AMSTERDAM
Dear Mies and Toon
On Sept. 5th we were told that the Americans and English should be in our Country, namely Brabant. But because there are so many rumours going around, people are tending to anticipate things a little too hastily. The Allies are also supposed to have landed in the Hague, and yet this was again denied; as the bridge over the Moerdijk is impassable, they could not possibly have reached the Hague. We are now waiting full of expectation to see what will happen next. The telephones are not working, there is no post, and there are no papers anymore. R.V. Tonningen, Director of the Nederland Bank (an N.S.B.er i.e. NAZI), has gone. There were seven cars outside the entrance, guarded on either side by armed NAZIs, thus they were able to fill the cars with money, all stolen from us. The families of the NAZIs have had to leave and make their way to Westerborg, to the camp that all the Jews were first taken to; now that the Jews have all been hunted out, imprisoned and exterminated, there is room for them.
All the men are being sent to the front. That day we remember well, it was the same day as Tanta Anna's birthday. Joh, Bos has married a woman who is divorced and has four children, one of which, a son, was the leader of the Nederlandse Arbeidsfront - a group refusing to be sent to Germany-. On Sept. 5th he went underground, along with all the members of the group. As soon as the Germans realised what had happened, they sent four armed soldiers late one night to Joh. Bos's house to find out where his stepson was; because the stepson has a different surname from Joh. and the soldiers did not know all the facts about his marriage. Joh, swore black was blue that he had no children, and eventually the soldiers went away. To give you an example of their effrontery, Willy Schmitz's husband had a beautiful new bicycle, which he used every day to get to work (they lived in Heemstede), as the trams and trains were so unreliable. One day some German soldiers ordered him to get off his bicycle, they immediately jumped on it and rode away with it, leaving him standing. And so it goes on.
All the bathroom and lavatory fittings, the water and gas pipes and the electrical wiring have been stolen from my houses. This has happened to all those houses which have been standing empty since the compulsory evacuation a few years ago. However it will all be over by to-day or to-morrow. We are expecting it to-morrow, Friday Sept 8th at the very latest. Hurray! Then all the flags will be flying, and we will all go mad and do crazy things out of sheer joy. Flags are already being sold.
And now dear people, until the next time.
with a big kiss
from your living mother.
