THE SCARRED OAK. William Walraven
guide the plow and the other hand for the reins, Eric was now a full-fledged farmhand. Feeding the animals and milking the cows in his free time was a chore, but he loved it.
Prince, now fully grown, followed him like a true friend wherever he went. Being a good German shepherd, he quickly learned to drive the cows together in the meadow when it was milking time. Generally, Prince was a good-hearted dog and could withstand some abuse from the children. Only on occasions when Eric got into trouble with another boy would Prince show his teeth and, with a deep growl, let the intruder know that he had gone far enough.
Eric loved the game of soccer and played it every time he had a chance between school and working at the farm. The only problem was that soccer shoes were practically impossible to get; only the teenagers who belonged to the local soccer team had real leather soccer shoes. The younger village boys would tie a rope around the wooden shoes and the ankle for playing soccer in the streets. Eric, who was tall for his age, most of the time took the position of goalie. Many times, his reactions had to be unbelievably fast when one of the attackers broke the string while kicking the ball with all the power available to him in Eric’s direction. Both wooden shoe and ball arrived instantaneously.
Slowly and surely, the German SS and Gestapo closed in on the helpless Jewish race all over Europe. Holland, which had a large Jewish population, realized too late how the German plan to terminate their hated Jews worked. With the utmost secrecy and precision, they went to work. All the governmental agencies down to the village elders were already replaced by Germans or German collaborators. Everyone above the age of eighteen was notified to go to their local city hall to update their civil records. Without suspicion, the Dutch people assisted the cruel Germans in the first step to massacre their own relatives, neighbors, and friends. Simple questions were asked, like name, age, occupation, religion, and religion of living and nonliving relatives, parents, grandparents, etc. It was only a matter of time and elimination, and the Germans had a perfect record of everyone having only the slightest amount of Jewish blood.
Within a couple of months, everyone of Jewish blood, young and old, had to wear the yellow Star of David and was destined for destruction. It was now only a matter of time for the shrewd, devilish masterminds to close the net. They promised by relocation a promised land for the Jews. Beautiful films were shown about the settling of new Jewish communities in Poland where young and old worked together and had accommodations with flower gardens. This false advertising produced such a rush of Jewish people for their promised land that many of them sold all their belongings and paid outrageous prices on the supposedly black market for tickets on the special trains to their new and promising destinations.
Actually, for a while, only the well-to-do Jews could afford these prices. Only after thousands and thousands had freely left Holland and found instead of beauty the misery of the by-now well-known concentration camp or death in the forever-operating gas chambers did the Dutch people realize the monstrous games the Germans were playing. The shockwaves of this realization were felt by every Dutch citizen, and the hatred for everything that ever sounded German surpassed its borders. The peaceful and friendly Dutchmen had unknowingly sent part of its own people like lambs to the slaughter. Still, some Jewish families didn’t believe these rumors, and for some time, the half-filled trains rolled over the border into Germany. This slow down action didn’t agree with the German SS high command and soon the up-to-now-friendly actions were replaced by the most monstrous, cold-blooded, and beastly operations the world had seen in modern times.
A German SS command would close a whole city block, driving everyone, young and old, with bayonets and clubs to an open area. Everyone on their list being of Jewish blood were driven like cattle into waiting trucks and, from there, to the train stations. These actions, called razzias, were feared by the Dutch people to the end of the war because this was the beginning of some tactics to also capture people in the Dutch resistance. The hatred for these bloodthirsty Germans brought the brave Dutch people closer together and developed in Holland the cleverest and highly sophisticated resistance organization known. The resistance organization spread like wildfire through Holland and the rest of Europe and was the most feared organization the Germans had to contend with. Through these brave people with their vast network of communication, the lives of thousands of Dutchmen and, later, captured allies alike were saved. Also, it gave Holland new life and hope for its suffering people, and once again, Holland was strong.
Many Jewish children who were playing in other city blocks during these razzias escaped the hands of the Germans and were picked up by the friendly non-Jewish neighbors. Quickly and in an orderly manner, the resistance would take care of these children and relocate them into small border villages right under the noses of the SS border commands. The friendly and very brave villagers who took care of these children received false papers from the resistance movement. In most cases, the papers showed the children as orphans from their dead non-Jewish relatives of the bombing of Rotterdam. Eric’s parents also received a Jewish child a couple of years younger than Eric. All through the rest of the war, Piet (his real name was David), who, for the children’s sake was introduced as Eric’s cousin from an uncle who had died, stayed with his family. Eric accepted him as a family member, but Piet, with his proper Dutch language (Eric’s dialect was more German) and being very weak and sickly, didn’t fit in with Eric’s bloom of life.
However, when anyone was teasing or trying to start a fight with his cousin, he would step in between and receive his shared of cuts and bruises instead of his helpless new family member. Only after the war did Eric realize that Piet was not his cousin and that his real name was David. It was after the Dutch Red Cross had located relatives of the youngsters and reunited the many leftover families. For these down-to-earth folks like Eric’s parents, all that they and hundreds of others had done was not considered bravery, just decency. The good and brave deeds of many Dutchmen during World War II was not praised in many books; nevertheless, this quiet bravery made Holland and its people outlast its most cruel enemies through the centuries.
Eric was around seven years old when one particular Easter Sunday, it all happened. Easter Sunday was one of the highest religious days in the Catholic Church in the southern part of Holland. All villagers went to church on that day—not only for religious reason, but more so to show off their new outfits. This high Sunday falls in early spring and the once-a-year time for new clothing. The young ladies would show off their colorful new spring dresses, and the young men walked like peacocks in their new suits with new shirts and ties, not able to turn their heads from the starch-stiffened collars on their shirts.
On this day, a very religious family like Eric’s would send their children three times to church—the seven o’clock early Mass to go to communion, the ten o’clock High Mass, and the three o’clock afternoon Vespers. Eric didn’t mind the early Mass because, after all, he had the day before gone to confession and stood in line for more than an hour between all those people gliding a rosary through their fingers before he could confess his sins. While standing there, he had figured out that it was impossible for some of these elderly ladies to pray Holy Mary or Our Father as fast as they moved the rosary between their hands. He had tried it. At his fastest way of praying, they had moved already to the next bead before he was halfway through the Holy Mary. He guessed that they were only showing off but in the meantime were trying to figure out what sins Peter Van Der Bink or Marie Van’t Aaltje had committed.
This early morning Mass was worthwhile because he could go to communion. Sticking his tongue out as far as possible to Mr. Pastor gave him a good feeling because he still had a grudge for him since the squeezing-hand incident. While giving the host, Mr. Pastor never noticed Eric’s real intent. It surely was not the host.
After the first Mass, Nico, Eric’s friend, was waiting for him outside the church, and together they walked in the direction of home, discussing the unfairness of the parents sending the children three times on one day to church. They should know better. Kneeling on hard wooden benches a couple of inches off the floor until their knees had no feeling anymore or standing straight, shifting their weight from one leg to another, unable to talk or even whisper to the boy beside them because of the watching eyes and ultrasharp ears of the schoolmaster behind the children’s benches, was too much for every healthy young boy.
If the schoolmaster caught them whispering to their neighbor or trying to exchange some marbles, he would