MR. LEE
We lived high up in the mountains again. This time in the house of the grandmother of our neighbours in Surabaya. This dear grandmother, who was very happy we were living with her together with her grandchildren Wil, 10 years old and Eep, 13 years old, was suffering from a severe form of diabetes, had a nurse, a lovely Indonesian woman. My grandmother was with us too. My father stayed in the city to protect our house over there and worked as long as it was possible.
It was an uneasy time in Surabaya after the lost battle in the Pacific of the dutch army and losing a lot of our men. Many indonesian gangs went pillaging and murdering through the country. They were mainly targeted at Chinese and white people. Everyone was waiting for the Japs to come. It was an uneasy, anxious time.
Next door to us lived a wealthy Chinese, Mr. Lee. He was an old, rich, retired and very strange man. Mr. Lee’s front yard was wide and wild, only grass. In this grass 8 geese were living, very frightful geese.
His entrance was right next to our garden, a large iron fence around it and a gate with a high pergola. From this gate to the gate and the fence next to his house, which lay deep into the garden, was a path. If you opened the first gate, all eight geese flew up and attacked you, which was very hurtful. So you had to run for your life to the next gate beside the white house. This did not only happen to us, but also to the employees of Mr. Lee, what we found very amusing. His house was a low, wide white house, at the back of it was the entrance, which we had never seen.
Then the looting began (in Indonesian it is called rampokken), also in the mountains where we lived. Various shops owned by Chinese were set ablaze and several people were even found dead. Fear hit all of us to the heart. We were four defenseless women, four children and two trustful male employees, who were not young anymore. We were suddenly unable to get out. I remember that my mother read stories to us for hours. We got homework and had to draw. Not being allowed to go outside in the tropics is a severe punishment. At night you heard the shooting, it was really scary, specially as it came closer and closer.
“Elsie”, said my mother, “this is not good”. It became increasingly anxious and suddenly one morning also the staff did not show up. We were terrified. Usually if the staff stayed away, they knew something we didn’t know and so they stayed away. My mother had already asked everywhere if there was someone left to help us, without any result.
That awful day suddenly the phone rang, which shocked us to death. Luckily it was only Mr. Lee, who in very poor Dutch asked how we were doing. My mother told him that our employees left and that we were very afraid. He asked if we had a gun or other weapons. That we had not. He then asked my mother if she would allow him to help us. Yes please, said my mother, not understanding how such an old Chinese man could help us. Mr. Lee told us to make an opening in the hedge so we could come to his garden. With pain and difficulty all of us together succeeded to make an opening. While doing this we were attacked by the geese, which was making us crazy. They were so strong and false. When the opening was big enough we quickly covered it with a plate. Mr. Lee called again and asked if we were ready. Yes, my mother said, although we covered the hole with a plate to keep away the geese. “Okay”, said Mr. Lee and hung up the phone. We still didn’t understand how he could help us. That night we, all together, slept in the living room on the floor, allthough none of us really slept. Everything was shut tight, very stuffy in the mountains and it was deadly silent. At night the shooting began and it came closer and closer. At a certain moment we heard footsteps on the gravel. Wil’s grandmother started to cry: “we will be set on fire”.
“Hush”, said my mother. Stiffened we waited, more footsteps, rustling and then a bang. This is it, we will be set on fire. We heard an awful lot of footsteps, my mother held my grandmother. Then more huge bangs. Huddled together we waited. Then there was an awful noise, people were running and then everything was silent. We waited. An hour later our telephone went, we were shocked to death again, it was Mr. Lee saying: “Go back to sleep, there will be no more trouble”. My private army has driven them away from your property. Sleep well (“selamat tidoer” in Indonesian), my people will watch over the two houses. We couldn’t believe our ears, but indeed it remained quiet. We slept until late in the morning. In the morning our employees even returned. Everything was peaceful and normal. At night Mr. Lee’s private army watched over us, until everything in the village and beyond was back to normal, and than the police finaly took over, that gave us a peace of mind. My father was very worried when he heard the whole story.
We were very happy that this small, rich, old Chinese man, was so kind to rescue us. The next time when we were finaly able to go in to the street again, we ran throug the gate of mr.Lee's house followed by the fearful geese biting us, to bring him presents and flowers to thank him personally for saving our lives, his house was beautiful inside and full of antiques, he was gleaming all over, because he had surprised us.
