

### HIDDEN TEARS

Michael Taylor

Copyright 2019 Michael Taylor

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

Formatting by Caligraphics

www.number41.com.au

This is a story that has taken me 80 years to tell. It deals largely with my childhood during World War II, and my teenage years afterwards, which were much worse. My father had been a collaborator and, as a result, I was despised and shunned by almost everyone that knew about my family. As children, we suffered the consequences for a very long time. We had to keep it a secret from the whole world. It interfered with my plans for the future and cropped up during my whole life. Even today, my anger surfaces on occasion.

Wilhelmina Findhammer 2019

# 1.

This is not a story about the horrors of war, its cruelty, barbarism and indignities that can be so generously and enthusiastically inflicted by one group of men upon another. Nor is it a story about tragedy, sacrifice, heroes, villains and a battle of the spirit against foes who were once friends and a country once called home. It is a story of all these things wrapped in layers around one woman's life for 80 years. Dutch-born Wilhelmina was raised during conflict, and for most, conflict has a finish. At war's end, men go home, or not, and life begins again from a different starting point. Families draw on resilience, optimism, and each other to piece together what was a shattered and scattered jigsaw of unspeakable events. Then, life goes on.

For Wilhelmina, life also went on but there was no end to the conflict. Every aspect of her life has been over-ridden by a shadow – an invisible cloak of shame that is undeserved and unwanted. The time has come to cast it off. At the end of World War II, tens of thousands of Dutch citizens were rounded up and put on trial. They were accused of collaborating with the enemy and tried for crimes ranging from sleeping with the occupying Germans to serving in their Army. Many had collaborated through fear, intimidation or coercion and justice was at times arbitrary and chaotic. Wilhelmina was only seven years old when her father became one of 145 Dutch men sentenced to death at war's end. The wives, sons and daughters of those tried were also branded guilty, by association, and shunned, shamed and ostracised by friends, neighbours and the wider community. They became the unrecognised victims of discrimination at school and at work, and many lived a life unable to shake the effects of that treatment. This is the story of one of them.

In 1938, The Netherlands was a country of nine million people living peacefully in an area nine times smaller than its neighbouring Germany. Wilhelmina's parents had an almost-four-year-old son when she was born in April in the port city of Rotterdam. In 1929, the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States had plunged most western industrialised countries into an economic depression. The Netherlands were a bit slow to catch on, but for them the conditions lasted much longer. Rising unemployment and social unrest in the early 1930s gave strength to the rise of the country's National Socialist Movement (NSB). Based on Germany's Nazi Party, it was begun by a council civil engineer, Anton Mussert, who espoused love of nation, and strength in leadership along with the rejection of parliamentary democracy and capitalism. Mussert's party would secure many votes because of frustration with the Dutch democratic and electoral process, which had 33 parties in 1933, all of which were struggling to solve the problems of the time. Across the border, Germany's ongoing financial recovery under National Socialism was viewed by the peace-loving Dutch with a mixture of envy and suspicion.

The NSB would have a peace-time membership of 36,000 as it preached to the disenchanted population of national renewal and action plans. He had a captive audience, but as Mussert became more radical in his views and openly supported Hitler's foreign policy and military aggression, that support weakened considerably. In May, 1940, 10,000 NSB members were put into custody by the Dutch government, only to be freed shortly after by the invading Germans. Then, during the occupation of the Netherlands, 100,000 Dutch would identify as NSB members, largely for opportunistic reasons.

Wilhelmina's father enjoyed a good education during the 1920s and had high ambitions. Despite his own parents having plans for him to work in the family shop, he finished secondary education and learned chemistry when working in the laboratory of the Enka company – a Dutch manufacturer of rayon (artificial silk). This led him to a career in the police force, initially in the finger-printing division.

One day he took a trip on a cherry-boat cruise which travelled past orchards where people could pick their own cherries. There was also music and dancing on board, and on this particular day the blonde, good looking man was sitting quietly by himself when he noticed a beautiful, smiling young woman. He asked Cornelia to dance, and a week later visited her at the haberdashery shop where she was the manager. The shop was owned by her parents who did not approve of the serious young man in uniform. Undeterred, the couple enjoyed a courtship and against her parent's wishes, married in August, 1933. Eleven months later a son, Wim, was born into a world beginning to tremble with unrest. One week after Cornelia gave birth to her first child, Austria's Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, was assassinated by Austrian Nazis after banning the Nazi Party in his country, and the following week Adolf Hitler became Fϋhrer of a one-party dictatorship in Germany.

The young family settled in Rotterdam, and Wilhelmina was born four years later. Her 30-year-old father had been promoted to Inspector and also joined the Army Reserve where he held the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the Artillery with a commitment of three weeks military training every two years. There seemed to be little doubt that a war was brewing but the Dutch government continually reassured its people through nightly radio broadcasts, and reminded them of the country's long and peaceful history. Nobody seemed too worried, but from late October, 1939, the same Dutch government began a slow military build-up, and Cornelia began to see less and less of her husband. Wilhelmina was blissfully unaware:

' **From a very early age I was fascinated by the activities I saw my mother engaged in. She responded to my interest by teaching me sewing, drawing, modelling in clay and other hand-crafts. I remember wanting to make a face-washer for my doll and being impatient because I didn't succeed fast enough. My mother advised me to sit quietly in my own room and try very hard. At that time I was about two years old, a very quiet girl and very focused on my mother. I could not be without her, otherwise I would start crying. I have no childhood memories of my father. I cannot remember having a father. He was always away.'**

On the morning of Thursday, May 9, 1940, Cornelia was sitting in her backyard garden having coffee with a friend. The sun was shining, flowers were in bloom, and her two children were playing happily in their sandpit. The day was a blessing. That evening on the radio, the government once again reassured the Dutch population that everything was just fine.

The next morning, Rotterdam's 500,000 residents were woken early by the unusual noise of many aeroplanes flying low over their city. They knew that neighbouring Germany had been at war with England for eight months but there was no need for concern. The Netherlands had been at peace for over 100 years and had remained neutral during the horrors of World War I, as they would be in the second one. The Dutch Prime Minister had described his country's neutrality as 'a beacon in a dark world.' Many in the Netherlands viewed Hitler as a reliable ally in the fight against communism and the Bolshevik Reds over in the east, but had no desire to be directly involved in the nasty business of war.

But, at some point after entering airspace over the North Sea, like a flock of birds being led by the one in front, the aeroplanes did a mass u-turn and headed back towards Rotterdam. It wasn't so much the sound of the bombs raining on the airport that surprised those who were brave enough to venture outdoors – it was the sight of German soldiers falling from the sky.

Germany was the first country in the world to use paratroopers and the first countries to see them were the Netherlands, Belgium and Norway. Despite the falling bombs and a sky filled with hundreds of parachutes, the Dutch residents were in a state of disbelief, confusion and shock more than fear. Germany and the Netherlands had close ties with each other, both economically and socially – they were almost friends – and there were many Germans living in Rotterdam at the time of the invasion. The magnanimous Dutch government had even given sanctuary to the exiled German Kaiser following his abdication at the end of World War I.

Unfortunately, the city was a strategic piggy-in-the-middle. Its location between England and the industrial heartland of Germany made it an ideal air and naval base for the planned assault on England, and Hitler wanted the whole country under his control, so he decided to take it before the British did. The Dutch Army were quick to respond but were massively outgunned. They were un-prepared for war and under-equipped with a military that was thin on ranks and low on morale. After World War I, the Dutch had raised a 3,000-strong regiment of cyclists with the motto, 'Swift and Nimble, Composed and Dignified.' Their ranks included a military band whose bikes had specially designed handlebars enabling them to play the horn while riding. The Netherlands Airforce consisted of 135 aircraft – including bi-planes from World War One – Germany had 1,200 and shot down 60 Dutch planes in the first day. The Dutch had 35 armoured fighting vehicles – known alarmingly as 'tankettes' – the Germans had 159 real tanks. There was initial confusion, but the 10,000 strong Army soon rallied and there was some fierce ground fighting as the gallant Dutch tried in vain to defend their city. German water planes landed on the river and ferried soldiers ashore who soon took up position on the Willemsburg Bridge and raised a Swastika flag. From then on, things just got worse.

The fighting went on for five days and, during the onslaught, Rotterdam was constantly hit by strategic bombing raids although it was hard to find a strategy behind the bombing of the city zoo – resulting in many strange and frightened animals running through the crater-filled streets. Hitler had expected to take the city in one day, but after four days of fighting, he wrote:

'...the resistance capability of the Dutch Army has proved to be stronger than expected. Political as well as military reasons demand that this resistance is broken as soon as possible.'

The German ground forces were under the command of General Schmidt who was under pressure from his boss to get the job done. He devised an assault for May 14 that would use tanks supported by flame-throwers, SS troops and combat engineers. The attack would be preceded by artillery bombardment and 25 Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers for a precision raid. Instead, the General was given carpet bombing by Heinkel He111 bombers and destruction on a scale never before seen in the Netherlands. More than 1,300 bombs were dropped on the city centre after which it resembled a chess board, without the chess pieces. Twenty-five thousand homes were destroyed, 2,500 shops, and 1,200 industrial plants. Nearly three square kilometres was levelled and a resulted in a firestorm that would kill almost 1,000 people. The death toll would have been much higher, but most residents had already fled to safer parts of the city.

Two year old Wilhelmina sheltered in her home's lounge-room with her older brother, grandfather and mother during the bombing. Her grandmother had earlier left the house on an errand and was close to the train station as hell began to rain from the sky. Everywhere around her people began to scream and run and many were injured and died. For Wilhelmina, the unbearable noise seemed to go on forever until finally her grandmother walked through the front door looking as if she had woken from a terrible nightmare. The woman was pale, disoriented and immediately broke into tears as she described what she had witnessed. People had been screaming and running everywhere. There was blood and rubble scattered all over the place and the railway station was flattened with many people dead and wounded. Outside could be heard the sound of the fire brigade and ambulance sirens but the family was too desperate with fear to look. In the course of attending to the elderly lady, one little girl had been forgotten about:

' **I felt lost and left out. I was two years old and could not understand what it was all about. While the others focused their attention on my grandmother I found myself a hiding place underneath a table and there I huddled all on my own. Suddenly I started laughing nervously, hysterically. Laughing and laughing. No doubt they understood that it was my way of dealing with this terrible event. Later we heard that my ballet teacher had been killed. Some houses quite close to ours were damaged as well. We were among the lucky ones.'**

The next day, fearful of similar attacks on Amsterdam and Utrecht, General Winkelman, under advisement from the Dutch Government, surrendered the country to the Germans. They would not get it back for five years. Following the surrender, the General made a statement to his Army: 'This afternoon Germany bombarded Rotterdam, while Utrecht has also been threatened with destruction. In order to spare the civilian population and to prevent further bloodshed, I feel myself justified in ordering all troops concerned to suspend operations. By great superiority of the most modern means the enemy has succeeded in breaking our resistance. We have nothing wherewith to reproach ourselves in connection with this war. Your bearing and that of the forces was calm, firm of purpose and worthy of the Netherlands.'

Sixty-year-old Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (whose late husband was German-born) fled the country to the warm embrace of Winston Churchill, in London. The newly-installed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would one day be quoted as saying, 'I fear no man in the world, but Queen Wilhelmina.' The exiled monarch broadcast a message on the BBC shortly after arriving: 'After an heroic struggle, my nation that has attempted everything to maintain peace is being overwhelmed by sheer superiority of force. But morally, we can never be conquered. Our spirit will remain unbroken because our conscience is clear.' They were encouraging words, which would one day return to haunt her.

Wilhelmina's father, Willem, was fighting with the Dutch army at the battle of Grebbeberg in the central Netherlands. The fierce fighting there lasted three days with more than 700 Dutch soldiers losing their lives before the surrender. The thousands of defeated Dutch soldiers who survived were imprisoned. Willem was released after two months and returned to his job in the police force, but it did not last very long. The Germans soon realised they had a valuable asset at their disposal and ordered all captured Dutch soldiers to join what would be called the Dutch Legion, and fight with the Germans against the Russian communists. Dutch civilians protested and responded by going on strike and refusing to work for the Germans. It was a strong show of defiance, but after 80 workers were shot dead by the German occupiers that defiance was dealt a serious blow. An Austrian Nazi lawyer, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, was given total powers by Adolf Hitler to run The Netherlands during occupation, and he would rule with an iron fist.

The Dutch Legion was formed through forced conscription, although there were some volunteers, recruited by Mussert's NSB, who saw the attraction of a well-funded military fighting a common enemy – the Russian Bolsheviks. For Willem, it meant renouncing his oath to the Dutch Queen and making one instead to Adolf Hitler. He was given a few choices, though. Take the oath and fight with the Germans, be sent to a forced labour camp for an undetermined amount of time, or be shot. He went home and told Cornelia he was joining the Dutch Legion and would be going to Russia to fight. She cried many tears, not only because of her husband's uncertain future, but also because she was pregnant with their third child.

By mid 1941, the unit was organised and fully trained. To give it some degree of respectability, Dutch General Staff Officer, Lieutenant-General Hendrik Seyffardt was put in charge, although most of the officers and NCOs would be German. The following year, Seyffardt would be assassinated by the Dutch resistance, and 50 Dutch would be shot dead by the Germans in retaliation. Before that happened, though, the unit was sent to the swamps and forests of the Eastern Front at the beginning of the coldest winter in over 100 years. Temperatures plummeted off the scale, and the cold killed as many men as bullets did. Inadequate winter uniforms caused frostbite and amputations among the soldiers, and to bury the dead, grenades had to be used to make a hole in the frozen ground. The Dutch fought with valour and Willem was awarded the Iron Cross for courage in battle. After suffering massive casualties, the Dutch legion was disbanded in 1943, and merged with German units from other occupied nations.

