SN 09.28B Joh 2 H5 suppl

Johan Snoek - vervolg

(Dick Kragt wordt regelmatig genoemd zie aparte pagina Joh 2-DK)

2007 Supplement op autobiografie Kleur bekennen

gevonden op Johans PC. De tekst in het Engels is veel langer en beschrijft ook het overlijden van de Generaal. Evenals de reden om de naam Snoek uit de Nederlandse vertaling te houden. En het verhaal later wel te willen vertellen. 

Generaal J.W. Hackett – I was a  stranger.         

Onze Engelse onderduiker, generaal Hackett, arriveerde met zijn brigade in Nederland

op de tweede dag van de slag om Arnhem, 18 september 1944, als parachutist (we zouden later op zijn  valse persoonsbewijs hem de naam Jan  van Dalen geven, als verwijzing naar zijn manier van entree). In een van de daarop volgende gevechten werd hij zwaar gewond, opgenomen in het Elisabeth gasthuis in Arnhem, vandaar op 9 oktober door het Nederlandse verzet ontvoerd en naar Ede gebracht waar hij een schuilplaats vond bij de dames de Nooij: mijn drie tantes Mien, Cor en Anna. Ruim een week daarvoor, op 1 oktober, hadden de Duitsers het bevel gegeven tot evacuatie van de Veluwezoom, waaronder de bewoners van ons dorp Renkum. Zodoende was ons gezin (mijn  moeder, zus Maria en ik; mijn  broer Wim zat gevangen in Duitsland) al eerder dan de generaal terechtgekomen bij de drie tantes.

       Later zou generaal Hackett een boek schrijven over zijn  belevenissen in bezet Nederland (I was a Stranger; 1977) waarover hieronder meer. In kleur beperk ik me wat het verblijf en de ontsnapping van Hackett betreft tot het vermelden van een paar dingen die niet in zijn boek staan (kleur, p. 111-112, 115-116). Eén episode voeg ik hier daar nog aan toe. Die vond plaats tijdens Hackett’s tocht uit bezet Nederland naar de vrijheid, een reis die in drie etappes gemaakt werd: eerst van Ede naar Maarn, toen naar Groot Ammers en vandaar naar Sliedrecht (vanwaar de crossing per kano door de Biesbosch volgde.

Verantwoordelijk voor het organiseren van Hackett’s ontsnapping was een Brits geheim agent, Dick Kragt. We konden hem er slechts met moeite van overtuigen dat de reis gemaakt zou worden op klaarlichte dag, per fiets en ongewapend. Meisjes/vrouwen werden minder 

 

gauw bij een eventuele controlepost aangehouden dan mannen want op de laatsten werd steeds feller gejaagd. Daarom zou een koerierster met alle belastend materiaal een eindje voor ons uit fietsen. De generaal en ik reisden “schoon”, wel voorzien van een prima persoonsbewijs en bovendien droeg hij een dovenspeldje want hij mocht uiteraard geen woord tegen vreemden spreken. We hadden proviand bij ons voor een paar dagen: hardgekookte eieren, en echt roggebrood, dank zij de clandestiene leverantie van een Edese boer. Het was in de hongerwinter.

Het gebeurde tijdens de tweede etappe. We hadden vanaf Maarn een paar uur gefietst en we werden hongerig. Onderweg, bij Lopiker kapel, was een cafeetje. Daar stopten we; eten kon je er niet krijgen maar wel een kop surrogaat koffie en je zat er tenminste warm het was in januari). Een lunchpakket hadden we bij ons.

Het was vol in het café. Niet ver bij ons vandaan zagen we iemand in uniform, een dienaar van de Duitsers dus. Ook hij at zijn lunch, echt wittebrood had de man, heel wat beter dan het grauwe regeringsbrood van de meeste gasten. Ik stapte naar hem toe en zei: “U hebt wittebrood en wij hebben roggebrood; dat is ook erg lekker. Zullen we een paar sneden ruilen?” De man in uniform voelde ervoor en de ruil vond plaats. We aten onze lunch, maakten toen aanstalten om te vertrekken en groetten de man in uniform vriendelijk. Hij groette ons vriendelijk terug en zei: “Goede reis en wel thuis”. En zo verlieten we het café: Loek Caspers die ons op deze etappe vergezelde, dat onooglijke mannetje met zijn dovenspeldje op, en ik. Voor mij was het een van de vermakelijkste gebeurtenissen tijdens de tocht.