We had to go back again, with the awful geese behind us making a terrible noise. After several weeks we had to go back to the city Surabaya, to my father, we were sad to leave this old nice man behind and also the dear grandmother, who just later before we all were put in to concentration camps, died. Thank God for here, no medicines in the camps. Dinkie.
zondag 14 november 2010
Wonderful Day At Dauwendaele
WONDERFUL DAY AT DAUWENDAELE
Yesterday we had a wonderful day (reunion) of the KJBB (Children from the Japanese occupation and the Bersiap 1941-1949) in Dauwendaele in Middelburg (province of Zeeland in Holland).
A lively band played led by Mr. E. Nutsman. We had a delicious lunch with Indonesian food, prepared by restaurant Surabya. There were also guest performance from the women’s vocal quartet “Nock on Wood”. They sang English songs from the forties. Everyone thought these ladies did surprisingly well, I admired what they did. It was a wonderful day and we old people have lustily sung, accompanied by the band, songs of our tropical past.
Every two years we look forward to this day. You enter the world of your youth and that makes you feel well. Now that you no longer need to participate in the hectic life, you have more time to think about the earlier times, spend far away in an other country. Those years have made a deep impression and are crystal clear in your memory.
It was mainly the living with your parents that the fundamentals of the rest of your life have shaped in such a beautiful and imposing country with its magnificent mountains, forests and coasts. I have no nostalgia for those days, but remember it with great pleasure. Also this day I will remember, Dinky.
Yesterday we had a wonderful day (reunion) of the KJBB (Children from the Japanese occupation and the Bersiap 1941-1949) in Dauwendaele in Middelburg (province of Zeeland in Holland).
A lively band played led by Mr. E. Nutsman. We had a delicious lunch with Indonesian food, prepared by restaurant Surabya. There were also guest performance from the women’s vocal quartet “Nock on Wood”. They sang English songs from the forties. Everyone thought these ladies did surprisingly well, I admired what they did. It was a wonderful day and we old people have lustily sung, accompanied by the band, songs of our tropical past.
Every two years we look forward to this day. You enter the world of your youth and that makes you feel well. Now that you no longer need to participate in the hectic life, you have more time to think about the earlier times, spend far away in an other country. Those years have made a deep impression and are crystal clear in your memory.
It was mainly the living with your parents that the fundamentals of the rest of your life have shaped in such a beautiful and imposing country with its magnificent mountains, forests and coasts. I have no nostalgia for those days, but remember it with great pleasure. Also this day I will remember, Dinky.
dinsdag 2 november 2010
A Remarkable Occurrence.
A REMARKABLE OCCURRUNCE
As written before, we landed in a neighbourhood in Malang. Imagine a large residential area surrounded by high fence with barbed wire, cars stolen by the Japanese, streets completely empty. In each villa 10 unknown people were dropped, can you imagine what that meant for the owners of the villa’s. People everywhere, who have to sleep, eat and bath in your house without being able to complain about it, because if you did you were put in jail. It created a lot of racket, as we also found out. The lady of the house was totally annoyed all her beautiful furniture and things being ruined, all those people who slept in her living- and dining room, a disaster.
My parents decided to live in their garage. My grandmother, unfortunately had to stay with the lady of the house, until also my father had to leave as well as all the men over 18 years. How my parents got it done, I don’t remember, but chests arrived one day with sewing boxes and books from our house in Soerabaja. My mother started a library in the garage and earned some money that way. At the front gate was a small market where locals were allowed to sell their goods to our Dutch women. We played outside a lot. In the middle of the residential area was a large park, a part of which was grass and a part was a wood with very small fir trees. We climbed a lot in these trees. A big boy of about 15 to 16 years was dominating all the children. He was long, slender and had a lot of curly red-blond hair. His name was Henk. He was a nice fellow and in love with one of the older girls, Jaennie. He had chosen me to be his “postillion d’amour”. I had to take his notes and wait for her to write a note back to him. I did this for as long as we lived there. To thank me for doing this I was the only one allowed to ride on the back of his bike, I was a girl of 8 years then. Behind the bike also a line of roller skating children, the last one of the line sometimes fell in a hedge, but was always able to join the line again.
Despite the distress about our fathers, it was because of him, Henk, that we felt happy as a group. We talked a lot about the Japs, the departure of our fathers and the question on how to earn money, as none of our families recieved a salary. Families only received some milk, butter, a bit of sugar and some other things. When that was finished it was tough luck. My mother embroidered charming brooches and other beautiful things. I went from door to door to sell these and with that we also earned a little bit. Some days Henk accompanied me on his bike. After a couple of months this period came to an end and we had to leave for Solo. We all thought it was terrible and I remember that Henk, another girl and me talked one night until late to say goodbye and wish each other strenght.
