to stop—which could mean disaster.”
In Ede, ten miles west of Velp, Brig. John Hackett of the Airborne had been hiding out since an October escape from St. Elisabeth’s in Arnhem. Hackett had been seriously wounded in the September fighting and now spent his time recovering in the care of a Dutch family. In the evenings in December and January, he had seen the V1s launched from Eefde and Gorssel paint their way west over Velp and then Arnhem. However, said Hackett, “Quite a large number were falling soon after launching. I watched several wandering crazily about the sky until their fiery tails went out. Then, after a breathless pause, there would be a rending crash we had now come to know so well. Others seemed to motor straight into the ground still going full blast.” And it always seemed to be happening in and around Velp.
Dutch Girl Page 23