 

 

Onmiddellijk na de bevrijding kwam generaal Hackett bij de familie De Nooij-Snoek - wij woonden nog in Ede - op bezoek. Daarna verflauwde de relatie tussen hem en mij en dat lag aan mij. Hij stuurde een mooie kerstkaart, ik had niet het benul er een terug te sturen (kerstkaarten waren in Nederland toen nog niet in zwang). Hij gaf me een abonnement op een Engels tijdschrift maar ik had geen tijd om het te lezen en bedankte hem er ook niet voor. Achteraf bezien was mijn houding bot en dat terwijl ik hem graag mocht. Maar we waren druk: onze zaak moest opnieuw gestart worden en ons huis herbouwd. Later ging ik theologie studeren, verloofde me en trouwde. We waren druk bezig met heden en toekomst en hadden geen tijd voor het verleden. Onlangs klaagde een generatiegenoot dat zijn kleindochter  - een meisje van 20 – geen tijd en interesse toont voor de onlangs te boek gestelde verhalen van haar grootvader. Ik overwoog: dat meisje is natuurlijk veel te druk met het heden en haar toekomst, evenals wij toen.

Jaren gingen voorbij waarin er slechts sporadisch contact was tussen generaal Hackett en mij, ook omdat ik vele jaren in Israël en Genève woonde. Dat veranderde in 1976. Ween terug in Nederland en woonden in Oostvoorne waar ik predikant was. De telefoon ging. Generaal Hackett was aan de lijn. Hij vertelde me dat hij al jaren geleden zijn avonturen in bezet Nederland had opgeschreven en voor een verkorte versie ervan nu een uitgever gevonden had, dat hij mij het manuscript wilde sturen met verzoek het te lezen en waar nodig correcties voor te stellen. Toen ik het verhaal las, boeide en ontroerde het me. Hackett slaagt er in zijn gevoelens van toen onder woorden te brengen. Ook Corry (mijn echtgenote) las het.

 

De autobiografie van Johan is te vinden op  pagina JMS 1 en daar  te downloaden.

Over Generaal Hackett, tot aan zijn overlijden in 1997  (Engels)

General J.W. Hackett

 

General Hackett, who became our guest in hiding, arrived in Holland with his brigade on the second day of the Battle of Arnhem on the 18th of September 1944 as a parachutist. Later we were to give him the name of Jan van Dalen on his fake ID-card, with reference to his way of entering the country.( dalen means  to descend) In one of the fights he was badly hurt and taken to the Elisabeth hospital in Arnhem. From there he was abducted by the Dutch resistance on the 9th of October and taken to Ede, where he found a hiding place with the de Nooij ladies, my three aunts Mien, Cor and Anna.  A week earlier, the Germans had ordered the evacution of the Veluwezoom, among which were the inhabitants of the village of Renkum. That is why our family (my mother, my sister Maria and I) had found shelter with the three aunts before the general had. My brother Wim was a prisoner in Germany.

 

Later general Hackett would write a book about his adventures in the occupied  Netherlands (I was a Stranger; 1977). In Soms moet een mens kleur bekennen  I restricted myself to mentioning a few things about his stay

and escape that were not in his book. (Kleur, p. 11-112, 115-116). I will add one episode here. This took place during Hackett’s trip from occupied Holland into freedom, a trip by bike, that was made in three stages: first from

Ede to Maarn, from there to Groot Ammers and finally to Sliedrecht, followed by the crossing by canoe through

the Biesbos. Immediately after my return to Ede I wrote the details of the trip in my diary. The British secret

agent Dick Kragt was responsible for organising Hackett’s escape. It was only with great difficulty that we could convince Kragt that the trip had to take place in broad daylight, by bike and unarmed. Girls and women were less often stopped at checkpoints than men. That’s why a woman courier would ride ahead of us with all the incriminating material (uniform, British identity papers, and a letter from my aunts to Queen Wilhelmina).

The general and I travelled “clean”, provided with fine IDs. Besides general Hackett wore a pin that showed he was deaf; of course  he wasn’t allowed to speak to strangers. Thanks to the illegal supply by a farmer from Ede we had food for a few days: hard-boiled eggs and real rye bread. It was the hunger winter: January 1945.

On our second stage we had been cycling for a few hours from Maarn when we got hungry. We entered a little pub near Lopikerwaard; there was no food but they did have ersatz coffee and it was warm inside. We had a packed lunch with us. The place was crowded. Near us we saw a person in uniform, not a policeman but certainly a man who worked for the Germans. Otherwise he wouldn’t have worn a uniform in those days.

He was also having lunch: real white bread, much better than the grey government bread  of the other guests.