Again we could only take so many things as we could carry and left this camp, also leaving our father behind, not knowing when we would evr see him again and what to expect next.
Years later, back in Holland, in 1953 when the dikes broke down and flooded one of Holland’s provinces, Zeeland, we, all the girls from the Haanstra teacher training college gathered together working and helping everywhere we could.
One of my best friends at that time was Riet, who lived in Leiden. With her I did a teaching practice in a nursery school in Leiden. Her boyfriend just broke up with her and she was very sad. I had a boyfriend too, later my ex.
At the end of every year we had a school dance in the “Burcht” in Leiden. It was something special, we had long dresses made for this dance and a big band was playing. We looked forward to it, except for Riet, who had no-one to accompany her. I asked my boyfriend if he couldn’t ask one of his friends to take her. As he didn’t really fancy to go with me alone, because he didn’t know anyone at the party, he was happy to ask one of his friends. I didn’t know any of his friends then, as I had just started going out with him. His friend first wanted to meet Riet, before going with her to the dance. Thus we arranged to go to the cinema, the four of us. Riet and I stood at the cinema in Leiden waiting for the boys and there was my friend and next to him someone who was very familiar to me. He had the same feeling. He was long tall and with red curley hair. I asked him: are you perhaps Henk from Malang?" Yes, he said and aren’t you Dinkie, the little girl with the pigtails?
There we were in Leiden me and my friend from the camp, who later married my friend Riet. For many years after, we saw a lot of each other, also later with our kids, arranged parties together and shared our worries. It always gave me a familiar happy feeling every time we were together. After 20 years we were both divorced and our lives went in seperate ways. Just before Henk died, he has been visiting us here in Zeeland and I could say goodbye to him, knowing I would not see him again as he was very ill. My friend, Riet who also lived in zeeland by this time, also died a couple of months after him. They both were very lovely persons and Ieft me with wonderful memories, gratefull to have known them both. Dinkie.
As written before, we landed in a neighbourhood in Malang. Imagine a large residential area surrounded by high fence with barbed wire, cars stolen by the Japanese, streets completely empty. In each villa 10 unknown people were dropped, can you imagine what that meant for the owners of the villa’s. People everywhere, who have to sleep, eat and bath in your house without being able to complain about it, because if you did you were put in jail. It created a lot of racket, as we also found out. The lady of the house was totally annoyed all her beautiful furniture and things being ruined, all those people who slept in her living- and dining room, a disaster.
My parents decided to live in their garage. My grandmother, unfortunately had to stay with the lady of the house, until also my father had to leave as well as all the men over 18 years. How my parents got it done, I don’t remember, but chests arrived one day with sewing boxes and books from our house in Soerabaja. My mother started a library in the garage and earned some money that way. At the front gate was a small market where locals were allowed to sell their goods to our Dutch women. We played outside a lot. In the middle of the residential area was a large park, a part of which was grass and a part was a wood with very small fir trees. We climbed a lot in these trees. A big boy of about 15 to 16 years was dominating all the children. He was long, slender and had a lot of curly red-blond hair. His name was Henk. He was a nice fellow and in love with one of the older girls, Jaennie. He had chosen me to be his “postillion d’amour”. I had to take his notes and wait for her to write a note back to him. I did this for as long as we lived there. To thank me for doing this I was the only one allowed to ride on the back of his bike, I was a girl of 8 years then. Behind the bike also a line of roller skating children, the last one of the line sometimes fell in a hedge, but was always able to join the line again.
Despite the distress about our fathers, it was because of him, Henk, that we felt happy as a group. We talked a lot about the Japs, the departure of our fathers and the question on how to earn money, as none of our families recieved a salary. Families only received some milk, butter, a bit of sugar and some other things. When that was finished it was tough luck. My mother embroidered charming brooches and other beautiful things. I went from door to door to sell these and with that we also earned a little bit. Some days Henk accompanied me on his bike. After a couple of months this period came to an end and we had to leave for Solo. We all thought it was terrible and I remember that Henk, another girl and me talked one night until late to say goodbye and wish each other strenght.
Again we could only take so many things as we could carry and left this camp, also leaving our father behind, not knowing when we would evr see him again and what to expect next.
Years later, back in Holland, in 1953 when the dikes broke down and flooded one of Holland’s provinces, Zeeland, we, all the girls from the Haanstra teacher training college gathered together working and helping everywhere we could.
