Deepest gratitude and highest admiration are, due to "Tante Jo and Oom Jan," the parents of this child that takes the form of a diary. On a given day in February 1945, Willy came up with the idea to bring this child to life. It was her idea to capture the volatile days of this dark time we were living through together for future moments of reflection in peace and calmness, in order that one’s eyes can see in living memory the love and sorrow from this past.

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This idea fell on fertile ground, and so it happened that this diary-child was born. But please keep in mind that it is a very fragile child. No professional writer raised it. Don’t look at it too strictly; close your critical eye. It does not want to be a beautiful, decorative doll. It's a simple, unadorned, factual being.

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And something else: it is a really a child with all its signs of its time. It has not been easy to raise. Its crib stood under water. The daily feedings could only take place underground and clandestinely.4 In short: this child too led an illegal life.

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The daily notes start in the first days of February 1945. However, the invasion of the Faessens happened months earlier. The ghosts of the past had to be brought into the present; otherwise this diary child would be too inadequate and maimed.

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Past––but not forgotten! How could it be otherwise? Much, so much is very clear and lively, as if it had happened just now. The war’s fury rages over a peaceful land. Gray, green, and black hordes have invaded like locusts. They eat and consume from the land until it is bare and naked and leave it to the lash of the acute famine. They crawl and rummage and ferret in homes and barns to plunder and steal. Together with the traitors, they spy on the streets and search homes to snare poor, pursued persons as slave-laborers for Germany.

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Bullets pierce the hearts of those glowing with love for their country. Medieval hangmen grab their powerless and defenseless victims. In dungeons and hell-fire concentration camps, the cries of the tortured peal forth and the last sighs of the dying wimper to an end under the eyes of their ruthless captors. In vain, the kin left behind wait, “sighing and crying in this valley of tears,“ hoping for a sign of life, until the death announcement ends their hope and scars their lives forever. How often intuition of a threatening disaster presses itself on frightened people as desperation and despondency creep into their tired souls.

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Even as the successful invasion in Brittany lit the red dawn of liberation in the sky, the merciless executioners go about their work with ever more cruelty.

 

Not far from here they seize one of our best and most outstanding citizens. He would never return as with so many of the best and most noble. His way of the cross leads through the concentration camps in Vught and Oranienburg. He died in Oranienburg, far away from his brave wife and beloved children. We furl the banner, lower the sword, and beat the drum softly. A moment of silence in his memory. A silent Hail Mary for...Cor Schipper with deepest respect and never ending gratefulness.

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Caution requires us to leave the area quickly that has become dangerous with the arrest of Cor Schipper. A temporary stay at the home of good people. Then a sympathetic friend calls a helper. Heaven sends him: the much tested Oom Jan appears. He arrives on a certain day towards the end of August 1944. The Allied troops storm on their triumphal march through France and Belgium. They approach the Dutch border. Maybe the misery will be over soon. Oom Jan arrives as a liberator also. He wants to provide us a residence and “make us into other persons.” We make an appointment for that purpose with the photographer van Rossum, alias Dr. Kukirol. As arranged, we make a stop and visit the home, A 206, and enjoy tea there. We meet Tante Jo and are very excited by the impression of kindness and thoughtfulness, which seems to radiate from her personality. We also meet Tante Marie, a guest. After this visit Oom Jan “opels “ us to Dr. Kukirol.

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