Once Willem had been sent away, pregnant Cornelia and her two children left Rotterdam to live with her parents in The Hague, and Wilhelmina's sister, Erna Dorothea, was born there in April, 1942. Cornelia's father sold tobacco for a living and her brother-in-law, Jo, sold tea and coffee, but during the war both men lost their jobs. Jo left the Netherlands to work on a German ship and Annie, his wife, moved in to the house with her sister and parents. Jo was never seen again. The family now numbered seven, so they moved to a larger house with central heating, in Nijmegen, when Wilhelmina was nearly five years old:

' **We were at that time in Nijmegen living in a nice street in a nice house with a garden. In the garden there were tiny flowers which I loved. They were called forget-me-nots. At that time, my mother taught me that when the air raid alarm sirens went off, I should run home as fast as I could. One day the sirens sounded while I was playing outside and I had to run the full length of that long street home. The weather at that time was warm and inviting and as a child I did not like going inside. Still, I was happy to follow my mother's orders, hardly knowing what for. I had closed myself off from all miseries by living in my own fantasy world. I loved little things; my dolls, my doll house, little animals, flowers and birds.'**

When the Dutch Legion was disbanded, Willem was offered the job of Rotterdam's Police Commissioner. The position was available as the previous officer had been shot. Willem was only 35 years old and considered himself too young for a role that would see him put in charge of former colleagues. A similar position was then offered to him at Utrecht. In September, that city's Commissioner, G.J Kerlen, had been shot dead by a female member of the Dutch resistance. Willem had no colleagues in the force there so he accepted the job, and the family relocated to The Netherlands' fourth largest city that sat on the banks of the river Vecht.

Serving as Police Chief was clearly a perilous occupation, and Cornelia would have been anxious about her husband's safety, and that of her family. Commissioner Gerardus Johannes Kerlen had been shot dead in his own home by 22 year old Truus van Lier. Following the murder, Seyss-Inquart, Anton Mussert and Utrecht's Mayor had a meeting and discussed retaliatory measures which included shooting ten Utrecht residents. Before that could be carried out, van Lier was captured and executed by firing squad at the 125 year old Fort de Bilt. During the war, she would become one of 140 Dutch resistance fighters to meet the same fate there.

Utrecht was home to steel factories, and at the beginning of the war the men of the city were kept employed by producing for the German army. By the time Wilhelmina and her family arrived in Utrecht, in 1944, the occupation had become more difficult for its inhabitants. The pro-nazi NSB mayor employed all his friends, and Anton Mussert's NSB headquarters were in Utrecht. The German roundup of the Dutch Jewish population had begun, and only one quarter of Utrecht's 1,200 Jews would survive the war. Men were forced to work in German factories, and as a result the only men to be seen on the streets were the elderly. Nightly bombings and air raid sirens once again dominated the evenings, and the only bright light was the birth, in May, of baby Kees, fourth child for the family and a second brother for six year old Wilhelmina.

Towards the end of 1944, it was becoming apparent to many that Germany may lose the war, and food supplies were becoming increasingly scarce. In the final eight months of the conflict, the deaths of 18,000 Dutch would be directly attributed to malnutrition. The winter famine of 1944/1945 would become infamous as the 'Hongerwinter' (hunger winter), and the war would eventually claim over 200,000 Dutch lives from what was supposed to be a neutral country.

For Wilhelmina's family, Utrecht was no longer a safe place, and Willem urged them to leave and head north on a 160-mile journey to the town of Groningen in the far north of the country:

' **The day came when even though the weather was nice, my mother dressed me in three layers of clothing. I asked her, "Why?" She said, "Because it is war and we are going away." I didn't understand and said, "What does war mean, and is there sometimes no war?" I'm sure my mother would have given the appropriate answers, but I was too small to comprehend. I lived in my own world and had no idea what was happening around. Perhaps I already learned to protect myself, and the world outside was not my world.'**

Cornelia had three children aged ten, six and two, and a baby. To help her, and also to escape the city, Cornelia's parents and sister, Annie, accompanied them. On their day of departure, the Utrecht train station was a scene of chaos, over-crowding and panic. The uncertainty of what may befall many of the Dutch citizens at war's end was as concerning as it was at the beginning of the war, more than four years previously. Wilhelmina's grandparents and aunt took charge of a child each while Cornelia kept a protective hold on baby Kees, as the train slowly departed. Once night fell, there was absolute darkness on board. No lights were allowed for fear of being targeted by enemy planes, and just as they were falling off to sleep the train came to a sudden halt and everyone on board was ordered off. Passengers were told to quickly crawl underneath the train onto the hard, stony ground, and keep their heads down. Wilhelmina held tightly onto her mother in the cold darkness, and as the approaching war planes began to fire, she closed her eyes and covered her ears. The noise was deafening, but she could still hear people screaming as the empty train carriages were fired upon. There were blasts of bright light and Wilhelmina tried to lift her head a little higher to see what was happening, but her grandfather roughly pushed her back onto the ground. When the attack was over, everyone climbed back on board and travelled into the night.

The train did not make it to Groningen. Instead, it stopped at a town called Beilen and passengers disembarked for an eight-kilometre walk to Westerbork Transit Camp. The camp had been established by the Dutch government in 1939 as a refugee camp for Jews escaping persecution in other countries, especially Germany. The camp spread over 100 acres and consisted of 200 inter-connected cottages for families and barrack buildings for single inmates. From the end of 1940 until September, 1944, it served as a staging point for the mass deportation of Jewish people being sent to concentration camps in Poland. Just prior to Cornelia and her family arriving there, the final train-load of Jewish prisoners had been loaded and sent away. One of them was a 15-year-old girl called Anne Frank, whose war-time diaries would become a powerful record of the German occupation.

Wilhelmina and her family spent five weeks at Westerbork before once again boarding a train which they hoped would take them to Groningen, but instead took them to a town called Osterholz-Scharmbeck in the north-west of Germany. Here, a school had been converted into a camp and the family shared a school-room with 15 other people who all ate and slept in the one room. Cornelia still had breast-milk available and would share it with babies whose own mothers' breasts had become dry. Her parents and sister worked in the kitchen, helping to prepare meals as everyone waited for the outcome of the never-ending hostilities. Luckily, food was plentiful and the rooms were warm, although Annie soon fell ill to the ravages of diphtheria. The infection would kill 50,000 people during the war, but Wilhelmina's aunt managed to survive.

There would be occasional bombings of an evening when all the camp residents would stand shoulder to shoulder in the school hall for shelter. Wilhelmina remembers standing next to her grandfather on one of those nights, holding tightly onto his hand. He said quietly to her, "If the bombs fall we have to escape through that little window up there on the right side. When all these people try to escape out the door it will be too late for us." She stared up at the little window and wondered how that would be possible because it was so high. The family was lucky to be there, though, as the winter of 1944/1945 would become brutal for many Dutch. The famine would especially impact on citizens in the densely populated western provinces and cities.

Settling in Germany was never an option for Cornelia and her children, regardless of who won the war. Wilhelmina's 7th Christmas was spent in the camp at Osterholz-Scharmbeck until finally, in March, 1945, the family was able to board a train bound for their original destination of Groningen. Once again, there was panic and over-crowding and Cornelia was forced to travel in the cargo carriage because of her pram with 10-month-old Kees inside it. Her oldest son decided to join her but was swiftly booted out by the conductor just before the train left the station. It was night-time and all those who were leaving were on board – except for 10-year-old Wim. Over the noise of the train a small voice could be heard calling out 'Tante' (Aunt). Just in time, Annie saw her distraught nephew and scooped him off the platform and through an open window onto the moving train.

Despite making it safely to Groningen, Cornelia's aim was to get back to their home in Utrecht. Some areas in the south of her country had already been liberated by American forces, and she was sure that all of The Netherlands would soon be free of the German invaders. The town was still full of German soldiers, but the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division was closing in and a huge battle was imminent. Transport was in short supply so Cornelia's father managed to buy a handcart onto which he placed their suitcases, meagre belongings, and the two youngest children. Two adults pulled, two adults pushed and Wilhelmina and Wim strode alongside. Not long after they left Groningen, the bridge was blown up by allied forces.

Young Wilhelmina thought it was a great adventure as they walked along under the warm sunshine past fields of red poppies and blue corn-flowers. They would also pass burnt out vehicles, luckily with nobody inside them, and instinctively duck their heads when British fighter planes streaked through the air above. On the first day of their journey, the small group sat together in a field and ate sparingly of the little food they had. Wilhelmina was running around enjoying herself when a man she did not know started to talk to her. He had thick black hair, slicked back with Brylcreem and she was happy for his attention. Shortly after a game of hide and seek, the man went and talked to Cornelia, and then abruptly left:

' **I was curious and wanted to know why he was leaving because he was very nice. Later my mother confided in me and told me that he had offered to buy me and take charge of me because of our circumstances. For my mother to entrust her child to a stranger was unthinkable, and the thought of leaving my mother was something I did not want. The very idea of being separated from my beloved mother was beyond my wildest imagining, but I found it interesting that a man wanted to buy me.'**

After a few days of walking, the exhausted family was taken in by a farmer who took them in, fed them soup from a large wooden bucket and allowed them to sleep in his barn among the straw and hay. Later, the farmer gave them the use of his glasshouse, which had previously been used as a nursery for potatoes. It was a bright and sunny space that may have lacked privacy but would end up being a comfortable and secure resting place for nearly ten weeks. They were able to pay the farmer for food, and Cornelia's father helped out on the farm. The children saw it as an adventure, and had horses, chickens and a family dog to play with. Wilhelmina remembers feeling sad sometimes, but didn't understand why. Sadness was a feeling she could not then define.

Behind them, the war still raged. At Groningen a four-day battle in April would result in 5,200 German soldiers surrendering to the Canadian military. Finally, on May 5, 1945, the German occupation surrendered, and a few days later, for no reason other than being the wife of a suspected collaborator, Cornelia was arrested and imprisoned by the Canadians. It was an early sign of the long-term rift that would develop in The Netherlands between those considered to have sided with the German occupiers, and those who did not.

# 2.

Before that was to happen, though, there was jubilation and dancing in the streets all over the newly liberated country. Canadian soldiers were welcomed so enthusiastically that thousands of young Dutch women would migrate to Canada with their new Canadian husbands. The Dutch resistance movement which had numbered between 7,000 - 10,000 during the five years of occupation immediately began looking for collaborators, but thousands of NSB members had already fled to Germany once it became obvious they were playing for the losing team. Those left behind were swiftly rounded up and interned without trial. Waffen-SS soldiers were made to clear minefields resulting in many deaths, and it wasn't just the men who had been collaborating with the enemy. Dutch women suspected of having a relationship with German soldiers were seized from their homes by a vengeful population and publicly humiliated. In scenes reminiscent of the Middle Ages, these women had their heads shaved as a mark of shame, and were paraded through the streets to be jeered and abused by angry spectators.

Fifty-one year old Anton Mussert was arrested and charged with high treason. Despite his plea for clemency, he was executed in May, 1946. Arthur Seyss-Inquart was charged with crimes against humanity and met the same fate five months later.

Many Dutch called for the execution of all Dutch Waffen-SS members. Most were stripped of their citizenship and received jail sentences instead. In 1954, the Dutch government would offer amnesty to returning Waffen-SS men from Germany. But, in 1945 there was five years of pent-up anger looking for an outlet and anyone suspected of colluding with the enemy, as well as their family and friends were targeted by an enraged citizenry hungry for revenge. So many people were arrested and imprisoned after the war there were not enough facilities or personnel to cater for them, and there would be abuses and deaths among the 200 internment camps as a result. Up to 24,000 children of NSB members were separated from their parents and placed in special homes or cared for by neighbours or relatives. As children witnessed their parents being arrested, families were torn apart, and all their money and possessions taken. Many of these children would be neglected, ignored, and treated with undisguised contempt, leaving them with a feeling of being a bad person. It was a feeling that would take some of them a lifetime to cast off.

Nearly 10% of the police force was fired, and hundreds of NSB-appointed mayors were tried and convicted. The Special Court of Justice was convened in The Netherlands towards the end of 1945 to deal with Nazi war criminals and Dutch collaborators. Despite the death penalty being abolished in the country in 1870, it would be re-instated and handed out to 145 men, including Willem, on a Monday afternoon in Rotterdam, in 1945. When Cornelia was imprisoned by the Canadians in a labour camp, her four children, parents and sister were still at the farm:

' **Although my mother's parents and sister remained with us, that didn't reassure me and I was very unhappy. Sometimes my oldest brother and I walked to a nearby road where, if we were lucky, we would get a glimpse of my mother on the back of a truck with other women. They would be singing as they passed on the way back to where they were confined. We waved as they passed by. My mother had to do forced labour and field work. One day we were alongside the road waiting for the truck when I saw another car pulled by a horse coming. I was running close to the edge of the road and thought it was my mother's truck. The horse got a fright and the farmer on the car lost control. The horse panicked and the horse, car and farmer landed in a ditch. I cannot remember if I was punished for that.'**

After a few years, Cornelia confided in her daughter that the months spent in forced field labour were one of the most enjoyable periods of her life. She relished the manual work and enjoyed the company of other prisoners out in the fields. After a hard day's work she was dirty and tired but free of stress. She knew her children were in good hands and while she missed them, after more than ten years bearing and raising children, she was carefree. Although the food was terrible, the experience was like a working holiday adventure, and she would remain friends with some of the other prisoners for many years. She even managed to scrounge pieces of material and thread and embroider pictures and make rag dolls for her children while imprisoned.