One of my best friends at that time was Riet, who lived in Leiden. With her I did a teaching practice in a nursery school in Leiden. Her boyfriend just broke up with her and she was very sad. I had a boyfriend too, later my ex.
At the end of every year we had a school dance in the “Burcht” in Leiden. It was something special, we had long dresses made for this dance and a big band was playing. We looked forward to it, except for Riet, who had no-one to accompany her. I asked my boyfriend if he couldn’t ask one of his friends to take her. As he didn’t really fancy to go with me alone, because he didn’t know anyone at the party, he was happy to ask one of his friends. I didn’t know any of his friends then, as I had just started going out with him. His friend first wanted to meet Riet, before going with her to the dance. Thus we arranged to go to the cinema, the four of us. Riet and I stood at the cinema in Leiden waiting for the boys and there was my friend and next to him someone who was very familiar to me. He had the same feeling. He was long tall and with red curley hair. I asked him: are you perhaps Henk from Malang?" Yes, he said and aren’t you Dinkie, the little girl with the pigtails?
There we were in Leiden me and my friend from the camp, who later married my friend Riet. For many years after, we saw a lot of each other, also later with our kids, arranged parties together and shared our worries. It always gave me a familiar happy feeling every time we were together. After 20 years we were both divorced and our lives went in seperate ways. Just before Henk died, he has been visiting us here in Zeeland and I could say goodbye to him, knowing I would not see him again as he was very ill. My friend, Riet who also lived in zeeland by this time, also died a couple of months after him. They both were very lovely persons and Ieft me with wonderful memories, gratefull to have known them both. Dinkie.
The Ufo's Okay.
The Ufo's
Okay, a lot of people will be startled now, but as my father would say: “investigate everything and just keep the good things”.
In 1977 Willem and I were in Saudi Arabia in a camp (compound) in the middle
of the dessert, in Jubail, a place far from civilization. My son Andy was also with us and going to school there.
Imagine, in the middle of a huge sandpit, two camps (compounds) were built with walls around them. Again a camp, this time staying there out of free will. People living here were all working for a joint venture with Adriaan Volker, Hochtief (a German company) and CCC (a Libanese company). We were a mixed group one can say with also some English and Scots. It was quite an experience.
In this camp, we all lived in the same prefab houses. All houses were equally furnished, very simple. Under a shelter, we had a small terrace where you could only sit in the evening, due to the heat, during the day.
Later I will tell more about our life there in the dessert with all these wonderful people. The men worked really hard, building a harbour and were gone a lot.
For the women and the children there was a swimming pool, a general building and a small supermarket, where seldom there was anything to buy, because there was hardly any stock and when there was, it was very expensive. As there was hardly anything on TV or on the radio and no nice shops and no telephone,
the days were long and boring.
At that time in Holland people spoke about and were concerned about Ufo’s. Because of the many books and articles and all those people talking about it, I became also interested. One has to keep oneself informed. To form an opinion for myself whether I really believed in the phenomenon Ufo, I would absorb as much reading material as possible. I therefore had taken many books about Ufo’s. After reading them all, I still couldn’t form on opinion on how I though about it.
Then, there in the dessert, I started reading the last book on this topic, The Trojan Horse of John A. Keal, a scientific author, he wrote about: “Ufo’s, who are they, where are they coming from and where are they going to”. He wrote wonderfull and before I knew it, the story completely absorbed me, it was very exciting. In the small footnotes he wrote that while writing his enormous book, he encountered many strange things, including predictive dreams, which really came true. For instance, a telephone ringing day and night and when he picked it up, someone told him that a bridge would collapse and believe it or not, it really did. Often when he was called and picked up the phone there was no-one on the other side, this happened a lot at night when he was asleep, so that he felt as if he was guarded.
To my surprise, when reading this thrilling book, I received letters from my children in Holland, who lived in our house, writing that they went crazy by some idiot calling them at all times in the night. It was so bad that they even called upon the PTT (Telephone company) for help. While I was reading this book, I got more than one letter from them about this occurrence. The telephone company could not give them any information why this was happening, they couldn’t locate the caller either.
As of the moment that I finished the book, the telephone terror stopped and letters told me that there were no more calls at night, isn’t that strange Mam?
All of this amazed me and funny enough heard about two persons, who lived miles apart from each other, one in Curacao and one in England, who both claimed they had seen Ufo’s for real. The person from Curacao together with a lot other people claimed to have seen about a 100 flying over. The one from England had seen them very close by one night while they were driving home. They had been very scared.