I went up to him and said: “You have white bread and we have rye bread; that’s very tasty too. Shall we exchange a few slices?” The uniformed man agreed and the exchange took place. After our lunch, we  rose and said goodbye to the man. He wished us a safe journey home. And so we left the pub: Loek Caspers, who travelled with us that day, the inconspicuous little man with his “deafpin” and I. The general continued his trip into freedom without hindrance.

An amusing incident during a dangerous trip. 

 

Immediately after the liberation general Hackett came to visit the de Nooij and Snoek families. After that contact  between him and me wore off and that wasn’t his fault. He sent a beautiful Christmas card, but it didn’t occur to me to send one back (Christmas cards were not in use in Holland then). He presented me with a subscription to an English magazine, but I had no time to read it and I didn’t even thank him for it. Looking back I would say my attitude was impolite, even though I liked him a lot. But we were caught up with other things; the textile shop of our family had to be started up again and our house rebuilt. Later I studied theology, got engaged and married. We were busy with the present and the future and had no time for the past.

 

Some time ago a contemporary of mine complained about the fact that his granddaughter – a twenty year old girl – had no time and wasn’t interested in the stories her grandfather had recently written down in a book. I thought: well, of course she too, is much too busy with the present and her future.

 

Years passed and contact between the general and myself was rare, also because my wife and I lived in Israel for a long time and after that in Geneva. That changed in 1976. We were back in Holland and lived in Oostvoorne where I was a vicar. The telephone rang. General Hackett was on the line. He told me that, a long time ago,

he had written down his adventures in occupied Holland and had now found a publisher for an abridged version. He wanted to send me the manuscript and asked me to read and correct it, where necessary. The story was touching and captivated me. The general had succeeded in expressing his feelings of those days very well. Corry read it as well and was impressed.

Our youngest daughter Mirjam had a hamster which was allowed to rummage about freely in the living-room – under her supervision. Suddenly that hamster found a hole in the skirting board, crept in it and disappeared.

Here we had a problem. Corry said to me: “You were that plucky fellow that managed to get a real British general to the other side, weren’t you? Well, then you must certainly be able to bring out that little hamster?” I did try but didn’t succeed. Mirjam knew what to do; first she flashed a torch in the hole and tapped on the food tin. Soon the hamster crept out of the hole and was saved.

 

When a Dutch translation of I was a stranger  was to appear, I had ambivalent feelings about it and requested the publisher – after consultation with my sister Maria – to leave out the name of Snoek, which he did. The editor’s secretary said: ”It is such a wonderful story and when people read about your involvement in it, they will like you.” My answer was: “I had rather have people liking – or hating – me  for what I am now than what I used to be.” It is not nice when people have a one-sided image about you, even if it is positive.

For the presentation of the Dutch translation Ik ben een vreemdeling geweest  (in Ede of course) General Hackett and his wife came over. My aunt Cor de Nooij (the only one of the three sisters who was still alive) was there, and a reporting team of EO-tv and journalists.

My sister Maria and I waited outside the room until the ceremony was over. After that we had a lovely dinner with the general and his wife and the other persons involved. That was in 1979.

***********

Times change and so do people. Fifteen years later, september 1994, fifty years after the battle of Arnhem a commemorative ceremony would be held. My sister Maria and I invited Sir John and Lady Hackett to come to Rotterdam a few days earlier and be our guests. EO-televison heard about it and they phoned me; they wanted an interview with the general and me for their current affairs programme Tijdsein .

 

Beforehand they wanted to make the trip from Ede to Sliedrecht again with me, not by bike this time but by car with a reporting team that would cover the trip. Then I no longer avoided publicity. My answer was: “Yes, but on the condition that you give me one minute to tell about the things that keep me busy now: the fate of the Palestinians.” They reluctantly agreed, halfway they tried to back out (“instead of giving you the one minute on tv we will give you an hour on the radio”) but I was unrelenting and they probably suspected that the general would let his cooperation depend on mine.

After a long day we arrived in Sliedrecht at nightfall. The reporter said: “Well, time for your minute now.”  I have the coverage on tape. I said:

 

“Sometimes you have done things because you would have been ashamed of yourself if you hadn’t done them. It would have affected your selfrespect. We have experienced it as a challenge and actually, every day is still a challenge for me: to be a Christian, to be just a man, who sometimes fails.

 For me this has later got a very personal realization. I became a vicar. I was posted in Israel. I had a lot to do with Jews. Later I found out there were Palestinians as well. I stood up for the Palestinians a few times – in loyalty to Israel – in a way that not everybody could appreciate. But all along I felt that, loyal to God and fellow men, you have to go your own way and – with failures now and then – be loyal to your own conscience.”

