THE SCARRED OAK. William Walraven
other children with a scared look on their faces of “Not me! It wasn’t me!” Their heart would stop beating when he stopped behind them, and with a demanding but whispering voice, he would tell them to keep quiet—in the meantime, punishing them by pinching their arms black and blue. They wouldn’t dare to give a sound, scared that the punishment would be worse. The worst punishment would be that they were pulled, with a lot of noise, out of the bench and had to sit all alone in front of the whole church on the always cold white marble communion bench. The shame was unbearable, and it was followed automatically by further punishment on the next school day.
Eric and Nico had made their decision. They would play hooky during the ten o’clock High Mass. Coming home that morning, he saw his mother and father setting the breakfast table with the best plates and cups and a white tablecloth. Today, Easter Sunday, would normally be the day of finding colored eggs outside in their yard, but it was wartime, and eggs were nearly impossible to get. Still his father had managed to get two eggs the day before on the farm where he had helped out after work. The smell of the two eggs mixed with a lot of milk to fill the bottom of the frying pans at the kitchen stove, combined with the brewing of some real coffee saved for this special day, and the early morning sun reflecting on the white breakfast plates made this morning, Easter Sunday, the promise of a beautiful day.
After breakfast, Nico walked in with an extra loud “Happy Easter, everyone!” He knew that at least he would receive a handful of candy eggs out of the filled glass bowl on the living room table for such happy greetings. Normally, on a day like today, the big church bell would carpet the village and neighboring fields with its beautiful heavy sound, announcing the High Mass. Today, however, this familiar sound was exchanged with the silver sound of a tiny bell. Erick and Nico found the exchange amusing but quickly were stopped in their laughter when Eric’s mother sadly explained that the Germans in the last couple of weeks had removed all the big bells of the churches in Holland to be melted down for ammunition.
With the sturdy warning of “You two behave yourselves,” the two left for church, both kind of nervous on how to play hooky without being noticed by the villagers who were quietly talking as they walked in the same direction. The nervous tension overwhelmed both boys when they noticed Eric’s father and Johann were catching up behind them. Something had to be done fast. Across the church was Jansen’s farm with an extended old wall on one side of the farmhouse. The street between the church and this farmhouse by now was filled with the villagers wishing one another “Happy Easter!” Slowly but surely, Eric moved in the direction of that wall, and Nico followed his footsteps. Without daring to look if anyone noticed them, they quickly stepped behind the wall. They stood there breathless and heavily perspiring, waiting for the moment when Eric’s father or, for that matter, any villager, would discover their plan. They stood there behind the wall, looking at each other, too nervous to talk and wondering if it was all worth it.
The sound of the wooden shoes on the street and the talking of the villagers slowly ebbed down and was replaced with the soft music of the organ in the church being transmitted through the big stained-glass windows. The two could breathe a little easier, and they waited another five or ten minutes more so as not to run the chance of still being detected by the latecomers. When everything seemed safe, both came out of their hiding place, jubilant over their success, but still with kind of a heavy heart. The covered hall across the front of the church was filled with wooden shoes, neatly arranged side by side, large and small, painted ones and older ones freshly scrubbed for the day. It was not that wooden shoes were not allowed in the church, but a couple hundred people walking on a marble hallway, trying to get to their seats on wooden floors, would probably tear the paint off the vibrating walls.
Today, both boys seemed to be tuned in to each other. While both were looking at this vast array of wooden shoes, Nico brought up a brilliant idea. “What about we mix up all the shoes?” It would probably be fun to watch all these people coming out of church and not finding their shoes. Eric agreed, and within a few minutes, the deed was done. Still full of excitement, both ran into the woods and found themselves an open spot to grasp the warm spring sun. Still puffing of all the happenings, they lay down in the fresh new grass and filled their lungs with the overwhelming smell of the pine trees.
When the arms of the church tower clock moved closer to eleven o’clock, they got up and slowly walked back to something they didn’t expect at all. The noise of the air filled with furious shouts stopped the boys in their tracks. With their hearts bouncing in their throats, they walked on, too nervous to talk to each other. Coming by the church, they witnessed a mass of shouting, pushing, and crawling people. Some developed into fist fights that would upset the normal peaceful village for weeks to come. Words passed between friendly families that harmed their relationship forever. The boys were shocked. The grounds normally used before church for friendly meetings and Easter well-wishing had changed into a battleground the village would never forget. The fury went on for hours. Some of the older more aggressive villagers walked home in their socks, cursing and promising that if they ever got their hands on these bandits who played such a dirty trick and that on Easter Sunday, they would pull their limbs from their bodies. Mr. Pastor, who had tried to calm the people down, fell over a couple of fighting youngsters and lost his glasses in the mess. Shouting and pushing, he finally found them. His classic, pinch-on-the-nose, expensive glasses had lost their usefulness.
An hour before the afternoon Vespers, the village announcer stopping at different points in the village while ringing his loud handbell, declared the cancellation of the Vespers for this day. This was a smart move from Mr. Pastor. In the following week, a meeting was held by the village elders, and it was unanimously decided that this could not have been done by the youngers of this village. A grave letter was sent to the elders of the neighboring village a couple of miles down the road, which raised the sometimes-hostile tension between these two villages to its limits. Eric and Nico, realizing the enormous impact of their deed, made a lifetime commitment to each other to never let anyone know that they had committed this deed, which is still branded in the village’s history.
Eric’s village mainly consisted of farmers and coal miners. The shortness of food supplies in the northern part of Holland was not felt by these southern villages. The winter of 1942–1943 was one of the coldest winters Holland had witnessed for years, and many Dutchmen living in the northern cities were left without food and coal to heat their houses. Thousands died from starvation or froze to death. Whole families left the cities on foot or by bicycle on their long journeys to the farm districts of the south with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Only the strongest reached the south; many died a lonely and cold death along the many roads.
The first groups to arrive received shelter, food, and clothing from the helpful southerners, but when the stream of starving people kept flooding the south, there was nothing left to give. The farmers were on rations themselves, because the German inspectors would only leave the farmers enough of their produce to feed their own families; the rest was carried off for the German forces. Still, most of the farmers were able to hide some of their produce and, in the cover of night, would freely assist the remaining villagers or anyone who needed food. Some farmers, however, were not that kind and robbed many hungry countrymen of their last possessions—not so much their own neighbors, but more so the starving northerner who would give anything, even their wedding rings, for a loaf of bread. These farmers became very wealthy during that time, but most of them were punished for their deeds after the war. Most of the villagers, however, had their own garden for fresh vegetables, and they assisted the farmers during the harvest; instead of money, they received rye and wheat for their labor.
Eric’s father was a good provider for his family, and all through the war years, they had no shortness of the basic foods. Everything was rationed by the Germans, but these rations were too small to live on and were getting smaller and smaller when the war lingered on. Eric’s father had at least an acre of land already before the war, and he converted it into a very high-producing vegetable garden. Leftovers and scraps from the kitchen and horse and cow manure scraped from the roads and garden leftovers were thrown into a pit and, when decayed, were used as fertilizer to be mixed by shovel into the garden again. Eric, who had a stronger build than his older brother, Johann, spent many evenings and weekends helping his father in his garden. It was hard work for a youngster of his age, and he preferred working at Willem’s farm more than