Willem's parents and younger brother were able to find a car and rescue Cornelia's family from the farm and return them to Rotterdam. Even that journey was fraught with difficulty as the towns and countryside had been heavily bombed and many bridges were destroyed. They had no possessions, no home and no money, and there was not enough room at her uncle's house for everyone to stay, so Wilhelmina was sent off to another uncle and aunt to live. These relations were not so kindly and resented having a seven-year-old child in their house. One of them had to stay home to look after her and there were many arguments which made the young girl feel sick and unhappy. She had been so attached to her mother for her whole life and now there was so much emptiness she did not want to speak or even move. After a few weeks Wilhelmina was reunited with her family and all of them, except Cornelia, moved to Rijswijk, near The Hague, to live with Willem's parents. They had a large house with a vacant floor and attic that was available:

' **Throughout this whole period my father had not been with us. During the war years he had been in the army fighting somewhere. When peace was declared he was taken into custody and given the death sentence. The existence of having a father was a blurred memory. I could hardly imagine my father being in prison. I was not interested and it did not penetrate my head. It did not make any sense to me and I did not think about it. We were told very earnestly and firmly that we were not to tell anybody. If strangers or children were asking, just tell them your father is dead.'**

As a member of the police force, Willem had taken an oath to the Queen of The Netherlands, but in order to join the Dutch legion all soldiers were required to take an oath to Germany's Fϋhrer, Adolf Hitler. In doing so they had broken their oath to country and Queen and were guilty of treason. Willem was also accused of being a member of the National Socialist Dutch Workers Party (NSNAP). Prior to the war, the group achieved little success, and was branded by the NSB as being too moderate in its views for a fascist movement. The NSNAP score less than 1,000 votes in the 1937 election, and had disappeared altogether by the end of 1941.

Willem's family accepted his fate because there was nothing they could do. Later in life, his children would choose not to explore the details of charges brought against him. Wilhelmina saw idealism in her father's choices, and believed he had joined the Dutch Legion to prevent Dutch troops being used as cannon fodder by the Germans. Willem had rank and was in a position to influence such matters. Of the 145 who were handed a death penalty, 42 were executed, and Willem spent 1½ years on death row waiting for a firing squad. During this time, eight year old Wilhelmina's mother was also imprisoned, and the children were cared for by Aunt Annie and their grandparents. The young girl was beginning to feel the stress and burdens of war, even though it was over. She carried a sadness that was intense and it increased her already introverted and shy nature. Her country was finally at peace, but she was in turmoil and unsure of her place in an environment that was uncommon to her. From the age of two until eight, all she knew was conflict and was then faced with the reality of her mother imprisoned and her father facing the death penalty. Unfortunately, nobody thought to ask her how she felt. Rejoicing and celebration continued all around her because World War II had ended. For Wilhelmina, a new battle had begun, and it was one that would last her whole life.

Once Cornelia was released from the labour farm, she set about enlisting help for her husband. It would not come through the community as they viewed the whole family as bad people and made it known, so the family kept to themselves and remained aloof through necessity. The children were aware of the situation and were told not to talk about it, and to just say they did not have a father because he was dead. In that time, at a young age, Wilhelmina painfully learned to distance herself from all the misery, but was unable to cope.

She was lucky to have survived the war with her trust not being tampered with and her identity intact. In her child's view, the war had given her a life of movement, change and adventure but had not interfered with her self-image. The children of Cornelia and Willem had been programmed to behave within certain parameters of morality and integrity, as set by their parents; stand up straight, look people in the eye and don't lie. Now, those very same parents seemed to have acted outside those ethics, leaving Wilhelmina on the brink of a major crisis at a very young age.

Cornelia was able to gain support from the church and from the Red Cross to lobby for her husband. She was successful, and had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The children then resigned themselves to the fact they may never have their father at home again. Cornelia may have felt some relief as Willem had been living with a cloud of danger hanging over him for six years. His life sentence was later reduced to eight years, and there was a flicker of light at the end of a very long tunnel.

The family lived in a quiet street in Rijswijk. Willem's parents lived downstairs, while Annie, Cornelia and the four children lived on the first floor, and Cornelia's parents lived upstairs in the attic. The living conditions were cramped, but at least they had a roof over their heads, after everything had been taken from them after the war. Wilhelmina's maternal grandfather was very handy, although occasionally short-tempered, and able to make furniture and beds out of second-hand items he scrounged for. He was also a capable cook, and often prepared the children's favourite meal of sauerkraut and mashed potatoes mixed with slightly burnt flour. Her maternal grandmother taught her how to knit, crochet and embroider and her aunt was a very capable woman who helped run the household and had fed and clothed the children until Cornelia returned. Her downstairs paternal grandparents kept more to themselves.

The first few months after liberation in The Netherlands, not unlike other occupied countries, was a mixture of relief, celebration and chaos. Wilhelmina remembers running out of her grandparents' home and around the corner to Lindelaan Street where people were dancing, singing and proudly showing the orange, red, white and blue Dutch colours. She joined in, dancing by herself, until someone in the crowd recognised her and put his foot out so she fell flat onto her back. The confused girl lay on the ground, struggling to breathe while the crowd continued to dance around her. She slowly dragged herself off the ground, regained her breathing and walked slowly home, with her head down. It was only the beginning of such treatment, and she told nobody of the incident.

The Dutch government continued down a vengeful path by instigating Operation Black Tulip in 1946. The plan was put forward by the country's Minister of Justice and called for all Germans living in The Netherlands to be deported. The 25,000 residents were to be evicted in the reverse order of their arrival. Those who arrived after World War I would go first, followed by those who arrived after 1932, and lastly, whoever was left. Those chosen were targeted in the middle of the night and given one hour to gather together 50 kilograms of luggage and 100 guilders. The forced departures lasted for two years and nearly 4,000 Germans were sent packing in that time. And, at the time, who could blame the Dutch for their anger. During the war, this previously peaceful country had seven of its cities completely destroyed, a significant part of its Jewish population executed, more than 200,000 of its citizens died as a result of the conflict, its country was stripped bare by an occupying force, and many suffered through a long and deadly famine.

In 1946, Wilhelmina was eight years old with a 12-year-old brother and both needed to resume their schooling. With their mum still imprisoned on a labour farm, it fell to Aunt Annie and the grandparents to find a suitable school for the two older children. It was not such an easy task, as many headmasters did not welcome children of parents who were seen as making wrong choices during the war.

During the German occupation of The Netherlands, most schools were appropriated for military purposes. Many boarding schools were used to house troops, emergency children's hospitals were housed in school buildings, and many schools later served as Red Cross sites. Some schools became transportation depots, food distribution centres, and in one case, a bordello for Nazi officers. As a result, remaining schools became over-crowded, and classes for students would be held in garages, sheds, lofts and workplace lunchrooms. To add to the shortage, by war's end more than 300 schools would be destroyed by bombing.

A shortage of teachers also contributed to a disrupted educational system during this five-year period, as many adult males were sent to work in German factories. School attendance had fallen dramatically, though, due to shortages of clothing and food. In the final year of the war it was estimated that 20% of all school-age children in The Netherlands were malnourished, and that number tripled in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. By that time, schooling had practically ceased altogether.

Given the shortage of schools after the war, and the discrimination being shown to many children, Wilhelmina and Wim were lucky to be accepted into a Christian elementary school in The Hague. They were taught to pray and learned hymns and psalms by rote. During their school hours they were not ostracised, but they noticed people in the street would look the other way and avoid them. The two children felt like outcasts, and could not really understand why:

' **We really suffered because of this ostracism. More so because we were not even allowed to discuss the motivation of what my father had done. To the outside world we were obliged to put on a brave face. If we were asked where our father was, our response would be, "He is dead." According to our family this was the best response we could give to protect ourselves. We behaved well, so as not to offend anybody. We lived as if we did not exist. Our lives were shrouded in secrecy. We maintained a stolid silence. I felt like an outsider and loner.'**

In the naturally cruel way that children seem to master, Wilhelmina's five-year-old sister would be told by neighbourhood kids that her father was not dead, but in prison. Confused and upset, Erna ran home crying to her mum, who was then at home again. Cornelia stormed out of the house, marched across the road and invited herself upstairs, where a child's birthday party was underway. Cornelia took the floor and explained to everyone present that while her husband may be in prison, she was endeavouring to bring her children up as well as she could, and asked everyone in the room to leave her children in peace. Having stated her case, she walked out, head held high.

Cornelia was a positive, outgoing, cheerful woman and was rarely seen as anything else. Wilhelmina's strongest memories of her mother are of her singing in the kitchen as she cooked for her family, or laughing and joking as she worked in her sewing room.

A more serious incident with the children occurred one day when Wilhelmina was taking her baby brother for a walk. At the end of their street was a roundabout which used small coloured glass pieces as ground cover. Wilhelmina was fascinated by them and would pick out the red, green, blue and yellow shards, and take them home to put in a glass bottle with water. Sitting on her window sill they would sparkle brightly on a sunny day. Wilhelmina may have become distracted with her collecting on this day because when she stood up to go home, her three-year-old brother had disappeared. She raced home, frightened and upset, and told her mother. There was no time for admonishment or punishment as the family members immediately set out on a search. There was no sign of the little boy, so his grandfather phoned the police station, and, yes, there was a child there in a rose-coloured jumpsuit happily munching on a sandwich. There was much relief.

Cornelia had managed to find a job making fur coats by telling the employer her husband was dead. The job suited her skills, but constantly maintaining a lie took its toll, as it did for her children. Money was tight, living conditions were crowded, and luxuries were non-existent, but the children never felt poor and there were always modest presents at birthday time. It was only when they socialised with other children whose families were better off that they were aware of differences, especially with food. Wilhelmina was under-nourished and received extra food for her health. She remembers having to sit in a separate room to avoid making her siblings jealous. She had a special drink to stimulate her appetite and almost had to be force-fed. The other children did not have these problems. Cornelia would buy meat once a week, and fry it up in a big saucepan. There were no government handouts for the family, even though others were receiving some form of assistance. Immediately after liberation, food rationing was still in place, and clothing was difficult to find. Once reconstruction began, especially in the hard-hit cities of Rotterdam, Arnhem and Nijmegen, there were more jobs than workers. After spending some time in the fur-coat trade, Cornelia set up her own dress-making business at home, with Wilhelmina as a capable and willing helper. The business slowly became successful enough for Cornelia to need an assistant for the sewing work, and after school the ten year old would join the two women as they happily sewed together dresses for their haute couture clients.

Wilhelmina changed schools to one that was located in the street behind her grandparents house, and although she was attentive to her studies, other school activities did not appeal to her. She did not feel at ease outside the protective surroundings of her mother's work environment, sewing on buttons and doing other tasks that would be given to her. This was demonstrated very clearly when a part of her new school's curriculum involved a one-week student exchange. Wilhelmina was required to spend that time with a host family in the eastern Netherlands city of Arnhem. Days before her departure, anxiety set in with stomach pains and a dread of leaving her mother. On her first night in Arnhem with the host family, she was finding it difficult to cope. The host mother was interested in Wilhelmina's family and innocently asked what her father did for a living. The young girl, shy at the best of times, almost suffocated at the dinner table, but managed to blurt out, "My father is dead."

The host family was concerned and felt sorry for her, while Wilhelmina just felt embarrassed and started crying. For the rest of her stay in Arnhem, she avoided the family and their children as much as possible and would stand outside in the garden to do so. She was happy to be home again, and when her own family asked her how the week was, she quietly replied, "Okay."

In Cornelia's sewing room, next to an old, brown radio, stood a picture of Willem. It was a sepia print and showed a man with a shy smile, wearing a hat. Wilhelmina remembers her mother addressing the man in the photograph and saying, "Willem, don't worry, you will be home in eight years time." For Wilhelmina, this affirmation meant nothing. The man in the photograph was a stranger to her and she had no emotional connection. She was just happy to be with her mother in the safe confines of the sewing room. The rest of the family viewed her behaviour as a little odd because she rarely spent time with them. She would help with the housework and take her little brother for a walk, but would then find her way back to the sewing room. This apparent indifference towards the other family members soon came to a crisis and an argument ensued. No doubt the strain of 10 people living together under one roof contributed to the tension, but Cornelia defended her eldest daughter and insisted on having her help in the sewing room. The only other time Wilhelmina socialised with the others was when she would take her homework upstairs to the sunny room of her maternal grandparents. There, she would spread her schoolbooks out on the round dining table and enjoy the quiet as she studied. Her grandfather would pay her plenty of attention to the stage when he began to stroke her and kiss her gently on the neck. She felt uncomfortable whenever he got too close, but felt powerless. He was an authority figure and the young girl had no idea about the purpose of his actions, so just let him do what he wanted to do.

