Page 13 of Who We Think We Are
K ate walks to Utrecht Centraal train station and picks up a pastry and a cup of Earl Grey to enjoy on the train to The Hague.
It’s Monday morning, and she can almost imagine she is one of the commuters.
She wonders, not for the first time, what it would be like to live in the Netherlands.
Kate finds her seat and eats her pastry.
As the train leaves Utrecht, her phone buzzes. It’s an email from Cobus Janssen:
Good morning Kate,
I am so sorry, but I will not be able to meet you at the archives this morning. I am very sick. I know how important this is to you and that you have come all the way from Canada. Therefore, I will go to the archives on another day when I am well and do the research for you at no charge.
If you still plan to go to the archives today, here is a link to a website with several of my colleagues. One of them might be able to help you on short notice.
Once again, I offer you my most humble apologies.
Cobus Janssen
What the actual Fuck!? Kate doesn’t skip a beat.
She doesn’t have time to get flustered. She has spent her career at the helm of a large company, having to pivot when things go wrong.
She knows how to make things happen. She clicks the link to the website, makes a few phone calls, and emails a few of the historians listed.
No luck. I’m going anyway. I am not missing out on this opportunity!
I’ll use Google Translate on my laptop and figure out as much as I can.
At least I can see the records, feel them, smell them.
Even if I can’t get much, I’ll be able to understand a little.
She texts Cobus: “I hope you get better soon. I am going to the archives anyway. And I’ll take you up on your offer. Thank you. Kate.”
Kate’s heart is pounding as she walks up to the National Archives.
She takes a selfie outside and sends it to Jake, Mikelia, and Grandad so they know she’s there.
OK, girl, stop stalling and get inside! She has the information the clerk asks for this time, and her appointment is scheduled.
The clerk asks for Kate’s passport for identification, takes her picture, and gives her a visitor badge with her picture on it.
Kate must put everything, except her laptop, in a locker.
Not even her bottle of water is allowed in the reading room.
A security guard walks Kate to the World War II room, seats her at a table, puts tape over the camera on her laptop, and stands behind her.
No pictures or scans may be taken. The records in these archives are not open to the public.
A different clerk brings the files to her: four faded green cardboard boxes, about four inches thick, twelve inches high, and eighteen inches long.
One each for Oma, Oma’s mother, Oma’s father, and Jaap.
Each box has several files in it. She sets the other boxes aside and opens Oma’s first. Oma’s files are her priority.
Before she starts, Kate looks around. She doesn’t know what she was expecting, but not this.
The room is very sterile-looking. There are long white tables with electrical outlets, an ugly shag rug-like piece of art on the wall, and gray industrial carpet on the floor.
There are about twenty-four people in the large room, all intent on their work.
Are they, like me, looking into their family’s secret past?
Or are they historians or researchers like Cobus Janssen?
She guesses the latter. They look too calm. Can they hear my heart pounding?
Kate plugs in her laptop, logs in to the National Archives Wi-Fi, opens Google Translate, and takes a deep breath. She opens Oma’s first file and starts to dig.
In the box on the left side of her screen, Kate types in Dutch words, and in the right box, English words magically appear. The first document is a card:
Katrina Van Dijk
Arrested 19 June 1945
Placed on house arrest.
Wow, I didn’t know Oma was arrested the month after the war was over.
They got to her fast. Kate pulls out the second sheet of paper.
The paper is smooth, almost glossy, and yellowed.
Kate brings the paper up to her nose. It smells like the classic scent of old paper.
The typewriter ink is faded, making it difficult to read.
Kate has on her strongest reading glasses, but they’re not enough.
She squints, leans in, and types the Dutch words slowly, having to scrutinize each letter. The document is a police report:
Katrina Van Dijk
Verbal Process
19 June 1945
Willem Hollander, Waitmaster
Katrina Van Dijk, from Utrecht, belonged to a mixed group. It is rumored that this person was believed to be a member of the Hitler Youth in Utrecht. This person was arrested by me on the specified date and transferred to the group office, where she stated the following to me.
Oh my God, this police report is in Oma’s own words! These are eighteen-year-old Oma’s words. This is surreal. Kate does a quick Google search to see if membership in the Hitler Youth was mandatory in the Netherlands. It was not. Oma volunteered.
I am named Katrina Van Dijk, born in Utrecht on 10 March 1926, unmarried, and a farmer, and my residence is in Utrecht, Bergmanstraat 23.
I am currently residing in Dalfsen at Kerkplein 94 at the home of Frederika De Groot, who is an aunt of mine.
In April or May 1941, I became a member of the organization Hitler Youth in Utrecht.
At the time, I felt so strongly about the NSB (Dutch National Socialist [Nazi] Party) that I signed up with my cousin, Jaap De Groot.
For a long time, we were secretly members of that movement without my mother knowing anything about it.
One day, by mistake, the organization sent us a card at home telling us that we had to come to a meeting, and then my mother became aware.
Oma felt strongly about Nazism and joined the Hitler Youth behind her mother’s back?
I thought she was part of the Hitler Youth because her parents were members of the Nazi Party!
I need a break . Kate leaves the hall, her heart racing and her mouth dry.
