Hunger in Holland by Cornelia Fuykschot

Author:Cornelia Fuykschot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-12-14T13:30:00+00:00

The railway people finally decided that it was not their calling in life to lead people to the slaughter, and quit. One day there was not a railway man to be seen at any station. No trains moved, the stations were dead. They took a great risk; the Germans could have gone to their houses and forced them at gunpoint. Many had found it wise to stay with relatives, at least for a while. They stayed off work until the end of the war. All the people of Holland quietly rejoiced when news of the strike spread. It was the greatest act of public defiance possible, and it warmed our hearts to know that the railway men had found the courage to refuse.

Did it help the Jews? Not really, the Germans ran whatever trains they needed for their own purposes, and there was no more public transportation by rail until after the war. From now on every train that rode was an enemy train. It simplified the work of the underground hit squads, now probably strengthened by former railroad workers who knew all the details about the network of tracksand signals. But longbefore the end of the war there were no more Jews in Amsterdam. The Jew's Broad Street was dead, empty, and its houses hollow. Holland had lost its Jews.

With the railway workers on strike, local and provincial buses lost a major reason for running, and it was not long before there were no more buses either. It was impossible to keep the vehicles in repair, especially the tires, and running with gas generators created more problems than it solved. That did not make people stay at home, however, those who still had bicycles rode, and the rest walked. By now very few people were still employed, most companies had had to close their doors for lack of materials. For most people life revolved around two main thoughts: how to get something to eat, and how to keep the men out of the clutches of the Germans.

By now the Germans were desperate for men. The war on the Eastern front - in Russia - was not going well for them. Their supply lines were long, and that enormous country swallowed up men as if they went sailing down a cataract. We were well aware of the fact that the troops in our street were no longer the ones that had conquered us, the brawny, boastful, goose-stepping kind whose staccato singing had echoed through our streets. The bragging: "...und wir fahren, and wir fa-ahren nach England", or the biting: "Wacht am Rhein", and the most hated of all: "Deutschland, Deutschland fiber alles, fiber alles in der Welt" - Germany over all things in the world. No more declarations that they could get England with just fire fighters and vacuum-cleaners. The men who now walked our streets were much older, tired, disillusioned. Their boots did not clank so loudly, they did not bother with goose-stepping and they never sang. We could

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