« One could not imagine what sailors had lived through in the war »

« The photo must be taken shortly after the war. A baton was spelled on my father’s jacket, granted him for warning service Koopvaardij 1940-1945, which meant: sailing on a petrol tanker.

They lived in Stiens, a village north of Leeuwarden where everyone knew each other. My father was a sailor and stood out in his tight uniform among the farm boys. However, the sailor’s existence had a downside: you were away from home for a long time. Not all girls found that pleasant, despite that uniform and the relatively good merits of sailors.

My mother was the daughter of the local café owner. She was able to learn well, but after primary school she had to help in the business. She was allowed to take piano lessons, because the piano was ‘fun for the customers’. She had talent and not only played in the cafe, also in the church and in various orchestra. During the war her teacher had to go into hiding, the lessons stopped and her big dream became a music teacher, fell apart.

The threat of the Second World War probably made my parents decide to get married in June 1939. As a married woman, my mother had more (financial) certainty. My father had to go to the sea a month later. Only in December 1945 did he come home, after six and a half years of absence. Contact was only possible via an occasional red cross gram. His diary ‘War at sea’ Can be found on Maritiemportal.nl.

Many merchants did not return from the war, he did. However, a disappointment waited for him when returning home. Friesland had suffered relatively little from the war. And people could not imagine what the sailors had lived through, his wife nor. It was not a topic of conversation.

He went ashore and found a job at a chemical factory in the Gooi. My sister and I were born in Naarden. My father was not really happy there and was often homesick for sailing and to Friesland. Not my mother, who felt completely at home in the cultural life of the Gooi. The war past remained between them all those years. « 

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