My opinion on this phenomenon just lead us to give our sailing boat the name UFO. We have been very happy on this boat, so who knews.
Dinkie
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Okay, a lot of people will be startled now, but as my father would say: “investigate everything and just keep the good things”.
In 1977 Willem and I were in Saudi Arabia in a camp (compound) in the middle
of the dessert, in Jubail, a place far from civilization. My son Andy was also with us and going to school there.
Imagine, in the middle of a huge sandpit, two camps (compounds) were built with walls around them. Again a camp, this time staying there out of free will. People living here were all working for a joint venture with Adriaan Volker, Hochtief (a German company) and CCC (a Libanese company). We were a mixed group one can say with also some English and Scots. It was quite an experience.
In this camp, we all lived in the same prefab houses. All houses were equally furnished, very simple. Under a shelter, we had a small terrace where you could only sit in the evening, due to the heat, during the day.
Later I will tell more about our life there in the dessert with all these wonderful people. The men worked really hard, building a harbour and were gone a lot.
For the women and the children there was a swimming pool, a general building and a small supermarket, where seldom there was anything to buy, because there was hardly any stock and when there was, it was very expensive. As there was hardly anything on TV or on the radio and no nice shops and no telephone,
the days were long and boring.
At that time in Holland people spoke about and were concerned about Ufo’s. Because of the many books and articles and all those people talking about it, I became also interested. One has to keep oneself informed. To form an opinion for myself whether I really believed in the phenomenon Ufo, I would absorb as much reading material as possible. I therefore had taken many books about Ufo’s. After reading them all, I still couldn’t form on opinion on how I though about it.
Then, there in the dessert, I started reading the last book on this topic, The Trojan Horse of John A. Keal, a scientific author, he wrote about: “Ufo’s, who are they, where are they coming from and where are they going to”. He wrote wonderfull and before I knew it, the story completely absorbed me, it was very exciting. In the small footnotes he wrote that while writing his enormous book, he encountered many strange things, including predictive dreams, which really came true. For instance, a telephone ringing day and night and when he picked it up, someone told him that a bridge would collapse and believe it or not, it really did. Often when he was called and picked up the phone there was no-one on the other side, this happened a lot at night when he was asleep, so that he felt as if he was guarded.
To my surprise, when reading this thrilling book, I received letters from my children in Holland, who lived in our house, writing that they went crazy by some idiot calling them at all times in the night. It was so bad that they even called upon the PTT (Telephone company) for help. While I was reading this book, I got more than one letter from them about this occurrence. The telephone company could not give them any information why this was happening, they couldn’t locate the caller either.
As of the moment that I finished the book, the telephone terror stopped and letters told me that there were no more calls at night, isn’t that strange Mam?
All of this amazed me and funny enough heard about two persons, who lived miles apart from each other, one in Curacao and one in England, who both claimed they had seen Ufo’s for real. The person from Curacao together with a lot other people claimed to have seen about a 100 flying over. The one from England had seen them very close by one night while they were driving home. They had been very scared.
My opinion on this phenomenon just lead us to give our sailing boat the name UFO. We have been very happy on this boat, so who knews.
Dinkie
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
About me
About me Dinkie
My website is about contacts with people who, just like me, have been in a Japanese concentration camp.
Problems which came to surface later, I dealt with myself. This blog tells you how I overcame these and how you can get old cheerfully. Homeotherapeutical medicines helped as well.
I will regularly write pieces about resolving things with my children and grandchildren. It might be of use to my readers as well. Relationships with daughters and sons and daughters- and sons in law are often tumultuous, therefore this item will also be addressed in my blog. I will also give some insight in recepis I use, book & film reviews and all other hobbies of mine, that give me a lot of pleasure. I am also interested in reincarnation and UFO's. Freedom is my highest priority, yours, Dinkie.
My website is about contacts with people who, just like me, have been in a Japanese concentration camp.
Problems which came to surface later, I dealt with myself. This blog tells you how I overcame these and how you can get old cheerfully. Homeotherapeutical medicines helped as well.
I will regularly write pieces about resolving things with my children and grandchildren. It might be of use to my readers as well. Relationships with daughters and sons and daughters- and sons in law are often tumultuous, therefore this item will also be addressed in my blog. I will also give some insight in recepis I use, book & film reviews and all other hobbies of mine, that give me a lot of pleasure. I am also interested in reincarnation and UFO's. Freedom is my highest priority, yours, Dinkie.
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