I did not know then, but realized later, that these events were to change my life. My pleasant childhood was also about to change. I discovered at an early age that world events do that.
My father, and to some extent, also my mother, had that rare ability to see consequences of their actions and the actions of people and events around them. It was something that I slowly learned much later in life. During one of his business trips to Germany, my father observed the reality of the Nazi consolidation of power.
He read a famous sermon by the Reverend Reinhold Niebuhr in which Niebuhr said about the Nazis “First they’ll come for the Jews, then they’ll come for the Slavs, and then they’ll come for me.” This quote made an impression on my father as he told me later. He and my mother decided it was time to leave Europe. He sold his share of Mepel to his partner and explored the family options.
They applied for immigration status to the USA. However, the application was delayed about four years because in those days, immigrants were admitted according to a quota system based on country of birth. Because my parents were born in Germany, the line ahead of them was long. They concluded that if they waited, Germany would invade the Netherlands before their projected departure date. Consequently, we travelled briefly to London in 1938, and my father applied for and eventually was given an immigration visa to Australia.
My parents sold the house in Wassenaar to a family named Vles, packed our belongings, and shipped them to Australia. In 1939, we flew to London, went to Southampton and boarded a Union Castle company liner to immigrate to Australia. Fortunately, our immigration visa application to the USA remained active and we were able to go to the USA much later.
My father returned to the Netherlands on a business trip in 1947 and visited at 16 Zuidwerfplein. He discovered the Vles family sold the house to a new owner. My father went to the front door and explained who he was but the new owner immediately ran him off the property. My sister visited the Netherlands in 1950 and viewed the house from outside. She did not tempt fate by going further. She was the last family member to visit that house until I visited the Netherlands in 1988.
During 1988, while visiting the Netherlands to do research at the University of Utrecht, I visited a consulting geologist by the name of Steen in The Hague. Late in the afternoon, Mrs. Steen asked if I remembered where I lived in Den Haag, and I told her we lived Wassenaar. I remembered the street name but not the number.
My parents took a photograph of the house and transferred it to a Delft plate which hung in a prominent place in every home they owned. I recalled the house was located on a street corner and its appearance. Mrs. Steen offered to drive me to see if we could find it. On arrival, I could not remember on which street corner the house was located, and nothing jogged my memory.
While standing there, a Volvo drove by, parked in one of the driveways, and the owner stepped out. He asked what we were doing in the neighborhood. Mrs. Steen explained I was from the USA and had grown up in one of the corner houses as a child. Being fluent in English, he told us the history of ownership of every house. When he gave the history of 16 Zuidwerfplein, he mentioned the Vles family who bought the home from my parents and then sold it. That buyer eventually passed away and his son took ownership. The house was now occupied by that son’s widow who lived alone. The Volvo owner did not remember my parents’ ownership of 16 Zuidwerfplein but suggested we should go and introduce ourselves.
When Mrs. Steen and I entered the property, I noticed a prominent sign from a security company and a system of wires from the sign. We rang the door bell and Mrs. Steen explained to the owner who I was. I gave her my University of Illinois business card, and the owner let us enter.
My first reaction was it was smaller than I remembered. The kitchen still had the same bluish-green Dutch tile on the walls. The staircase seemed less high. But the most surprising thing I noticed was that the house displayed at least 15 original Dutch Master Paintings. That explained the security system. I then realized that many original Dutch Master Paintings were still in private hands.
Although leaving 49 years before, I was the only family member able to gain access to the inside of that home.
I mentioned this visit to Dr. Sierd Cloetingh, then at the University of Utrecht. He explained that when the Nazis occupied The Netherlands, they expropriated people’s homes. After the war, people returned to claim their homes, but there were numerous bogus and contentious claims. Cloetingh inferred that when my father visited in 1947, the home owner suspected he was trying to claim the property and therefore ran him off.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. World or other events with which one may not have any connection will influence one’s life and one should pay attention to them. The Nazi rise to power, Pearl Harbor, the atomic bomb, and 9/11, are good examples.
2. It is difficult for a child to hide anything from one’s parents.
POSTSCRIPT #1. Dr. Cloetingh also explained to me an aspect of Dutch history I did not know. Before Napoleon’s invasion of the Netherlands in the early 19th century, the only people with surnames were aristocrats. The remaining population only used first names. For instance, the famous artist Rembrandt is known only by his first name and signed his paintings accordingly. He was often referred to as ‘Rembrandt van Rijn” to indicate he came from somewhere along the Rhine River.
Napoleon was appalled when discovering this practice and required every Dutch citizen to register at the town hall, adopt a last name of their choice, and disclose their address, birth date, religion, parents, and other personal facts. In fact, Napoleon established such registries in every country he invaded and where no registries existed. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and other countries, they immediately went to the local town halls, confiscated the registries, and rounded up the “untermenschen” for extermination. In short, Napoleon’s registration system made possible the mass exterminations by the Nazis in Europe during World War II.
During trips back to the Netherlands, people noticed my middle name and asked if I knew, or was related to their relatives. Clearly, the surname means nothing for genealogy when randomly chosen in a forced registration process. Thus I have no knowledge about mine beyond my grandparents, and what little I know about them came through word-of-mouth.
Chapter 2
Australia (1939-1947)
My family boarded one of the ships of the Union Castle Line in Southampton during July, 1939 and steamed into the Atlantic. My parents decided we should take a short vacation in Madeira, and disembarked for ten days. I recall the high relief of this volcanic island with lush tropical vegetation. I also pushed open a glass door at the hotel with my hand, shattering the glass, cutting one of my arteries, and ending up in a hospital emergency room. Once treated, we stayed a few more days and then boarded the S.S. Arundel Castle bound for Australia.
En route, we stopped in Cape Town, South Africa. I still remember steaming into the harbor and seeing Table Mountain. We visited onshore, and then proceeded to Durban, South Africa. It was my first introduction to human diversity as I saw my first black people, or Afro-Africans (Native Africans?) to use a politically correct modern term.
We then sailed into the Indian Ocean, stopped at Perth for a shore visit, and continued onto Melbourne. While in the Great Australian Bight on September 1, 1939, we received news that Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. We arrived and disembarked in Sydney a week later.
The city of Sydney was founded by the British colonial government in 1788 to house a penal colony for those committing minor offenses. British losses during the American Revolution required a new location and Sydney was as far away as they could send them. Long after I left Australia, the original settlement was restored as a tourist attraction. During my life in Australia, this historical origin was only mentioned rarely in hushed tones.
My parents found