On the way downstairs for dinner, Opa would often piggy-back his grand-daughter, which to begin with was quite fun for her. Then, his hands began to stray into areas that made Wilhelmina feel more than just uncomfortable:

' **One day, no longer able to tolerate his intrusive handling, I proclaimed very loudly in the presence of the assembled family at coffee time that Opa was playing with my female parts. My accusation created a big storm, with my grandfather throwing me off his back in a fury. He said, "How dare you say that. What could have put such a thing in your head?" He turned and appealed to the others, "Where could she have found such filthy thoughts?" I was sent off to my bed in disgrace and that was the end of that. I did not understand the furious storm of my grandfather and I was crying."**

As far as the adults were concerned, except for Cornelia, this was a tricky problem, because in those days such matters were confined within the family, and they were not to be talked about or made an issue of. Cornelia suggested to her daughter it would be better if she was not alone with her grandfather anymore. Wilhelmina's mother believed her, and ensured that, apart from school hours, her daughter remained with her in the sewing room. For Wilhelmina, it was another door closing on her already restricted world.

# 3.

One ray of light in that world was Wilhelmina's one school friend, Rusza, the only child of Polish parents. They knew of Wilhelmina's family situation and accepted her as another daughter, sharing outings and activities together. The two young girls turned into two beautiful teenagers and shared music and dreams of Hollywood film stars. Rusza was a member of an athletics club, and on sports days would be supported and encouraged by her best friend and her parents watching from the sidelines. They would all go walking together on Sunday mornings, and even though the two families never socialised, Wilhelmina finally felt accepted by someone other than her mother and siblings.

During the early period of Willem's imprisonment, he and Cornelia would write to each other weekly. Sometimes, Cornelia would sit with the other family members and read the letters out aloud. Wilhelmina was not particularly interested in what her father had to say, so it came as a bit of a shock to everyone when she agreed to accompany her mother on a prison visit. Two hundred kilometres north of The Hague is the city of Leeuwarden. It has been continuously inhabited since the 10th century and is home to a forbidding three-storey, turreted building that opened its doors as a prison in the year 1580. Wilhelmina accompanied her mother on a long train ride to Leeuwarden to visit a father she did not know. They took sandwiches and drinks, and the pretty, but shy, young girl was happy to receive attention from some of the other passengers.

Mother and daughter walked from the train station to the enormous gate of the prison, and waited until a man dressed in dark clothing and carrying a huge bundle of keys opened it up and let them in. They then walked towards another gate. The silence was everywhere, and their footsteps echoed off the cobblestones. Once through the second gate they followed the man through long, dark corridors until they came to a big hall filled with small tables and chairs. There were many men, dressed in ugly, brown uniforms sitting at the tables, waiting for their families. At one of those tables sat her father.

Willem and Cornelia kissed each other, and for the entire 90 minutes they were all together, Wilhelmina sat quietly, and cried. Her parents held each other's hands and had a long conversation. Willem occasionally smiled uncomfortably at his crying daughter, but did not know what to say, and she just wished for the visit to end. When visiting time was over, her parents parted from each other with a loving hug, and Wilhelmina accompanied her mother back through the long corridors and out the two prison gates to the relative sanctuary of the train station. Wim, Erna and Kees would also visit their father over the years, but Wilhelmina would never take that train journey again.

At one stage, Willem suggested to his wife that attending church may be a good idea for their eldest daughter. Cornelia dutifully took her along one Sunday, but the headstrong girl decided she disliked the experience and sat in the pew not quietly, but swearing – loudly. Mother and daughter were asked to leave, and that was the end of Wilhelmina's religious education.

During the 1950s, The Netherlands economy improved dramatically. The country had been granted over $1 billion in aid, over a four year period, through the American instigated Marshall Plan for war reparations. The majority of this assistance was used to reinvigorate manufacturing industries, but housing construction took a back seat, resulting in a shortage of accommodation. When the war ended, 350,000 people came out of hiding, and 300,000 forced labourers returned to The Netherlands from Germany as did 30,000 POW's and political prisoners. This massive influx of people only exacerbated the housing shortage, and contributed to a huge wave of emigration. In the ten years following war's end, 245,000 residents of The Netherlands would leave their homeland for Canada, Australia, South Africa or the USA.

Cornelia tried hard to give her four children a happy childhood, despite their circumstances, and they were certainly not leaving the country while Willem was still imprisoned there. On summer weekends, Cornelia would make a pile of apple spread sandwiches, pack some cool drinks, and load her children onto the tram to Scheveningen. The tram ride itself was an exciting time for them, as money was always short, and walking was their usual method of transport. The long sandy beach at Scheveningen faced the North Sea, and had an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The four children would spend the whole day swimming, and playing in the sand before queuing for a tram in the late afternoon. It was a very long queue, and the children would amuse themselves by counting people and guessing how many trams would come before theirs arrived. They would all arrive home exhausted and happy, share a dinner with the rest of the family and then head straight to bed.

When the weather was not warm enough for the beach, Cornelia would take her children on a walk to the local park where she would look for her favourite flower, the pansy, and pick wildflowers to make daisy strings. Sometimes they would gather 'beukenootjes' seeds which they would later put in a frying pan and be delighted when the seeds burst open with satisfying pop, pop, pops. Cornelia would show Wilhelmina how to make necklaces from the seeds and encourage her creativity. At secondary school, Wilhelmina's ambition was to be an architect or fashion designer, but her influential Aunt Annie had some very strict and conservative views about careers for teenage girls and in the 1950s, fashion design was not one of them.

Another highlight of Wilhelmina's teenage years was the regular visits of her great-aunt Tante Cor. She was an elderly lady full of fun and laughter (unlike her sister, Wilhelmina's maternal grandmother), and would always arrive with sweets, and eggs or food for the whole family. At Christmas time, Tante Cor would bring small sugar sweets shaped like animals and hide them in her lap. As they sat around the coal-fire, tiny explosions would occasionally sound off, and she would throw the little sweets in front of the fire, making the children believe they had come through the chimney and exploded out of the flames.

There was also Tante Jeanne, and her quiet husband Oom Adrian who took an interest in the family's circumstances. Jeanne had been Willem's secretary before the war, and the couple had two young children of their own. Wilhelmina felt comfortable with them because there was no need to lie, and she would sometimes visit the family at their home in Rotterdam. When Jeanne gave birth to a daughter, Wilhelmina was invited on a holiday with them to Veluwe, a popular Dutch tourist destination in the central east of the country. She helped look after the baby girl, tasted milk fresh from a cow and enjoyed a wider variety of food than the baked tomatoes with cheese on toast that was the staple at home. Tante Jeanne was very good to the teenager, and took her to a hairdresser for the first time. At home, Wilhelmina's hair had always been washed with dish detergent and rinsed in water spiked with vinegar. To have her fine blonde hair washed with real shampoo and cut by a professional hairdresser was a luxury.

All these little treats made Wilhelmina happy but she could still not shake off the heavy mood that clung to her, nor distance herself from the situation at home. Much later, as an adult, she would come to realise and appreciate the strength and support that her extended family had given throughout her childhood. Cornelia, especially, was a wonderful and skilful mother under difficult circumstances. She would make clothes for her children, including a beautiful, light blue, strapless evening gown for Wilhelmina, and teach her how to dance the Charleston – a skill she would put to good use in years to come.

In 1954, Wilhelmina turned 16 years old. Her older brother Wim was 20, sister Erna was 12 and young Kees just 10 years old. The three youngest children barely knew or remembered their father. He had been away from the family home for more than ten years, but was about to return. Cornelia gathered her children together, and everyone stood in a circle to welcome Willem home. Cornelia brought the stranger into the room and announced, "This is your father. Are you happy? Say hello, and give him a kiss."

He stood there looking uncomfortable with a forced smile on his face. It was not just the children who did not know this man; he did not know his children either. Wilhelmina felt not a shred of affection for him, did not feel at ease, and could not share in her family's happiness. In her teenage eyes, her father looked old (he was 46), and nothing like the film-stars she watched with her friend, Rusza. It was not a case of dislike, but more simply a case of who is this man?:

' **I remember he took us out for a walk in the centre of The Hague. There was no money for anything else, so we could only walk. To be close to my father was a strange sensation. He looked so serious. He was shy, and not at ease. He didn't know how to talk, or what to say to me. After this outing with my father, I was relieved when we arrived back home. I knew that having a father was a normal matter of life, and that I had to learn to tolerate him, but no matter how hard I tried to figure out this new situation in life, I could not connect with the right feelings for this man who had fathered me.'**

Willem was returning to his family who lived in an already over-crowded house that now numbered 11 people. Arrangements were made, people shifted around and rooms were changed, but for some reason the new living conditions did not work out. The first to leave were Wilhelmina's maternal grandparents and Aunt Annie, on Cornelia's request. Despite surviving the war years together, Cornelia's priority was her own family now that they were all back together. Living with Willem's parents did not last too long, though, even with the extra space, and soon the family moved to Amsterdam.

During the war, Amsterdam had been spared the heavy bombing that many other Dutch cities received and had remained reasonably intact, except for the harbour area. As a result, re-building had not been as extensive, and there was housing available, although it was almost a case of beggars not being able to be choosers. Willem, his wife and four children found a small flat on the middle floor of a three-storey building on a busy street that had a tramline running down the middle. It was not quiet, and it was not clean, but it was their first home together for a very long time. The whole family pitched in to spruce up each room, and everyone tried hard to adopt a positive attitude about the start of their new life together.

Wilhelmina had one year of secondary school remaining. For a quiet, shy, sixteen year old it was a difficult time to be changing schools. She was a good student, well behaved and studied hard, but struggled with some subjects, particularly history. The war had been over for ten years, but for her, understanding facts and dates from the past and putting them into context was a constant battle. The schoolgirl was still closing herself off from events that had happened through her childhood, and still suffered frequent bouts of unhappiness, but had no idea why.

Cornelia had a successful dress-making business in Rijswijk, but did not continue with it on their move to Amsterdam. Her priority was on her three youngest children, and it was up to Willem to once again become the bread-winner. During Willem's final three years of incarceration, he had studied accountancy and gained a qualification in that field. Through a family contact, Willem gained employment as an accountant with an American firm, Dorr-Oliver. The huge company was active in food and chemicals processing, and municipal and industrial waste-water treatment. The ex-police chief would remain with the company until his retirement at age 65, although his past would nearly sabotage his future.

During a tea break not long after Willem began with the firm, a female employee innocently asked her colleagues their places and dates of birth. Her intentions were not so innocent, though. Willem's details fit with certain facts the woman had come by, and she made it known to all that he had been tried and convicted after the war as a collaborator. The woman insisted that the traitor should leave the company, otherwise she would. Willem was sent home for a few days to give the director of the company time to arrive at a solution. The household was thrown into turmoil at the thought of the loss in income, and upset that past events still carried so much weight with so many people.

On Willem's return to work, the woman who had stirred the unrest was sacked, and any others who did not want to work alongside Willem were invited to leave:

' **With this uproar in family life caused by the woman in the office out of the way, we were able to relax and take up our normal life again. Our father recognised that it was difficult for us children to accept him completely, after having been away for such a long time. My father's experience during and after the war was seldom discussed in our presence.'**

Cornelia had been raising their children for most of their lives, and it was difficult for Willem to re-appear and assume a position of authority. For that reason, the children's mother continued to be the one-in-charge, and explained to her husband that she would be the one to instruct them. Willem had always been a quiet man, and this abrogation of responsibility probably led to him withdrawing into his shell even further. He became side-lined. If the children required permission for something, they would ask their mother who would occasionally consult with Willem. If he ever gave his opinion directly to the children, they would feel uncomfortable and avert their eyes.

Although Wilhelmina's passions were still creative, especially in fashion design or architecture, her first job on leaving secondary school was clerical. Cornelia had laboured for many years in the fashion industry, and did not encourage her daughter to follow in those same footsteps. It was not difficult for the school-leaver to find a job in 1955 Amsterdam, as long as she didn't have to talk about the past. Her first job was with an insurance agency, but there would be other secretarial positions until Wilhelmina plucked up the courage to leave home. Once she had turned 18 years old, the shy girl made a brave move and didn't just leave the safety and familiarity of her city, but of her country. Since the age of 16, Wilhelmina had wanted to travel to foreign lands and learn different languages, and eventually she found a way to do it.

# 4.

An agency in Amsterdam was advertising for young women to register with them for au pair work in England, and other countries. The role typically involved looking after a foreign family's young children, and helping out with domestic chores. It was an ideal job for Wilhelmina who was keen to spread her wings, and escape her past. She had grown up with a younger brother and sister, spent time helping with Tante Jeanne's baby daughter, and was no stranger to housework. The agency soon found a position for her with a doctor's family in Wimbledon, 11 kilometres out of London.

There were two boys and one girl to look after for the doctor and his wife, and Wilhelmina was kept busy with the three children as well as helping with the cooking. She would spend 12 months with the family who would be a delight to work for, and other then a few bouts of homesickness, it was an enjoyable year for the nearly-19-year-old. It was an age when attractive women begin to enjoy the attentions of men. Wilhelmina had grown into a beautiful woman, and despite her shyness, or possibly because of it, there was no shortage of admiring Englishmen. One in particular, Michael, became so enamoured he visited Wilhelmina in Amsterdam when her year was over, met her parents, and proposed marriage. It would be the first of many proposals, and the first of many refusals. A disappointed Michael returned to England. Wilhelmina would not have known of it at the age of 19, but an inability to commit to a long-term relationship would become a common factor in her life, and it would take her many years to discover why.

Following her successful year with the English family, an appointment was found for the young au pair with a family in Paris, France. The French men immediately latched onto the young Dutch woman and were not as reserved or gentlemanly as the English. Wilhelmina was still naive, unworldly and too immature for the cosmopolitan and chaotic post-war Paris. Her host parents were aware of the attention Wilhelmina was receiving and felt responsible for her, but did not have the time or desire to act as chaperones. After two months, they wrote to Cornelia and Willem to suggest their daughter should return home.

