Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
PATH ONE
Video 1
Music : 'Never comes the Day' The Moody Blues
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This video shows our attic and loft. I show you the contents of a box containing about a hundred letters, answers from former inmates to the enquiry-letter written by my grandfather asking them if they probably knew about his son - my uncle - while they were in imprisonment in Germany. The box also contains a few photo's that were pinned on the wall of my uncle's room when my grandparents where still living in Tilburg. The box was probably brought in my parental home when my grandparents moved - in 1962- to an elderly home nearby our city. Showing the - 1946- newspaper telling the story of the two resistance comrades Loek Lansdorp en René Norenburg who did not return home in Tilburg after the war. Here you can read the Newspaper : Tilburgse Courant My uncle's comrade Loek Lansdorp is allowed to write farewell letter to his family and - resistance- friends before he is shot on 5th September.
Photo of the Tilburg student fencing-team 1942 / 1943. Also photo of - probably - corporation of students 'Sint Olof' 1942 / 1943. Fencing masks in the loft belonged to my father and to my uncle. My uncle replaced my father in the board of the fencing team after my father was taken prisoner of war, May 1942. My father had been an officer during the German May 1940 attack on the west. After capitulation of the Dutch armed forces, my father - practically all Dutch officers- signed a 'declaration of honour' : meaning that they where free to go on condition that they promised not to attack on the occupier. In september he started to study at Tilburg Hogeschool (University)
The video shows the book-case where I found a copy of Captain Payne Best's 'The Venlo incident'. Signed 9/11 1952
Synchronicity :
Sigismund Payne Best signed the copy of his book 13 years after the 1939 'Venlo Incident ' .
The incident marks the end of traditional Dutch ' neutrality ' in 20th century European conflicts and compromised the Dutch for facilitating secret negotiations, taking part against Nazi-Germany .
Also read Payne Best on Georg Elser's case :
Notice that the date of the 'Schnellbrief' corresponds - coincidentally(?)- with the Dutch official Red Cross letter informing my grandparents the whereabouts of their younger son This 'coincidental date' might have been a reason why the Captain* came to Maastricht and probably visited my father in november 1952?
To be continued in : 'The bridge that was worth it's weight in gold'
Video 2
The miraculous 1952 agenda's :
Enquiry into the 1952-diary's of my father with no great success
Video 3
Prisoner of War
8 May 1943
Prisoner of War in Stanislav (far right standing upright)cigarette-case .My father's personal belongings-letter box while he was a Dutch Prisoner of War in Poland, containing two requests for information : the whereabouts of my father's brother, inmate in the Sachsenhausen concentration-camp. January / May 1945
Video 4
The Letter
Music: 'Negative Earth' Barclay James Harvest
Showing once more my father's cigarette-case that he bought and that was made by an Russian or Polish prisoner during imprisonment.
After my father was taken prisoner - May 1942-, his younger brother - my uncle - then also a member of the students corporation St. Olof, is about to write him a letter. But this rough copy was never send and kept in a small printed book of Sint Olof's corporation of students. Finally pictures, taken February 1949, of my uncle's room in Tilburg.
Video 5
Music: 'Moonlight shadow' Mike Oldfield ; 'Celluloid Heroes' The Kinks
- My uncle grew up and lived with his family in Tilburg. He went into hide when he was a student in Tilburg, during the war. For the first time, from 9-2-1943 / 29-3-1943 ,he was hiding in Verviers** in Belgium. Later in May, students who did not sign the 'Loyaliteitsverklaring' saw themselves obliged to hide from the occupier. The box that I open in this video - belonged to my grandmother - and contains a series of pictures that were taken while my uncle was hiding in Verviers. The rough copy of a letter that I show was written by him in the autumn of 1943, while he was hiding in Haaren and when already a member of a resistance group 'Raad van Verzet' who were expecting the Allied invasion soon - as was told them by Dutch Radio in London 'Radio Oranje'- . One of the two first pictures that are shown represent the house where my uncle is hiding with a friend 'Bim', the next picture
shows the family where he is hiding, together with their cow and a resistance comrade. Here you can see the picture enlarged , and a few of the letters my uncle wrote to my father in Stanislaw while he was hiding in Haaren :'Nec Plus Ultra'
Envelope that is not opened contains my uncle's (pre-war) passport. The envelope that I open contains a small note written by my uncle to inform his family (parents) that he has been caught - 22 february 1944 - and at the moment of his writing - is being taken to Scheveningen Prison : 'Oranje Hotel', the Hague.
Photo and letter Dutch Red Cross; 11 January 1950, informing my grandparents probable whereabouts and death of their son. Rough note of my grandfather's reply on this document. Open in the hyperlink found on my uncle's webpage of the National Archieve this document : 'Bronnen' and compare the information that you find there. The result of the investigation into the whereabouts of my uncle depended very much on the information that was given by my grandparents and whose information depended on the information given by the former inmates.
'Resistance in the Netherlands'- the Catholic Share :
' Not a spirit of rebellion and revolt ' a letter by Pater Lodewijk Bleijs , October 1944'
My parental home is situated near the Belgian / Dutch border. Early in the twenties of past century there was a quarrel between the two countries concerning the use and the conditions of the waterways to the Belgian and dutch harbours of Antwerp and Rotterdam. According to the Versailles Treaty the Dutch were obliged to offer the Belgians a new and better waterway what would result in a worse economic-strategic position for the Dutch harbour. Most famous Dutch National Socialist leader Anton Mussert,who was at that time working for 'Rijkswaterstaat', managed -with the help of a former banking director of 'De Nederlandsche Bank'- to politically block this obligation of the Treaty. Belgians decided to dig the Albert Canal, cutting in two the Sint Pietersberg on the eastbank of the river Meuse south of the city of Maastricht. During the 2nd World War Rembrandt's 'Nachtwacht' was hidden in a cave, called 'De Kluis' on this side of the river Meuse in the mountain of Saint Peter's.
September 1944 :
From 'The Other side of the Hill' Captain Liddell Hart p.428: Paralysis in Normandy; German Generals say the Allies had an oppertunity to defeat the Wehrmacht and end the war in 1944.
The Brereton Diary : Operation 'Linnet II'
To be continued in 'Path Two'***
* Here is a copy of the Captain's lecture given in January 1951 "The Other Man" from the Leschander Collection.
For a relevant archive on 'The Venlo Incident' and Captain Payne Best you may open this link : Preliminary Inventory to the Walter L. Leschander Collection, 1938-1965 ( Hoover Institutions archive, California)
On 10th May 1940 German Pantzers swung through the 'Low Countries' executing a'Schwerpunkt'-concept war:the 'Blitzkrieg', attacking the Western European nations by surprise, out-manoeuvering them forcing them to a surrender.
Battle of the Netherlands
In 'The Secret Front' the former Intelligence chief Hoetll writes that he has his doubts what was the case at 8&9th November 1939:
** These a some pictures of my uncle including a picture that was taken while he was in into hide in Verviers:
***'Path Two'
Is still under construction : 'Trapped in the Past'.
