Elementary School in Wassenaar.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN HOLLAND IN WASSENAAR

There, shy and slowly she went to a regular school, for the first time, in the 5th grade in September 1947. After being in Japanese concentration camps for 4 years without education, now 12 years old in beautiful Wassenaar. Skinny, yellow and with rotting front teeth, she didn’t dare to smile or talk head up, because then only six black stumps would laugh at you. There in that big classroom, she was also aware of the huge gap in education she had.
In this solidly formed community, she was an attraction. She was bullied a lot and not accepted. For days she walked, all on her own during the breaks, looking here and there what the others were doing and was completely ignored. Heartbroken and alone she went home, where she worked very hard to catch up on the learning deficit. Even in the summer she was busy, writing many chapters about the Netherlands so the information was ingrained in her head. Then she would sell the written chapters for some money to children, who had to copy these chapters about the provinces when they were punished for something they did wrong in the classroom.
During this period at school, she also went to Utrecht for a big operation on her teeth. This operation took place in a gallery room, where also a large group of dental students were sitting to watch the operation on her teeth and listening to the professor, who did his utmost to clean the roots and even the inside of the nostrils. In the midst of it all she fainted and some students took very nice care of her caressing her. After 1½ hours they were finally finished and she could leave with a lot of stitches above her teeth. The students applauded and dying from the pain, she went to her grandmother, who lived in Utrecht. Her grandmother put her to bed with a couple of aspirins. On these cleaned roots, small silver and sharp teeth were made, upon which later six beautiful white teeth would be placed. With those scary silver teeth she could play in a horror movie. The harassment at school became twice as bad. Going to school became a torture.
The only thing that comforted her was that her teacher was totally committed to help her as much as he could and it worked.
One day, again walking alone at the playground, watching those cheerful, playing and laughing children, she stopped by a group of girls of the sixth grade, who were rope jumping. Tineke, the most popular girl in school and the favorite of the headmaster, with curly blond hair, bright blue eyes, very bold with a beautiful singing voice, came to her suddenly and said in a loud and clear voice to the group: “As of now on she will also join us”. And so it happened. From that day on I was completely accepted by the group and than a great period of happines and joy at school started.
I could have never imagined, that her first daughter would one day become my daughter in law, she would marry my oldest son Walter, who gave us two grandchildren who we thoroughly enjoyed. I still see her on their birthdays and have always stayed in touch with her for all these years. This Tineke is now also an elderly lady, still with a strong will, real tough and as far as I know also “old and cheerful”.
Dinkie