Her next appointment was with a wealthy family in Stuttgart, Germany, who had an older son, Roland. Once Wilhelmina finished her time as an au pair she remained in Germany, working as a bank teller with Duetsche Bank. One of the reasons to stay was Roland, who had fallen in love with her, but then made the mistake of proposing marriage. The young couple did get engaged, but his parents were not happy about it. They wanted him to marry a girl from a similarly wealthy family, not a poor Dutch one. Wilhelmina had little interest in money, and even less in marriage so called off the engagement and returned to Amsterdam.

In a further step towards independence from her family, Wilhelmina applied for a job as an airline stewardess with the national Dutch carrier, KLM. After a successful interview and application process, she waited expectantly for a call. It came by mail, and was a rejection. Her mother was curious as to why and phoned the airline to enquire on behalf of her daughter. Without the reason being stated outright, Cornelia could read between the lines of the conversation, and was in no doubt that Willem's past had been discovered, and as a result Wilhelmina was deemed to be unsuitable. It was a huge disappointment for the 21 year old, but probably not a surprise to her. She was well aware of her family's tarnished past, and carried it with her constantly as that shadow that would not leave.

Back in the comfort of her own country, Wilhelmina began to socialise more often, taking dancing lessons and wearing fashionable outfits made by her mother who would copy them from the pages of the latest magazines. The past was never mentioned. Whenever someone spoke about the war with Wilhelmina, she would immediately change the subject and become expert at avoiding such discussions. Brothers, Wim and Kees enjoyed tertiary education, with Kees going on to become a doctor. The two sisters were obviously going to be married, so did not need further studies according to their parents, although they were starting to have doubts about their oldest, Wilhelmina. There was certainly no shortage of attention from the opposite sex. There were so many boyfriends for her that a tin was kept in the family kitchen with the names of all the boyfriends, many of whom had proposed. Cornelia was happy with her daughter's popularity but did not understand her reluctance to settle down.

For Wilhelmina, any thought of permanency with a man caused her physical pain. It was a lead weight in her stomach, a palpable feeling that came upon her with every proposal of marriage, and there was fear. It was an emotional fear that could not be shaken. With each proposal came panic and multiple excuses why she could not marry. And, worst of all, she had no idea why. Many years later, her brother, Wim, would suggest that Wilhelmina's irrational fear of commitment stemmed from her father's brief visits home when she was a young child. The only thing Wilhelmina remembered from those visits was that every time her father was there, he would soon leave, and her mother would be in tears. That was not a good example of marriage for a young girl.

It was not always Wilhelmina's choice to end a relationship. She had a serious boyfriend for a while whose parents came from Indonesia when it was a Dutch colony. Every Sunday, Wilhelmina and Wouter would visit his parents house and enjoy a glass of port together, and often stay for dinner. It was a very comfortable relationship, but one afternoon Wilhelmina had been helping to prepare a meal in the kitchen and walked back into the living room where Wouter had been talking with his parents. Wouter's father, a large man, suddenly stood up and yelled, "Get out of my house. I never want to see you again. How dare you be in my house." He threw Wilhelmina's handbag and coat at her and threw her out the front door. She was shocked and horrified and walked in a daze to the tram station. Later she would learn that Wouter had told his parents of Wilhelmina's family and the events during and after the war. They were not vey accepting.

Sometimes, in a burst of courage, Wilhelmina would tell a boyfriend of her family's past, but that usually created problems; if not with him, certainly with his parents. As the years went by, and Wilhelmina was moving through her twenties, Cornelia and Willem began to be concerned. Even Willem, who was a reserved and quiet man, voiced suspicions that his daughter may be a lesbian. They were so concerned about her emotional well-being that a visit to a psychologist was arranged. Wilhelmina could not see any need for such treatment, and after a few visits with no satisfaction she had not changed her mind. A referral to a psychiatrist came next in an effort to break down the barriers Wilhelmina had built around herself. In the early sessions she spoke of her years during the war without any emotions and viewed the whole psychiatric process as just talk, talk and more talk. The emotional fear of commitment was always there and no amount of talking would remove it. Then, after two years of the psychiatrist listening to Wilhelmina's unemotional recounts, he suddenly stood up and smashed his fist loudly on the desk. Books and the telephone went crashing onto the ground as Wilhelmina began to cry with the shock and he shouted, "Yes, and now you have to tell me the story again, but from yourself, not a third person."

This abrupt action opened the floodgates and Wilhelmina finally sobbed and told the story of her father. The psychiatrist had finally broken through, and once a week for the next few months, the treatment continued. Wilhelmina acknowledged that the fear of becoming involved in a stressful marriage, like her mother, and going through what her mother had been through prevented her from commitment in a relationship with a man. She also came to realise that, sub-consciously, she needed to be in control where she had the power to reject a man, even if that was not what she truly wanted.

Much later in life, Wilhelmina would become aware that it was due to her experience with two men. Firstly, her grandfather, who had accused her of his wrong-doing and turned her aunt and grandmother against her because of their disbelief. And, secondly, her father who left the family at an early age and created a lot of sadness and pain which Wilhelmina could not make him accountable for because of the war. But, understanding why had little effect on the emotional pain and fear that persisted.

Wilhelmina moved to the city of Delft in the 1960s and began a job with the university, working for a professor in fine-mechanics by the name of de Jong. He was a very kind and polite man, and would be one of the few who knew of Wilhelmina's story, and completely understood and accepted her. Wilhelmina had her own car and flat, and occasionally visited her family in Amsterdam. At that time she had another long-term relationship with a man called Jan. Again, when it came close to commitment, looking for a house to live in together and get settled, she became terribly frightened. It was an unexplainable fear. Her mother said, "I don't understand you, what is wrong with him?" But she called it off for no reason and could hardly understand why:

' **One of the great disturbances in my life was having to listen to other people's war experiences. They would tell me how they had suffered and how awful it had been. My reaction would be a blank and sympathetic look. Quietly and politely I would try to divert the conversation, feeling irritated and uncomfortable. What about me? Am I never allowed to express myself or be myself? The bottling-up process was enormous and tension would increase. I had to end the conversation and after many years I learned how to master that skill. But sometimes it was rude to detach yourself from a conversation. I was at a party where they started on about the war and I was attacked for not taking part. I was not well behaved and had no manners. I felt the pain so intensively I did not know what to do. I just smiled stupidly.'**

There would be plenty of times when Wilhelmina had to avoid saying anything about her dad. She found it necessary and was so sensitive that whenever people were not nice to her she would get upset, cry, and put their attitude down to the fact that her father had been a suspected collaborator during World War II. This sensitivity would become a life-long affliction, and she was not the only one suffering. Thousands of Dutch children had parents who were also accused, and the passing of time seemed to do little to dull the memory. One of Wilhelmina's suitors was a man called Klaus who was also rejected by her, and went on to marry another woman. He invited Wilhelmina to the wedding but cautioned her not to mention his father to anyone there.

Even though Willem was a stranger to his own daughter, and to all his children, she still has some fond memories of him. Her recollections are of a very serious man, honest and straight-forward who was impractical with his hands, but clever with his brains – in complete contrast to her mother who was fun-loving and creative. On one occasion Wilhelmina's parents had tickets to the theatre but her mother became unwell, and the teenage Wilhelmina took her place. Once, a father and daughter outing of an evening would have been unthinkable, but they dressed up, attended and sat in the darkened theatre, behaving formally and nervously:

' **During interval we had a cup of coffee. In those days the milk was served in a tiny little jug as big as a thimble. I suggested to my father that he put the milk in the coffee so that he would only have to carry his cup. He did as he was told and put the whole jug into his cup. I couldn't believe my eyes and said, "No, only the milk, not the jug." My father looked very surprised and said he had only done as he was told. Was it conditioning or absent-mindedness? It was very typical for my father; he did these things naturally and not on purpose. I remember one evening we were all having a meal and my father was mashing all the ingredients together on his plate. All of a sudden he said, "Oh, Cor, look at my tie, it's all mixed up with the food on my plate." We children had a good laugh and thought he was the only person in the world capable of doing this.'**

Father and daughter would remain strangers until his death in 1982, but Wilhelmina would come to be proud of her father and care for him, even if she could not show it emotionally. She would never understand his past motives, and the war years would never be discussed. It was a sensitive subject, and all she Wilhelmina really knew was that he had renounced his oath to the Queen, and therefore was apparently a guilty man. He would suffer from that guilt his whole life, as would his children.

Wilhelmina was enjoying life working at the university when one day a simple coffee in the canteen would end up changing things forever. Sitting around the table with her female colleagues, the subject of dating, and finding suitable men came up in conversation. One of the secretaries suggested that she had found a new and novel way of finding the perfect man, and perhaps Wilhelmina should give it a try.

In 1965, two Harvard University students had invented the USA's first computerised matchmaking service. Participants were invited to fill out a questionnaire, enclose a small fee, and mail it to 'Operation Match'. The 40 questions and answers were transferred to punched cards and processed by an IBM7090 mainframe computer. When this particular computer was first developed in 1960, its purchase cost was $2.9 million, or it could be rented for $63,000/month. The university in Amsterdam climbed on board the ground-breaking technology in the late 1960s, and set about finding its own participants.

The single girls having coffee passed around the questionnaire forms and filled them out. None of them, including Wilhelmina, took it very seriously and all of them listed tall, good-looking and wealthy as necessary attributes in their potential match. Even though she had seen her 30th birthday slip by, Wilhelmina had still not committed to marriage, and was in no hurry to do so. She posted off her form and then forgot about it. A couple of months later, she received a reply in the mail with three names on it who were supposedly good matches for her. Two of the men were in The Netherlands and the other, surprisingly, was a Dutch man in Australia who was two years older than her. Wilhelmina had plenty of male friends in her own country so forgot about the local matches. Thinking that Ted was a long way away in Australia and would not be able to bother her, she wrote to him out of curiosity.

The pair did not correspond much and exchanged only one photograph. Then one day Ted announced to her that he was returning to The Netherlands. It was late 1970, the nickel boom had collapsed, work had dried up, it was time to visit his mother, and he would like to visit his new pen-friend. Wilhelmina could see no harm in that and agreed. Ted had been in Australia working as a geophysicist searching for minerals such as nickel, copper, lead and zinc. It was an exciting occupation that involved a lot of travel but little opportunity to meet eligible women, and it had not been Ted's first choice of career.

As a boy during the war, Ted became fascinated by aeroplanes, often standing outside to watch them while everyone else was sheltering indoors. Ted's family lived in Enschede, near an airport and only five kilometres from the German border so there were plenty of opportunities for plane watching. His father was the technical director of a textile factory in the town, but during the war had to remain hidden in the house to avoid being sent to Germany as factory labour. Ted's German mother would ride her bicycle on dangerous trips into the countryside with rolls of fabric to swap for eggs and flour or any other food from the farms.

At 17 years of age, young Ted applied for pilot training at The Netherlands flight school and breezed through the physical assessment. A psychological assessment was to be his next hurdle. Even though he enjoyed a happy and well-balanced childhood, Ted looks back and considers he may have been lacking the maturity and independence that was required at that stage. His application faltered, and his world collapsed. Failure had never been a consideration. He had planned and committed his whole life towards being a pilot and the rug had been pulled swiftly from under his feet. There was little consolation in knowing the flight school accepted only six young men from 200 applicants.

Ted had a natural ability with languages, but professional career assessors suggested a path that involved math's and physics. After one year at university struggling with those subjects, Ted pushed his way into geology for no other reason than it could possibly involve a lot of travel. Which it did. Over the next ten years Ted would work in his own country as well as Germany, Algeria, Austria, France, the Solomon Islands and, in the late 1960s, Western Australia.

When Wilhelmina was filling out her 'Operation Match' forms, Ted had already given it a try, and was corresponding with a few likely females. He had returned home from his travels to visit his mother, and while there the widow of a friend lamented his single status. "Don't you think it is about time you got married?", she asked him. He told her, "It is a bit difficult for me. I spend a lot of time in the bush in different countries, and I don't meet many girls there." So she had signed him up to 'Operation Match'.

He received several replies from likely females but had returned overseas, and the tyranny of distance was working against forming any type of relationship. One of those women went on to meet her perfect match, but continued to write to Ted, encouraging him to persist and find someone, as she had. This woman was so keen for Ted to share in the excitement she submitted Ted's form again for him and paid the fee. Once again, he received numerous replies from single women seeking tall, good-looking, wealthy men, and one of those was Wilhelmina. When it was time for Ted to return to The Netherlands, he sent Wilhelmina a postcard telling her of his intentions and asking to visit. When the well-travelled geophysicist arrived in his home country in the winter of 1970, he had five women to visit who had been assigned as good matches for him by the all-knowing IBM7090 super-computer. Unfortunately, none of them were.

Ted was staying with his sister-in-law in The Hague, and he told her he was disappointed, fed up and finished with the whole process. She said, "What about the woman in Delft, it is only 15 kilometres away, why don't you go and see her?" But Ted was over it and said, "I cannot be bothered." Then, in a moment that Ted would be eternally grateful for, his sister-in-law insisted, "But you wrote to her and said you would visit, so you must." Some time had passed since their correspondence, so Ted phoned Wilhelmina and announced his presence in The Hague. They agreed on a suitable evening to meet for a coffee at her place. When he rang the doorbell of her apartment in Delft, it had been raining quite heavily, and when she opened the door, there he was, looking like a drowned rat. He seemed quite short as he was standing on a lower step to her. He was also looking a little sad, with his hair and moustache dripping wet. She was underwhelmed, but let him in to dry up.

