Summary
An unidentified Holocaust survivor described life under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands, his family's role in the resistance in The Hague, methods used to hide Jewish people on farms, transport to concentration camps, and liberation at Bergen-Belsen.
An unidentified speaker, described in the meeting as a Holocaust survivor and author, recounted living in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, including his father’s role in the Dutch resistance in The Hague and the family’s work hiding Jewish people on farms.
"My parents became the head of the resistance in The Hague," the speaker said, describing three core resistance tasks: sabotage of records, creating false identity documents and moving people to hiding places. He said the resistance relied on bicycles after vehicles were confiscated, which is the origin of his book title Resistance on a Bicycle.
The speaker described mass arrests and deportations, saying the Nazis removed documentation and used a holding camp in the Netherlands before sending people onward. He referenced Kristallnacht as a turning point that pushed many Jewish families to seek refuge. He said an organized village in the Netherlands once sheltered about 20,000 Jewish people but that trains later removed people from that site on a regular schedule.
He detailed tactics used to hide people: farms with lofts and haystack basements, a haystack concealment that could hide about 75 people, and improvised solutions such as a paper-mâché "singing box" to muffle holiday singing. He described the dangers of travel under curfew, counterfeit ration stamps circulated by resistance members, and how a child in his family concealed stamps on his person to evade searches.
The speaker recounted violent episodes, including seeing a barge attacked on the Rhine and later learning 18 people were killed there. He described his family’s eventual arrest, a five-day cattle-car transport to a camp, and arrival at Bergen-Belsen, which he said held roughly 60,000 people when liberated by British forces. He described extreme deprivation in the camp and British troops delivering food and medical aid at liberation.
He also described community efforts by farmers to resist German requisitioning — including an episode where farmers burned a slaughterhouse to prevent livestock being taken — and resourceful survival techniques such as breeding rabbits, harvesting pigeon eggs, and boiling sugar beet to create syrup during food shortages.
The speaker identified several people and episodes from his books, noted that he later wrote multiple books about these experiences and said Corrie ten Boom had visited and asked for help finding hiding places during the war. He closed by saying the wartime hardships and acts of aid by neighbors and farmers were central to how people survived.
No formal actions or policy decisions were taken during this talk; the remarks were presented as personal testimony and recollection.