 EO-tv broadcasted it correctly.

 

This combination of the past with what I am doing now, suits me. Recently a book by Jan Crum

was published; Wat bewoog u? Gesprekken met mannen en vrouwen uit het verzet (Soesterberg, 2007). Wim and I are among the 25 people that were interviewed. Crum knew about Hackett and asked me about the time with him. My answers were without restraint. At the end he asked: “what message can you give to young people at  the annual commemoration of the liberation?”  Among other things I said: “The front line is always different. The challenge is to see where it lies. There is no straight line. I blame myself for not having seen the injustice that was done to the Palestinians. I did live in Israel, so I could have seen it…….”

 

In September 1994 general Hackett unveiled a commemorative plaque at the Airborne museum at Oosterbeek during the commemoration of the airborne landing, to thank the inhabitants of Gelderland for their help to the airborne troops. Maria and I were there.

 

On Sunday there would be the usual service at the Airborne cemetery. The Queen would be present and you needed an admission ticket. Maria and I had asked for tickets but didn’t get any: they were only for people who had taken part in the armed  resistance. General Hackett was very sorry about it but couldn’t change things.

 

The service would be on tv so I invited Maria – who has no tv – to watch it with us that Sunday. During the service it was pouring in Oosterbeek. We saw the Queen and Prince Claus, Sir John and Lady Hackett in the front row, under big umbrellas, the ladies in beautiful hats and many others in ceremonial dress and under big umbrellas. It was a cool day. We felt sorry for all our friends and all those people who were cold and wet and felt privileged to be warm and dry ourselves.

 

Since general and Mrs Hackett’s visit in 1994 we had known about the general’s weak health. Later we heard that he was incurably ill. Throughout the years Loek Casper had also kept in touch with the Hacketts. It was she who warned me in the summer of 1997: “Shan is getting worse.” I visited him one more time. One morning I took the plane to London, travelled inland and returned home the next day. That one day long we talked, laughed and were sad together. Their two daughters were also there. I realised they would appreciate me to be a friend as well as a pastor. So before I left I read Philippians 4 vs 4 – 7 with them. Shan repeated after me: “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding”. Then we prayed and I  said the blessing of Aaron: “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace” (Numbers 6 vs 24-26).  It was a moment and a farewell never to be forgotten.

General Hackett died on September 9th 1997 at the age of 87. The funeral took place in the family circle.

On November the 24th there was a commemorative service in St. Martin in the Fields, a church in London. Maria, Loek Caspers and I were invited together with some other Dutchmen: mayors and officers. We travelled on an Airforce plane, landed at a military airport and were taken by bus to Croydon, where we were officially welcomed by the mayor, a nice lady in her fifties, with a chain of office. After her speech sandwiches were served. She came up to me and said: “You and the general had a thrilling time”.

I had heard such remarks earlier that day so a bit peevishly I answered: “I did indeed, but it was not the only thrilling period in my life”. Of course she wanted to know more then, so I told her that at the end of my career as a vicar,  I had been a pastor in a nursing home for demented elderly people for six years. She got tears in her eyes and said: “Soon my father has to go to a nursing home and  I find it very hard to come to terms with it”. I said: I will be glad to talk about that with you”. We took two chairs, sat down opposite each other and while the rest of people were  fluttering around us, I told her that one can communicate with a demented parent – be it in an other way than one used to; for even when the brain no longer functions well, there remain ways of nonverbal communication.

I told her that for me, that period had meant the most to me during my career as a pastor, in spite of all the misery I saw. I don’t remember the mayor’s name and probably we will never meet again. Nevertheless she nor I will ever forget that short encounter.

 

Then followed the service in London. I had been asked to say one of the prayers. On the liturgy it said behind my name: “nephew of the De Nooij sisters” .

 Finally we had the opportunity to offer our condolences to the family in a big English club. There were hundreds of people but the Dutch people were given priority. They had to go back on the bus and the plane soon. Someone addressed me in Dutch. I have forgotten his name but he turned out to be the Dutch ambassador. He told me that Prince Bernhard had personally requested him to attend the service and the condolence. He had reread I was a Stranger. Then our conversation flagged. Maybe he had expected me to be pleased with the princely interest and with a possible invitation, but I wasn’t; for me the meeting in Croydon had been interesting enough.

 

While I was writing this, general Hackett’s daughter Bridget phoned me: her mother had died at the

age of 97. May her remembrance be a blessing.

 

Rotterdam, May 2007