As they talked, and talked some more, and Ted began to dry out and look more presentable, a spark was lit. Ted was not encouraged, though. In typical Wilhelmina style, as Ted was leaving and asking if he could see her again, Wilhelmina replied cryptically, "Yes, when my hair is long."

Ted may have been good with languages, but he had trouble interpreting that mixed signal. He consulted his sister-in-law, and her five children but all of them came up confused. Meanwhile, cheeky Wilhelmina was sitting by the telephone wondering why the tall, good-looking man had not rung her up. Finally, after three weeks, Ted rang her and asked if her hair was long yet. She said yes. It wasn't, but when Ted knocked on her door the second time, she opened it and was wearing a long wig. It may well have been that moment that he knew this woman was different to all the others he had met. He had brought with him a cute teddy bear to sit with the one Wilhelmina already had on her couch. Ted had noticed it on his first visit and the two bears would sit happily together for a very long time as a symbol of enduring love and commitment.

Their first date was to a jazz club, and as the whirlwind courtship continued, the happy couple took a trip together to England, and later to visit friends in southern Holland, where he proposed in February, 1971. It was another marriage proposal for Wilhelmina that joined a long line, but Ted was not like the others. He would talk to Wilhelmina about his mother, and about his happy childhood. He was intelligent, honest, sweet, reliable, and Wilhelmina thought he was lovely. She told him of her father's past, and it made not one shred of difference. "I am marrying you, not your father," he told her. Cornelia was overjoyed, and Willem was pleased his oldest daughter was not a lesbian after all. Finally, at the age of 33, Wilhelmina had found a man she was totally comfortable with.

The wedding was held in June, 1971, and took place at the special Town Hall for weddings, 'De Paauw', in Wassenaar, in a stately, grand villa set in a beautiful park. Family and friends from both sides were overjoyed and relieved that the handsome couple had finally settled into marriage. The bride looked radiant; her eyes sparkled, her skin glowed, and her hair shone, and to those observing she was everything a bride should be on her wedding day. But, Wilhelmina was acting the part. Inside, her stomach was a tight knot, held together by fear and anxiety. It was the same feeling that came upon her every time a man proposed the idea of marriage, and on this day she was actually committing to someone long-term. For all his kind and gentle attributes, his patience and his love, Ted was still a man who Wilhelmina was promising to spend the rest of her life with, and it terrified her.

Their honeymoon was spent on the island of Jersey, off the coast of Normandy, France. It was not a good choice, in hindsight, but Ted had met a friendly chap on board the ship that had taken him home. Michael was a Jersey local and promised to show Ted around if he ever visited – so the newly-married couple did. They also chose the location because of its mix of British and French culture, and the week on the island would mark the beginning of a marriage that would last a lifetime.

l-r Willem, Cornelia, Uncle Kees, grandfather (maternal), Wim, grandmother (maternal), standing- Tante Annie and her husband, Jo.

While imprisoned at the labour farm, Cornelia kept busy making handicrafts for her children, including a kitten embroidered from blanket threads which Wilhelmina still cherishes to this day.

Ted and Wilhelmina on their wedding day.

Wilhelmina with her parents, Cornelia and Willem.

# 5.

Ted moved in to Wilhelmina's flat, and soon had a job offer with the famous French company, CGG, one of the world's largest geophysical contractors. At the same time, Wilhelmina began to experience unusual pain, and two months after the wedding was diagnosed as suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. The potentially life threatening condition occurs when a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes. This means the embryo will not be able to develop into a baby as the fallopian tube is not large enough to support a growing embryo. As well as having to endure a possible pregnancy that failed, Wilhelmina underwent surgery, and remained unwell for some time. This meant the end of her university job, and it also closed the door on Ted's job in France as he was caring for his wife. It was not a rosy start to the couple's marriage, but resilience and perseverance saw a return to good health for Wilhelmina, and a new job opportunity for the talented geophysicist in the North African desert country of Algeria.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), a branch of the United Nations, had employed Ted, and in December, 1971, the newly-married couple headed to Rome for him to attend a briefing at the FAO world headquarters there. It was Wilhelmina's first visit to the ancient capital so she planned a day of sight-seeing while Ted was busy with his meeting. It did not take long for a handsome Italian man to introduce himself to the attractive, wide-eyed tourist, and he offered his services as an unpaid, unofficial tour guide to her. Wilhelmina was no stranger to male attention, and quickly informed this one of her marital status. Ceasare was not deterred and simply wanted to show off the wonderful sights and share his pride in the sprawling, cosmopolitan city that was awash with Christmas decorations. He was a polite gentleman, and delivered Wilhelmina back to the FAO office, as promised, at the end of an informative day. The men of Algeria, however, would prove to have a different attitude to foreign women.

The largest country in Africa had been a French colony for 132 years before gaining independence in 1962, only nine years before Ted and Wilhelmina arrived there. The Muslim population had become increasingly dissatisfied with their lack of political and economic status, but the price of booting out the French came at a heavy cost. During a brutal eight-year war, hundreds of thousands of Algerian and French lives were lost, and in the months following independence, nearly one million Europeans left the country. The heavily populated northern area on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea was a land of mountains, valleys and plateaus – in stark contrast to the land further south which hosted the largest hot desert in the world – the Sahara.

Arriving in Algeria on Christmas Eve, Ted and Wilhelmina were accommodated in a hotel in the capital, Algiers. The following day was a normal working day, but Ted's new boss, a Muslim, reluctantly gave his new employee the afternoon off to recognise the Christian celebration. There was not too much festive spirit happening in the Orthodox Muslim country but another Dutch couple with two children had recently arrived, and they invited the newcomers to share Christmas dinner at their home.

The FAO had their administrative office in Algiers, but Ted's work would be 250 kilometres south in an area known as the Hodna. The semi-arid climate in the region is harsh with hot, dry summers, cold winters and irregular rainfall, and all of its inhabitants were once nomads. The soil is poor and agriculture is limited to the grazing of sheep and goats and some cereal cultivation. Ted was initially confused as to what role he would be fulfilling, as a geophysicist. His confusion was well-founded, as the Algerian FAO actually required a hydro-geologist. The search was for water, not minerals. Ted was an adaptable man, though, and set about re-educating himself for the task. During their two weeks in Algiers, Ted and Wilhelmina were waiting for the arrival of their new car, a Renault. Maybe there was some residue anger in the country that was aimed at the French-made car because when they went to collect it, the car had not been unloaded and was on its way back to Marseilles. When it arrived the second time, the petrol cap was missing, requiring a wait for a replacement, and on the first night parked outside their hotel, the shiny Renault was a victim of assault; its bonnet covered in scratches. Perhaps they should have bought a Volvo.

Accommodation for the international field staff was in the undeveloped city of M'sila. As the last to arrive, there were no company apartments remaining, so Ted and Wilhelmina rented a small house with a red kitchen and a tiny back courtyard. In her spare time, which would be plentiful, Wilhelmina tidied up the interior of the shabby house by painting the interior all white, including the kitchen. Later, the owner saw her handiwork and was not happy as red was the usual colour for an Arabic kitchen.

The FAO team consisted of French, Bulgarian, Polish and Turkish members, and there were also three other Dutch families. Ted would be away all day, and his wife virtually became a prisoner in her own home. All the local women were covered head to toe in their traditional dress, so whenever Wilhelmina went out, she was besieged by the stares of men and the frantic attention of children who scrambled to touch this strange looking woman just to see if she was real. Even sitting in the relative privacy of her back courtyard, young boys would climb onto an adjacent roof, just to have a look. During the 14 months spent in the country, Wilhelmina would become lonely and depressed, spending her time learning French, cooking with limited ingredients, and in a sign of desperation and boredom she even began to read the bible. That did not last very long.

Shopping for food was a necessity, and Wilhelmina learned to borrow a child or two from her Dutch friends whenever she went out which seemed to help against unwanted attention. The shops were usually garages that sold food, or small outdoor marketplaces, and there was enough food to buy, as long as it was tomatoes or eggs. Occasionally, liver was available to add to a recipe. Wilhelmina soon became accustomed to the sight of it being covered in a black layer of flies before purchasing the meat and never suffered from food poisoning.

To relieve her boredom, Ted would sometimes take Wilhelmina with him, along with a driver, into the desert. Usually, she would sit with the driver while the geologists were working but one day, instead of waiting, she decided to go for a walk on her own. Ever mindful of scorpions and snakes, Wilhelmina spied a nomads camp in the distance and decided to investigate. Walking carefully towards the tents, eyes scanning the ground, she came within 100 metres of the dusty tents before hearing a car horn sounding incessantly behind her. It was Ted's driver waving desperately at the naive, white European woman who was about to fall into the clutches of the desert men. She climbed inside the vehicle to be told that had she gotten too much closer there was every chance she would never be seen again.

Once a month, Ted needed to return to the FAO office in Algiers, and Wilhelmina welcomed the conveniences of the bigger city. The couple stayed at a boarding house run by Madame Grech, whose home accommodated up to 12 Europeans who all dined together. One day Ted became ill while staying there so Wilhelmina ventured out to the pharmacy to buy some medicine. It did not take long before she was surrounded by a group of men and had to walk faster and faster to escape them. When she returned to the boarding house and told Madame Grech of her unease, Wilhelmina was taught how to say, 'My husband is an Arab', and this would become an effective deterrent from then on.

In 1972, while still in Algeria, 34-year-old Wilhelmina suffered the agony of another failed pregnancy through an early-term miscarriage. She received high quality medical attention, but had also begun to suffer from headaches and needed glasses that were not available in that country. A trip to Switzerland was scheduled to find a suitable optometrist, and to have a complete medical check-up. Wilhelmina had a friend in Zurich who was a divorced mother of two, so Ted stayed behind to continue searching for water, and Wilhelmina enjoyed the sophistication of a modern European city. The friend and her children accompanied Wilhelmina back to Algeria to enjoy a short holiday together. The cultural difference between the two countries was extreme, and the divorcee found herself enjoying the unlimited attention from Algerian men to the point where Wilhelmina warned her to stop flirting before bad things happened.

The three adults and two children had time for a short tour through the northern Sahara and left Algiers to head 400 kilometres south to the 11th century oasis city of Laghouat. From there, they ventured to the fortified town of Ghardaia with its distinctive white, red and pink houses made of clay, sand and gypsum; Ouargla, with its great selection of desert roses; Touggourt, notable for its date trees; Biskra, known as 'the door of the desert', and then back to M'sila. They stayed in hotels during the trip and would often have to wash their hands in front of a specialised employee who enforced minimal water use, and ensured the tap was turned off between washing and rinsing.

After 14 months working in Algeria for the FAO, Ted's contract finished and it was time to return to The Netherlands. Arranging removalists and organising their departure from the country was not a simple task as the Algerian bureaucracy moved at a glacial pace. When it was time to leave M'sila, Ted and Wilhelmina loaded the trusty Renault with their remaining belongings and headed north to Algiers. Ted had injured his back from some heavy lifting, so Wilhelmina drove while he travelled fully reclined on top of an ironing board for support. This was not a problem until they pulled into a petrol station where a group of men saw the rare sight of a woman driving a car, apparently alone. They needed no encouragement and descended upon the car like a pack of sharks smelling blood. Sensing Wilhelmina's distress, Ted then rose up from his unseen position, as if from the dead, which served as an effective shark deterrent.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation needed to see Ted for a de-briefing in Rome, so the couple decided to drive there via Spain and the south of France. Arriving at the Moroccan border with a pocketful of Algerian dinars, they contemplated spending a last night in the country to use up the local currency as it would be worthless elsewhere. One look at the stern-faced, gun-toting Algerian border guards convinced them to keep travelling and bid a final farewell to the patriarchal land with a shout of, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

They stayed in the Moroccan border town of Oujda, famous for its 13th century Great Mosque and souks selling jewellery and traditional clothing, but the main attraction for the couple was the food:

' **We found a nice, clean, little hotel where we could recover from the stress of leaving Algeria. We had coffee and croissants for breakfast...heaven. Later in the day we had lunch in a restaurant. There was the usual choice of dessert, including a cheese platter. We had not seen, let alone tasted, cheese for more than a year, so that is what we ordered. When the waiter saw our eyes, he asked if we had just left Algeria. He understood how we felt, laughed and said, "Enjoy. I will leave the platter with you, eat as much as you wish." After this treat we continued on our travels.'**

The well-fed couple then journeyed to the fairy-tale city of Fez, where they would spend a few days taking in the sights, smells and sounds of the 1,200-year-old walled city. They wandered the labyrinth of twisted alleyways in the market with its live animals, smoking stoves, copper-smiths banging away at their trade and followed the unmistakable smell of the leather tannery where the hides of cows, sheep, goats and camels are turned into high quality products such as bags, coats and shoes. On one occasion they used the services of a local student as a tour guide. He was a nice young man who showed them the best places to eat, and for lunch the three of them shared a glorious meal of puff pastry with pigeon and almonds. On the way back to the hotel, uniformed police noticed them and marched over very officially to grab the young man by his collar and drag him away. Ted protested loudly and wanted to prevent the apparent arrest, but Wilhelmina held him back. She would tell him later of a sudden flashback to uniformed Nazis and her fear that Ted would also be arrested and taken away to an uncertain future – just like her father. Her fear of being left alone was terrifying.

