15 Grandpa tells a story

 

 

Our beautiful Denmark was a bit wetter than usual that summer. Granddad and grandma came along instead of dad. The cottage had been booked a long time before because we thought we knew when Jan’s leave would be. But the extra weeks on board had pushed back his summer leave and he wouldn’t come home until after the boys’ and Ingeborg's holidays.   I thought the rain was fitting. The kids weren’t bothered by it anyway. We had brought raingear, for Denmark is as unpredictable as the Netherlands as far as the weather is concerned, but whether it was sunny or wet, Sam, Peter and Ingeborg just stomped outside on their bare feet, treasure hunting in the cornfields and on the little stony beach. Grandpa took great pains examining the little beetles and crabs with them under a magnifying glass. They made beautiful drawings which Grandpa put in a scrapbook for Dad. There were also new interests. Amber had to be found, because the boys had seen Jurassic Park. The long searches on the beaches in the area yielded only a few shiny brown amber stones, but many beautiful round boulders and stones carved by erosion. Our old Volvo would have to carry a heavy load home.

Once we drove all the way to Legoland in Billund, where Ingeborg had the time of her life in the life-size Duplo attractions.

 

On a beautiful dry evening we lit a fire in the large garden and baked bread on a stick above the fire. 

 

‘Cremated on the outside and raw on the inside,' said Grandpa. 

 

‘You shouldn't hold your stick in the fire, grandpa,' said Sam. 

 

He and Peter held their dough neatly above the glowing logs, patiently turning and baking a delicious bread roll that they shared with Grandpa. 

 

‘How delicious,' he said gratefully. ‘You two would survive in the camp.’ 

 

My father never talked about the Japanese war camp and for a moment I wondered if he was just talking about any holiday camp. ‘Besides, we didn't have any dough, you know. There was none of that.’ My mother took a deep breath and looked at her hands. I had learned at a young age not to ask any further, but Sam was only nine. His curiosity was not yet curbed by experience.

 

‘What camp, Grandpa?’

 

And Grandpa suddenly started talking. I remember how surprised I was. In that garden in Denmark, on that summer evening, under a clear starry sky, by the magical light of our oil lamps and the crackling fire, my father suddenly started talking about his time in the Japanese camp.

 

‘When I was Sam's age, Grandpa was locked up in a camp. It was war. You did learn about that, didn't you? The second world war. I lived with my parents in the Dutch East Indies. Now they call it Indonesia, but in the old days we just said Indies. My father was a doctor there. When the war with Japan broke out, we had no defence at all. The Japanese were much stronger than our little army. In a few months it was all over. The Japanese just took over the Indies. And that was horrendous. You will never be able to imagine how bad that was. My father was taken away from us. I remember that very well. How scared my mother was. Suddenly all those cars and trucks appeared on the dirt road in front of the house. We could see them coming from miles away because of the dust they blew up. Some families had already left, of course, afraid of what was coming, but my father was a doctor and he thought he should stay at his post.’

 

'Then your father was really a hero, wasn't he grandfather?' Sam had sat down on the floor next to Grandpa's chair and, with uplifted face, his cheeks glowing from baking bread, he listened attentively to Grandpa's story. The glow of the fire made his eyes sparkle.

 

‘Yes, I suppose you could call my father a hero,' Grandpa said, stroking Sam's blond curls.

 

Then he was silent, as if processing Sam's conclusion. Did he see his father as a hero? The following years he had to take care of his mother, in captivity. His dad was gone. How he must have missed him. Will he have blamed him that they hadn't fled when they still could?

 

‘What about that camp?’ Peter said suddenly, somewhat grouchy. It had seemed he wasn’t paying attention at all. He sat there somewhat in the dark next to grandma's chair, curled up on the floor, his cheeks on his knees, seemingly bored, playing with a stick. But he had heard every word. Now I know he shuts himself off so as not to feel too much. That otherwise the entire world just enters him unchecked, that Grandpa's story had indeed touched his soul. But back then we thought he was just a bit bored. And then suddenly this question: 'What about the camp?'

 

'Yes that camp,' Grandpa stretched out his hand to Peter and pulled him onto his lap. Peter put his head against Grandpa's shoulder and stuck his thumb in his mouth. I didn't say anything. To this day the thumb is still a great comfort to him.

 

‘After my father was taken away, we stayed in our house for a while longer. But then they came for us too. For mum, Pingie and me.’

 

‘Who is Pingie again?’ asked Peter.

 

‘My sister Ingeborg.’

 

‘My sister's name is Ingeborg also.’

 

Yes, your sister's name is Ingeborg also. I think your mummy named your sister after my sister.’ There was silence for a moment.

 

'Camp,' Peter said commandingly, as far as possible with his thumb still in his mouth.

'Yes,' Grandpa chuckled, giving Peter a kiss on the head, 'that camp. All of us, all children with their mothers, were put into camps.

 

First we drove for a long time in jam-packed trucks, imagine that in that heat, through woods and along fields, it took forever as I remember, we were completely parched, and then we were locked up. In a camp, behind high fences. We slept in wooden barracks. The roof leaked ... and that was awful in the rainy season because it would rain very heavily. And we had to sleep on bare wooden planks.'

 

Peter sat up indignantly and looked at Grandpa, his hands resting on Grandpa's chest. ‘But that isn’t right!’

 

Grandpa's face suddenly became very stern. ‘You don't tell a Jap what is right or not right. You'd be beaten up!' 

 

'Ger,' said my mother warningly. Peter put his head back on Grandpa's shoulder and stuck his thumb back in his mouth. There was a deep frown on his forehead.

 

'Ah yes boys,' Grandpa said, suddenly lightly, 'it wasn't a happy time.'

 

'Did you go to school grandpa?’ asked Sam. 

 

'No, there was no school. I practised sums with my mother in the sand.'

 

'But then how could you have become a teacher?' asked Peter without taking his thumb out of his mouth.

 

‘Yes my boy, through hard work. You can achieve anything if you want to.'

 

At that moment I only thought: here we go again. But thinking back now, I realise why Dad never talked about the camp. Now I finally have an understanding of my father's suffering. We, my sisters and I, always thought that he didn't want to talk about it because we, as children of a peaceful society, wouldn’t be able to understand what it had been like. Our lives are so happy and prosperous. He even said that sometimes, when I was young and asked about it naively. ‘Oh darling child, you won’t be able to understand.’

Now, when I myself want to scream at the drop of a hat, I realise he just couldn't bring himself to talk about it. I think the memories were in his head his whole life. If he would have spoken, would have told us in such a way that would really have made us understand, then he would have screamed out loud. Then he would not have been able to bear the pain any longer. Silence was the only way for him to keep his self-respect. To do his duty with a straight back and take responsibility for his own life and that of his wife and children. I wish I had that strength. I have so often lost my patience towards idiotic headmasters and stupid, pedantic caregivers. But I am a product of a pampered society. I have always had too high expectations. My father, I think, had no expectations at all, only the gift of each new day he is alive.

 

Seventy years later, people still need therapy to deal with the traumas of the Second World War. Even people of the second and third generation still seek help at the Centrum'45 in Oegstgeest (Netherlands). To my knowledge, my father never considered therapy. The reality of today is no setting for the horrors of yesterday. My own reality cannot even find any base. No one understands what we are going through.

‘Do you ask for help?’

‘It seems hard to me, with a child like that.’

‘Yes, yes, fortunately the Netherlands have the best care there is.’

 

The lie of the consumer society. Everything is makeable, everything can be bought. What are you whining about?