One day, I received a Post Office Giro
envelope containing a note asking me to meet someone at a house in town. My curiosity got the better of me and I
went. On arrival at the house, I found
the door ajar and I went in. The place
was empty and I went upstairs and, in the front bedroom, I found a Bible on a
table. As I looked at it, a man appeared
in the doorway; he seemed to know all about me and, in conversation, he asked
me if I was interested in joining a resistance group to perform tasks that
would release more mature men from some of the minor jobs. I agreed and he told me I would have to swear
allegiance to Queen Wilhelmina. He then
told me to go home and I would be contacted if and when required.
The jobs we had to do were cleaning guns,
manning road blocks and observation posts to note German movements in and out
of town, weapons training and instruction in street fighting.
As the War went on, food became harder to
get, so sometimes I would get on my bike and cycle into the countryside to buy
milk from the farms. On one such
occasion, on my return home along a narrow dyke, I was confronted by a German
armoured vehicle. I had nowhere to go
and no choice but to stop. The Officer,
in a grey leather coat, held up his hand to stop me. I was searched but was carrying nothing
suspicious, so my personal items were returned to me, although they kept my
papers and the soldiers took three of my six bottles of milk.
The vehicle had broken down and they had no
radio communications so the Officer gave me a note and an address in Gouda to
get assistance. I hated to do it but I
had no choice as he had my papers and my name and address. The following morning a gefreiter (corporal)
came to the house and brought my papers back with two cigarettes. None of the family smoked, so they ended up
in the dustbin.
Ted and I had several safe houses, around the
town, where we stayed at times; one of mine was a sweet shop run by a lady with
three daughters. Her husband had been
taken away by the Germans and sent to a camp somewhere in Germany. One of her daughters worked in the hospital
which had both Allied and German wounded servicemen as patients. I used to collect her from the hospital and
often chatted with our wounded (and also with the German wounded, to avoid
suspicion) whilst I waited for her.
On one occasion, on the way home, we were
walking down a dark, tree lined lane (just after curfew). We heard the marching footsteps of a German
patrol. We stood close to the dark fence
of a coal yard, in the hope that they would not see us. Unfortunately we were seen and they took us
to an office in a warehouse where we were guarded by two members of the feld
gendarmerie, armed with machine pistols.
I held her hand to steady her.
A young SS Officer entered the room with a
female interpreter; he sat down and she stood beside him. She was looking at me as if she knew me –
quite possible as Gouda was a small place at the time. She was probably at school with me.
The Officer was holding my ID card; he did
not notice the two red lines and the word “Vreemdeling” meaning foreigner. The girl did see it and she looked at me as
if to say “You are in trouble”. He asked
me the same questions several times as if he was trying to trick me into giving
a different answer. He asked me why I
had to escort the girl home from the hospital and he got angry when I asked him
if he would let his daughter walk home through a town full of enemy soldiers.
He told me I was old enough to go to Germany
to help with the war effort but first I would be taken to the Gestapo. That would be fatal as they would have found
out that I was British – and God knows what they would have had in store for
me. We were escorted outside and ordered
onto a half track, when the interpreter started a heated argument with the
Officer (maybe she was his girlfriend).
I do not know what she said to him but he ordered us down from the half
track, gave us a very strong warning and told us to go. That lady most probably saved my life; we ran
and ran and, with hearts beating like a drum, made it to the house.
There was another incident when I was
standing on the pavement and two other fellows were talking a little further on
and two ladies were standing behind me chatting. A German vehicle came past and stopped at the
corner of the street by a large building which accommodated German
Officers. A podgy, middle aged Officer
came around the corner and ordered us to go with him. He must have noticed I was missing because he
came back around the corner and shouted to come here. I did not move.
Egbert (centre) with friends Henk and Jan
Taken in Gouda in 1942
They, and the Gestapo, had no idea he was British!
©Egbert Hughes
He came up to me and drew his gun and I was
looking straight down the barrel of a 9mm Luger. He said: “Come, you have to work!” I replied, in German, that I do not work for
the enemy, to which he said that they had been here for three years and we were
all Germans, now.
I said that maybe all those people, but not
me because I am British. He was still
pointing the gun at me and I was astonished when he told me to prove it. I gave him my British passport and he clearly
did not read English or Dutch but, as he flipped through the pages, he must
have noticed the word Police on the permit to reside in Holland because he said
it was in order, holstered his gun, clicked his heels and walked away. I think I had really tried my luck that time.
In September 1944 the Resistance put us on
standby for an Allied invasion and potential action in support of them. This was the event later filmed as “A Bridge
Too Far” where the Allies failed to capture the bridge at Arnhem and the
invasion failed. As a result of this we
were stood down and that part of Holland was not liberated until May 1945 – at
the very end of the war.
By now, the times were very hard for
civilians and occupying armies alike.
Everything was in very short supply and the shops were empty. Keeping warm was a problem too; there was no
gas, water, electricity, water, fire wood, coal, paper or candles. My mother made up a bowl of water with a
little oil floating on the top; a small square of very thin metal with a hole
in it held a piece of candle wick.
Together they made up a very feeble light.
With the onset of autumn, the weather became very cold
and there were heavy falls of snow, which made matters worse. Ted and I used to go to bed at 4pm, just to
keep warm. By December, there were
people starving and dying of the cold and it became known as the Hunger Winter.
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