Ted made some enquiries as to the welfare of their guide, but it seemed he was acting in that role without the proper authority to do so and despite attempts to help him, the young man's future was unknown. Despite that unnerving incident, Fez would remain one of their favourite places. From there, the couple headed south-east to Marrakesh and then onto the resort city of Agadir, sitting on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. One of the Dutch families from M'sila was now stationed in the city so it was a good reason to visit there. After a couple of days, Ted and Wilhelmina turned the Renault north and made a bee-line for Tangier, the historical gateway between Africa and Europe where a ferry would carry them across the Strait of Gibraltar to Malaga, in southern Spain. Wilhelmina had wanted to travel the world since she was 16 years old and now, thanks to her husband, she was realising that dream.

The travellers spent a night in Sitges, known as the St. Tropez of Spain, where they drank too much Spanish brandy with an English couple and the following day nursed a hangover all the way to the true St. Tropez in the south of France. Ted needed to be in Rome by a certain date, though, so there was not too much time for sight-seeing. Once his business with the FAO was complete, Ted was able to slow down and show Wilhelmina the Italian regions of Umbria and Tuscany. From exploring the hilltop town of Orvieto with its 1,200 man-made caves and magnificent cathedral to people-watching in Perugia's Piazza IV Novembre, and on to Assisi, home to two medieval castles and the birthplace of Saint Francis, Ted and Wilhelmina made the most of their journey home. They spent time in Florence and Padua, attending a classical music concert in the local cathedral which was an absolute delight, then travelled further north:

' **Ted wanted to show me where he lived for three months when he was doing geological field work during his studies. We travelled to Siror, a very small village just south of the magnificent Dolomite Mountains. The street where he lived was so small we could not drive in to it, so we parked in the little square in the centre of town and walked. To our enormous surprise and delight, he was recognised immediately, after more than 12 years. People came out of their houses, embraced us and dragged us inside to hear our stories and supply us with food and drinks. What an incredible reception. It was as if the 'lost son' had returned. Much later, Ted confided in me that this reception was how he imagined the feeling to be of 'returning home'. It was a feeling he has searched for his whole life and never found.'**

They spent the night in the small town of Fiera di Primiero, where Ted had a friend called Rita. The elderly lady owned the Bar Diana and welcomed the couple with the same enthusiasm as her neighbours in Siror. Rita was surprised the couple did not have children and on their departure gave Wilhelmina a bottle of Amaro Jorghe, a delicious after dinner bitter, telling her that an evening glass would guarantee a few beautiful children.

Their long and eventful journey home from Algeria finished in Amsterdam, and the attic bedroom of Willem and Cornelia's home. It was late 1973 and Ted and Wilhelmina were both in their mid-30's and officially unemployed. Returning to The Netherlands took some cultural readjustment, especially for Wilhelmina. After 14 months in Algeria, the enormous range of food and retail products now available were enough to make her dizzy. The one activity she valued the most, though, was to be able to sit alone having a cup of coffee, and not be pestered by strange men or inquisitive children. Returning home also gave her the opportunity to see her sister and two brothers. There was a ten year age gap between the four siblings; Wim was 39 years old while Kees was only 29, with the two sisters in the middle. All four were married and leading successful lives, but they all carried an unspoken burden from their childhood. That burden would manifest itself in different ways for each of them through their years. Even in old age and on the brink of death, Kees would be brought to tears by a lifetime of bottled up, closed feelings and the inability to share them with anyone but his family. Erna would refuse to discuss the war years with her sister even in the confines of her own backyard, 50 years after it happened, just in case the neighbours overheard, and Wim would become a nervous wreck. All three would have long, happy marriages and become grandparents, but history would continue to haunt a third generation. Erna's daughter, Laura, would come home from school having been taught as an eight year old that members of the 1940s NSB (like her grandfather) were bad people. Laura loved her Opa and knew he was not a bad man, but felt weighed down by a dangerous secret. Wilhelmina, meanwhile, continued to live her life as if in a cocoon, trying to close herself off from the outside world like an outcast, even though she was seeing plenty of it.

It did not take long for word to get around in the professional world of geology that Ted had returned to his home country, and was looking for work. Through a mutual contact, his original employer offered Ted a position and the Dutch nomads headed for Germany, for the next stage of their life together. The seismic contractors, GBS, were based in Celle, 40 kilometres north of Hannover. Ted's mother had three sisters living in Hannover and accompanied the couple on their move so she could spend some time with them. The German city had been bombed into oblivion by allied forces during the war, but 30 years later, the capital of Lower Saxony was a hub of commerce and a major connecting point for highways and train lines through Europe. Ted and Wilhelmina moved into an apartment in the city, but shortly after, Ted's mum had a stroke and passed away. Ted would spend 12 months working for the company and the versatile Wilhelmina found part-time work in aged care, in a German bank and for the German Automobile Association, continually improving her German language skills.

In January, 1975, the couple moved south to the historic German town of Goslar when Ted began work with Preussag Metal, as chief geophysicist. This move also began a period of international travel for them that would see Wilhelmina accompany Ted to South Africa, Canada, the USA, Italy, Austria and even Melbourne, Australia, for his work. When at home in Goslar, there would be time for cross-country skiing in winter and, in summer, a constant stream of visitors from England and The Netherlands, enjoyed the company of Ted and Wilhelmina, and the beautiful countryside. It would be on a trip with Ted to Canada, camping in the middle of a forest with wild bears and tiny flesh-eating insects, when Wilhelmina would discover her interest in painting, which would continue her whole life:

' **I went with him almost all of the time. My mother was very wise and practical and had told me, "Go with your man." So I went with him, otherwise my fear, for no reason, would rise to the surface again. In Germany, nobody was aware of my past. During our time in Melbourne, I did a little tour now and then, organised by a travel company, to the vineyards or to see sheep-shearing. After a few days, the bus driver got very annoyed with me. He could not understand that a woman on her own did not appreciate his company, especially at night. Yuck!!'**

# 6.

Even then, in her late 30's, Wilhelmina still felt vulnerable in social situations, and experienced feelings of fear and loneliness if Ted was not with her. She would be very quiet and let Ted do most of the talking, just in case the conversation turned to history and personal questions. It was also a time when the two of them looked realistically at their chances of becoming parents. At 37 years old, Wilhelmina could hear her biological clock ticking, and past experience did not give her great hope of conceiving naturally. They looked at the possibility of adoption, but as a Dutch couple living in Germany they came up against bureaucratic brick walls. Moving back to The Netherlands may have improved their chances but then Ted would have no job and unemployed couples were ineligible, so in the end it all became just too difficult. Cornelia said to her daughter, "Just be happy and travel the world with Ted." Which she did. As a compromise, the couple 'adopted' three children in Indonesia by sponsoring them, and were able to visit two of them who lived in the highland area of Lembang.

Ted had begun his flying lessons when in the Solomon Islands, and gained his Private Pilot's Licence while in Kalgoorlie, Australia. He would take Wilhelmina flying, from the aero-club near Goslar, on fine weather weekends. After seven years in Germany and a passport full of stamps, Ted resigned from Preussag and took on a new position with the United Nations in a country he had not yet visited – The Phillipines – with a population of 50 million people. Living in an apartment in the bustling, capital city of Manila, Wilhelmina kept herself busy by taking on a computer course and working with under-privileged children in an orphanage in Tondo. This area is the most densely populated of Manila, and one of the poorest. It is home to the Manila North Harbour Port, but also to Smokey Mountain, a huge dumpsite which symbolised the region's poverty until its closure in the late 1990s. Wilhelmina found the experience there depressing and upsetting. There were not enough beds or staff for the many babies and young children, many of them unwell. Occasionally, there would be parties to attend, and it was at these social events where Wilhelmina's unease would bubble to the surface yet again. It was a nervousness and paranoia borne from a life of lies and restricted conversations that had been part of her nature for 40 years. The family secrets could not be discussed under any circumstances. To questions of, "What did your father do for a living?" she would simply reply, "He was a book-keeper all his life," and close the subject. Because, what would people think if they really knew? The possibility of the truth being discovered through innocent party chit-chat was sometimes too much to bear.

Wilhelmina may have earned a reputation as a quiet woman at social gatherings, but there was an air of feistiness in her that occasionally showed itself. She had ordered a dress from a local dressmaker, but when it was delivered the material used was completely different to what she had asked for. Knowing of her mother's high standards when it came to dressmaking, Wilhelmina was not going to tolerate such poor workmanship and had Ted arrange a driver to take her to the dressmaker's shop. It was in a very poor suburb of Manila, and the driver even refused to take her all the way as it was an unsafe neighbourhood. Undeterred, Wilhelmina found the shop, gave back the unwanted dress, demanded a replacement be made, and took with her a roll of expensive material as a guarantee it would be done. The following week, her dress was delivered, as ordered, and she returned the roll of material. One day Ted came home and asked her if she would be free to accompany a few of the ex-pat wives, who lived in their apartment block, on a shopping trip. Wilhelmina didn't understand why, until Ted told her their husbands had come to him with the request because Wilhelmina had the reputation that she could manage to prevent people from buying too much.

The Phillipines would turn out to be an interesting place to live. From flirtatious girls at the swimming pool trying to get Ted's attention, to prostitutes calling their room in the middle of the night and over-charging taxi drivers who would offer to find Ted a girl for a good price, even though Wilhelmina was sitting in the back seat. On one visit to the island of Samar, the couple stayed in a hotel room that was so dirty, Ted slept with the lights on and Wilhelmina sat on the bed next to him, staying awake and killing the giant cockroaches who had invaded their room from the garbage pile outside the window.

Ten months into his posting, Ted's project was cancelled by the United Nations. The area where the work was to be done had become a virtual war zone, with the regular army fighting the rebels and was declared too dangerous. There was still paperwork to be done but an early departure was arranged as they had received news that Wilhelmina's father, 74-year-old Willem, was nearing the end of his life. That end arrived with liver cancer in November, 1982, and he was survived by his wife, Cornelia, and their four children, Wim, Wilhelmina, Erna and Kees. Unsurprisingly, Wilhelmina did not mourn. Her father had been a closed book her entire life and emotional detachment at his funeral came naturally, as it did for her brothers and sister. The sensitive and quiet man was a stranger to his children. What they did mourn, though, was the lost opportunity to have a father in their childhood. While he was present in their later years, his 14-year absence could never be replaced, and the circumstances which brought about that absence could never be understood.

A year before Willem died, public sentiment was only just beginning to shift towards an understanding of the estimated 200,000 children of collaborators, and how their lives had been affected. For most of those children, remaining silent had become second nature, but a Dutch Reverend, Alje Klamer, began a self-help group in The Netherlands specifically for that group of people to speak out – it was called 'Herkenning' (Recognition).

While they were living in Germany, Ted and Wilhelmina had put some serious thought into their future, and whereabouts in the world that may be. Neither of them had a sense of belonging to The Netherlands, despite having family and being born there, and had experienced many different countries and cultures. An important part of the decision related to work opportunities for Ted. His profession as a geophysicist was lucrative, but specialised, so careful consideration was needed for long-term job security. Ted settled on Australia because of his previous involvement and work contacts there who were encouraging. He then set about convincing his wife it was a good idea. She was reluctant, but they had walked together into the Australian consulate in Hamburg to apply for immigration to the country.

Back in The Netherlands after Willem's funeral, job opportunities were scarce and their application to emigrate to Australia was close to expiring. Wilhelmina's reluctance came about through the finality of the decision. It was just so...definite. And, so far away. Besides that, her mother had just lost her husband of nearly 50 years. Love and support for her own husband won the day, and in January, 1983, the couple boarded an aeroplane that would take them to a new life in a new country:

' **I remember my mother standing in front of the window of the second floor of our apartment. She was wearing a red cardigan and waved goodbye as we dragged our suitcases along the footpath. It was terribly sad leaving my mother behind who had just lost her beloved Willem, and I was following Ted to the huge country of Australia, with no job and no house to go to.'**

Australia had contributed nearly one million men and women during World War II, thousands of whom had lost their lives. But, the country was never occupied by an invading force and the subject of collaboration was not one that came up regularly in conversations. For the Aussies, World War II had been over for more than 30 years and they were more interested in welcoming a new Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, with one of the biggest parliamentary majorities in Australian political history. Later in the year, the entire country would be swept up in America's Cup fever, after ending the 132-year domination of the New York Yacht Club. So, the arrival of a Dutch couple in Perth; a geophysicist looking for work and his wife still troubled by her family's past caused hardly a ripple. Wilhelmina hoped it would stay that way.

Despite favourable early reports, by the time Ted arrived in Western Australia and put his hand up for a job, it seemed that he was too late. One of his previous work colleagues accommodated the couple for a few days, but opportunities were scarce so they decided to move across the country to Sydney in the hope of a better outcome. Once again, one of Ted's contacts gave them a place to stay but he was also unable to help in finding Ted a job. In desperation, the new immigrants visited the Dutch Consulate to seek assistance. The cigar-smoking staff member swore at Ted and caused Wilhelmina to cry as he yelled at them, 'Why the hell did you come to Australia? The stupid Dutch government should not allow people to come to this country. There is no work here for you." Retreating outside they were confronted by a man waving a large, handwritten sign stating, 'Migrants go home.' It was not a good beginning.

It became unreasonable for them to stay any longer with Ted's work contact, so the pair found themselves a small flat to rent in the inner suburbs of the city, and their meagre savings began to dwindle. Wilhelmina found a part-time job as a 45-year-old photocopy girl with engineering firm, Transfield, but it was far from ideal. Ted had been optimistic about his job prospects in Australia, given the time spent in the west and in Victoria as a younger man. Now approaching 50 years old, he was beginning to wonder if age was against him. When he met a young Dutchman who owned a window-cleaning business, Ted put his qualifications and ego under a rock and went to work with the young entrepreneur as an assistant. The two part-time incomes helped the couple survive until Ted could begin work again doing what he was trained in. Eventually, a government position became available and in a move that Ted would later regret, he applied and was accepted for it.