She gets the bottle of water from her locker in the lobby and paces as she drinks.
This is tougher than I thought it was going to be.
Did Oma’s parents get arrested because she was part of the Hitler Youth?
It is so strange to read Oma’s words like she’s a historical figure rather than the Oma I have known my whole life.
Kate returns to the reading room, but reading Oma’s words is too upsetting. She’ll come back to it later. She starts to translate Jaap’s police report:
Jacob Thomas De Groot declared:
I was pro-German. That is why I gave my commitment in May 1941 as a member of the Hitler Youth organization because I was crazy about it at the time.
My aunt didn’t know anything about it at first. When she became aware, my aunt said, “You can now choose: leave immediately or resign.” I chose the first thing and went out of the door.
I ended up in the youth residence in The Hague. I spent two months there, and then I made several trips to Germany, Berlin, Prague, and so on, all over Germany. I transferred letters and parcels to various weapons and military equipment factories for the Rüstungsinspektion.
I did this until November 1942 and then stopped. This was because I came into contact with my cousin, and he would have none of it. He was forced to work in Germany.
My cousin then spoke to me seriously and said, “Many good German people are not National Socialist. Now can you, as a Dutch person whose parents were killed by German bombs, be concerned with such a movement?”
I then realized that he was right, and from that moment on, I was no longer bothered by the movement. I didn’t know how to resign. That is why I stayed so cautious. I was then allowed to visit my aunt under the condition that I was not allowed to do anything more for the Hitler Youth.
Today, the 18th of June 1945, I, Marten Stoevellar, Detective, have arrested the suspect, who will be detained in the Erika prison camp for the following charges: from May 1941 to November 1942, voluntary service with Hitler Youth and courier service from the Netherlands to Germany and vice versa.
That was a lot easier! I don’t know Jaap, so his declaration is interesting. But how could Jaap have been pro-German when they had killed his family?
The translations sound awkward, but Kate leaves it that way.
She doesn’t want to make it sound like they’re speaking English.
She Googles “Erika prison camp” and learns that it was a concentration camp in the Netherlands that was repurposed and used to imprison Nazi collaborators after the war. She looks at Oma’s mother’s file next:
Jozefien De Groot’s declaration:
I became a sympathetic member of the NSB in the autumn of 1933 because I expected something from this. About halfway or the end of 1938, I resigned as a member because I realized that I was doing wrong by remaining a member when my Jewish friends were forced to leave the party.
Unbeknownst to me, my daughter and nephew had become members of the Hitler Youth. When I became aware of this, I forced my nephew out of my house in January 1942. He came home in November 1942.
My daughter said she resigned so she could stay home. Then in March 1942, she left my house and did not come home until the end of December 1942 and said she quit the Hitler Youth.
In January 1943, I took my daughter, nephew, and my two younger sons to live with my sister in Dalfsen. My husband was in forced labor in Germany from 1940 to 1945. He never wore an NSB pin.
Today, the 18th of June 1945, I, Marten Stoevellar, Detective, have arrested the suspect who will be detained in the Erika prison camp for the following charges: Jozefien De Groot is suspected of being a sympathetic member of the NSB.
Her daughter and nephew were members of the Hitler Youth.
The suspect has subscribed to Volk en Vaderland .
Her husband was a sympathetic member of the NSB from autumn 1933 to 1945.
OK, Jozefien’s file is SUPER interesting! There were Jews in the Dutch Nazi Party until 1938, when they were forced out? I’ll have to look into this further. Volk en Vaderland , People and Fatherland, must be a Nazi newspaper. But where the hell did Oma go from March to December 1942?
Kate takes a lunch break. Her back hurts, and her eyes need a rest. She gets a salad and a bottle of water and sits on the stairs outside to get some fresh air.
Her head is swimming. I feel like I’m reading a book, not learning about Oma’s childhood in the war.
But these aren’t just stories. Oma actually lived this.
When Kate returns to the reading room, she skims Oma’s father’s file just to get the basic information. She wants to save time for Oma’s file.
Henricus Arie Van Dijk Police Report
I went to Germany voluntarily at the beginning of August 1940, as I was without work. In Germany, I worked on the Reichsautobahn as a ground worker and Lagerführer.
In January 1941, I was transferred to Munich as forced labor to work as a printer for Volkischer Beobachter , the Nazi Party newspaper, until December 1944, when I came home.
In Dalfsen, I was forced to work for the Organisation Todt in December 1944 in bunker construction.
In April 1945, I returned to The Hague and started to work at the Drukkerij Smids, Westeinde, until today.
I have never betrayed my country or betrayed anyone.
Today, the 18th of June 1945, I, Marten Stoevellar, Detective, have arrested the suspect, who will be detained in prison for one year.
There are many witness statements that the suspect is a known Nazi collaborator and that he was working at the Nazi newspaper in Germany as a volunteer, not as forced labor.
Well, well, well. Henricus Arie Van Dijk’s story is a lot sketchier! It seems there was one true Nazi in the family . No wonder Oma didn’t talk about him much .
Kate needs another break. She walks around the barren courtyard to stretch her legs while she sips her water. Before returning to the World War II room, she walks downstairs for a potty break. I can’t put off Oma’s file any longer .