The job required another re-location in a very long list of moves for them both, but as their existing options were restricted to photocopying and window cleaning, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Another aeroplane and another city; this time to the Northern Territory and the former frontier outpost of its capital – Darwin. Situated on the Timor Sea, the city was the smallest, wettest and most northerly of Australia's capitals, enjoying 68 inches of rain a year which was double Amsterdam's average. High humidity, monsoonal rains, storms and the exceptionally popular pastimes of drinking beer and shooting wild pigs welcomed Ted and Wilhelmina to what would be a very long posting.

Ted began work, and the industrious Wilhelmina found a job with the ANZ bank. Unfortunately, the manager took great delight by including Australian slang in his conversations with the new Dutch employee, which she found difficult to understand. While this language barrier provided much fun for the manager, it just increased Wilhelmina's sense of insecurity, and she left the job. Luckily, it coincided with a visit from Cornelia, who stayed for three months and enjoyed the warm weather, swimming in the pool and lazing around in a pair of shorts, fitting in well with the rest of the city's population.

Ted soon realised that most of Darwin's population fell into two distinct groups, and he suited neither of them. He also had to give up his beloved flying because his salary was roughly half of what he was earning when in Germany. Luckily, though, he needed a visit to a physiotherapist one day, who turned out to be a Dutchman with three young children and a Dutch wife. The two couples would regularly socialise together, sharing Easter and Christmas celebrations. There was also company from several cats. At their first rented house, a black Oriental shorthair (Roetje) appeared from nowhere and decided to adopt them. He was soon provided with a companion, 'Droppie', a black and white tom rescued from the RSPCA. Droppie and the shorthair became instant friends and were inseparable, until the day Roetje went walkabout and was hit by a car. Droppie was never the same again. Later, a Tonkinese female called Minty was added to the family. She was a beautiful cat who decided to become boss and the two had to set their own boundaries. The adopted 'parents' loved both the cats and Minty, in particular, would become a great comfort for Wilhelmina. The love of cats would lead to many paintings of them by her over the years.

Wilhelmina soon found employment at the city's University as a librarian. It was work that she loved, so when the job finished due to a reorganisation she became very upset. Her crying and distress were so acute that a visit to a counsellor was arranged. Charles was a lovely, understanding man who asked his distraught patient where she felt the pain. On being told, Charles immediately told her, "The problem is your father." He knew nothing of Wilhelmina's childhood or ongoing issues but soon became a trusted confidante:

' **Another time I saw Charles again for a different reason. I was terribly upset as I heard from a friend that I had been called 'the most terrible woman of Darwin.' My friend said I should be careful. I did not understand. I tried to find out why but I could not. I was back in my childhood again. Rejection; I am the bad one. Charles understood the problem and knew the gossip. It was all about me introducing another woman into someone's life. After one visit to Charles I felt better. I could accept the situation. But I felt uncomfortable in spite of it all.'**

Another milestone in Wilhelmina's life was when Charles assessed her as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sufferers of PTSD displayed symptoms of anxiety, heightened vigilance, strong emotions and emotional numbness. People with PTSD also experienced feelings of panic or fear similar to what they may have felt during a traumatic event, and these symptoms often interfered with a person's ability to carry on with their everyday life, work and social relationships. For people who develop PTSD, these feelings of negative self-belief and anger can be distressing and if left untreated can last for a long time. There were also well documented cases of physical health being impacted and in 1993, Wilhelmina faced a woman's worst fear when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

An operation and six weeks of radiation therapy was prescribed. The treatment was scheduled to take place in Adelaide, 3,000 kilometres south of Darwin. Wilhelmina's doctor planned to send her there by herself and she was devastated. She cried constantly and almost had a nervous breakdown, but could not understand why she was so scared. Eventually, the medical staff decided that Ted should accompany her. They both travelled to Adelaide and on non-treatment days were able to share small outings and even venture to the Barossa Valley, which helped to make the experience a little more bearable.

On her return to Darwin, Wilhelmina began work with the Uniting Church as a front desk receptionist. Luckily, they were unaware of her one and only previous experience in church, which involved quite a lot of swearing. It was an interesting job and on one occasion she had to break up a fight between two aboriginal men who were waiting to see the Reverend and nearly destroyed the waiting room with their efforts. There was also a job that involved working with an English nurse who was looking after aboriginal children. At the time, Wilhelmina was known by the shortened name of Willy. When the young kids heard this they rolled around on the floor laughing, stopping only to ask, "Miss, will you tell us your name again?" The English nurse explained to Willy what the equivalent Australian slang meaning was, and from then on she went by the name of Wilhelmina.

A few days after returning from a short break, Ted was summoned into his new boss's office. The door was closed and the boss asked Ted, "Are you going to retire or do I have to come up with an excuse to kick you out?" Ted was so shocked and surprised he did not even ask why and never did find out the reason. It was a traumatic period with Ted having to fight for his entitlements after spending 17 years in Darwin with the Department of Mines and Energy. He was just short of his 63rd birthday. Having spent enough time in the Northern Territory, Ted and his much-travelled wife looked for somewhere else to live. They had liked what they saw when in Adelaide six years previously, so headed to South Australia's capital city to begin the next chapter of their lives.

# 7.

Adelaide may have been a capital city but it was more like a big country town. Established in 1836 as the planned capital of a freely-settled British province, it was one of the few Australian cities without a convict heritage. Its one million residents were very proud of this fact and that early colonial Adelaide had been shaped by prosperity and wealth. Adelaide sat on the banks of the River Torrens, had numerous parklands, affordable housing and was known for its political progressiveness and religious freedom. It would not, however, be Ted and Wilhelmina's new home town. The newly-arrived couple caught up with some friends from Darwin not long after arriving. These friends had just bought a house in Noosa, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast and suggested that it was a much better place to settle down in.

On their advice and always keen to explore the two wanderers set off for Queensland, although Wilhelmina was getting close to putting her foot down and saying, 'No more. Let's just settle down somewhere.' Noosa was a delightful place – a small resort town sitting on one of Australia's best beaches with low crime, no traffic lights and a relaxed and diverse population. After having a good look around they decided to head back to Adelaide, via a return drive down the east coast, pack up their things and move permanently to this idyllic location. On the way through coastal New South Wales, Ted called in to a local library to check email messages and found one from Wilhelmina's brother telling them Cornelia was seriously ill. The couple drove on to Melbourne where they had friends to leave their car with, and booked a flight to The Netherlands.

The year was 2000, and Wilhelmina's mum was 92 years old. Her life had been long and interesting and filled with positivity and love and there was a time, when Wilhelmina was a young girl, that she could not bear to be apart from her mother. Cornelia was 32 years old when war broke out and she spent the next 14 years being separated from her husband while raising four children, but a smile rarely left her face. It was her resilience and strong character during those difficult times that helped all of her children cope, and then grow into successful adults. Wilhelmina was heartbroken at the thought of losing her mother, but a stroke had robbed her of mobility and most communication so the end was near. Having been a fighter her whole life, it was no surprise that Cornelia battled her condition for four months. On nearly every one of those days she would be visited by one or more of her children who would hold her hand and talk to their mother. It was a sad occasion but gave Wilhelmina a chance to spend time with the rest of her family.

She had visited her sister, Erna, a couple of years previously, and was told by her then not to discuss the war years, even though they were sitting outside in Erna's backyard at the time. The possibility of the neighbours overhearing was not worth the risk. This time, however, Erna told her sister that it is okay to talk about that subject now. This was as a result of the important work done by the Foundation Werkgroep Herkenning. Founded in 1981, their aim is to recognise, and help, the children of parents and grandparents who were deemed to be on the side of the occupying forces during the period 1940-1945.

Finally, these children, now adults, had a voice and a support network that enabled them to speak about their experience and the impact it had on their lives. The Werkgroup's goals are to promote help for those people faced with serious problems in their personal or social lives because their parents or grandparents collaborated with the Nazis in World War II, and to raise awareness among the general public for the problems this group has had to deal with.

And it has been this perception, discrimination and ostracisation by the Dutch population towards family members in the post-war years that has caused long term issues, such as in Wilhelmina's life. The Dutch government at the time played their part by confiscating homes, possessions and money from suspected collaborators which had serious implications for these children. When the war ended, many children were unable to return to their homes, their beds or their toys. That familiarity and security was ripped away causing disorientation and a sense of guilt because of the feeling that they must have done something wrong. That feeling of guilt could result in an enormous burden that, for some, would be carried their whole life. Regardless of age, the child became conscious of the fact that it was part of a family in which some important event had taken place which was not to be discussed. There was a secret that could not be shared, that no-one in the outside world must come to know. That child then had to face a life of unanswered questions; a life of tension, social anxiety, isolation and untruths.

For Wilhelmina it resulted in a lifetime of trying to fit in; because to stand out could cause questions which she did not want to answer. It was about conforming and causing no waves, not even a ripple, just in case. It was conditioning that had begun as a seven-year-old girl. The Herkenning organisation understands this all too well and continues to promote awareness, recognition and support for the thousands of men and women who have been, and still are, affected by the events of 75 years ago.

# 8.

On their return to Queensland, Ted and Wilhelmina rented a small apartment opposite the Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club, which overlooked the warm and peaceful waters of the Noosa River. Eventually the owner wanted to move back in so they bought a lovely house nearby with a swimming pool. The constantly annoying mosquitoes and noisy neighbours drove them out of that house until, much to Wilhelmina's relief, they finally settled down after buying a home in a quiet, gated estate.

There was no shortage of places to visit, attractions to see and things to do in Noosa. The retired couple made new friends, joined over-50's groups and attended classes at the University Of The Third Age. Wilhelmina continued with her painting, especially of cats and dogs and even a portrait of Ted, as well as writing her story. In Darwin, with the encouragement and help of a friend, Wilhelmina had begun to record the events of her childhood as a means of off-loading a lifetime of suppressed emotions. The project had sputtered along in a stop-start manner so in Noosa, with plenty of free time, she had begun the project again. Then, just as life seemed to have settled into a comfortable rhythm, disaster struck and brought with it painful memories of the past:

' **In 2012 I had my second cancer on the right breast. I was operated on and sent to Nambour for radiation. The oncologist in Nambour wanted to distract me from the ordeal of radiation (because I was very nervous and angry). He said he visited Holland one year and thought it was a beautiful country. He told me about the big celebration about Liberation Day at The Dam. He thought it was wonderful but he did not have time to end his sentence...I exploded and yelled at him to STOP. I was so angry and started crying. The whole memory came back. I said to him, "And now are you going to kill me with radiation?" He did not know what to say, this poor oncologist. Ted later told him what it was all about. He understood and apologised.'**

After another, unrelated, medical procedure, Wilhelmina was coming out of the anaesthetic screaming out loudly for Ted. When the doctor asked her why, she told him she had seen soldiers looking in at her from every window. She was scared and kept thinking, 'What am I going to do?' Post Traumatic Stress Disorder manifested itself in many ways and later in life it would also find its way into her dreams.

Wilhelmina achieved little from visiting psychologists and psychiatrists in Noosa, but she did take up the suggestion of one, which was to write to the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, asking for a public apology. She cited the examples of the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who had apologised for his country's role in the Child Migrants Programme which resulted in many children being physically and emotionally abused, and Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who apologised to his country's indigenous people for the forced removal of children from their families in a dark, 60-year-period of Australia's history. Wilhelmina asked Prime Minister Rutte would he not agree the time had come for the government of The Netherlands to express a sincere 'sorry' for the injustices suffered by the many totally innocent children of the so called collaborators in World War II. It would give them an enormous sense of relief, she wrote.

Years later, she is still waiting for a reply.

Government discrimination against those children was not the issue. Rather, it was the lack of education and information provided by the government after the war to help prevent other people from discriminating against families of collaborators through school, the workforce and even in the street. They should have set an example of support, of understanding, and of obligation.

As for Ted, husband of nearly 50 years, life has been a roller-coaster. He has always recognised and understood his wife's anxiety, her desire for anonymity and the reasons for it. He was, after all, a child of the war himself. His love for Wilhelmina has resulted in a life-long, unwritten agreement of making few waves and remaining inconspicuous – even though that is probably not Ted's nature. He has encouraged Wilhelmina to tell her story and be proud of it. The fact it has taken her 80 years before she felt comfortable and confident enough to do it is testament to the power of PTSD and childhood conditioning.

And there is plenty to be proud of in this story.

The unnatural and inhumane state of being at war creates an environment where nothing is normal or as it should be. Living under a ruthless occupying force in one's own country is a condition that only those who have had to endure it could understand. Normal behaviours change out of necessity and a parent's priorities are reduced to the safety of their children and survival of the family unit

Willem's actions during World War II were deemed to be treasonous and he was punished for them. But, unreasonably and immorally, so was his family. Cornelia was found guilty purely by association, yet if there was resentment she never showed it. The love for her husband never wavered, and the love for her children was demonstrated every day of their lives. Wilhelmina loved her parents and is proud of the way they continued on with their lives after the events of the war. She is proud of her two brothers, Wim and Kees, and her sister, Erna, for living happy and successful lives despite a rocky start that would have stopped many in their tracks.

And now, finally, she is proud of her own story.

Wilhelmina and Ted at home in Noosa.

