The following letter was sent to my mother in 1945 by a high school penpal she'd been assigned from the Netherlands. In the rush to move from her parents' home to marry my father, she tossed it away... fortunately, retrieved. Their handwritten letters continued for over 60 years until their deaths. It is a first-person account of the perils during war and its aftermath.

JO WEIJ                                                                      August 5th, 1945. - Sunday
ROTTERDAM W.                                                                  
Holland
                                                            
Dear Lucille,

                Since the U.S.A. have entered into the war I have not received letters from you.  Only once there was my Red Cross Message, that came back with the news that you had got married.  I have always been anxiously looking forward to news from you and as you will notice now that I am still allright. I hope that you will send me a letter very very soon (if your husband thinks it allright!).  I am enclosing a picture of me and my fiancé on the day of my engagement on Christmas 1943.  I hope you will enclose one of yourself and your husband.  Is your husband in the army?

                I wonder whether you will still have my wooden shoes? Wooden shoes are very expensive articles just now in Holland.  There are no shoes and most of the children are walking without shoes.

                During the war my father and both my sisters died.  Now I am still alone with my old mother.  We have had 5 years of German occupation and you must have read from the papers what we have all been through.  It was a very bad time and one can only realize what it really means when he has been in it himself.

                The Germans have robbed everything here, have murdered a great many people or sent them to concentration-camps with the same results, have flooded part of our country, have destroyed our harbour-installations, have left us without food in the last period of the war.  Before the war Holland was known as a rather wealthy country throughout the world, now we are so poor in every respect one can hardly believe.  All depends on the help of our allies, especially your country. 

               I am engaged and in the first place my fiancé sends you best regards and thanks for what the U.S. have been doing for our liberation.  We all have the greatest admiration for your army, navy and airforce.  We were amazed to see that splendid equipment of your armies and to see your huge bombers go to Germany.  When The Dutch East Indies will be liberated, we will owe this for the greater part to the soldiers of the U.S.

              We want to get married, Lucille, but we can't, because we can't get a house to live in and futher there is nothing left in the shops to buy, no furniture, no carpets, no curtains, no things for the kitchen, no clothes, no shoes and so on.  Even the Germans have stolen away all our railway-equipment, our tramcars and our omnibuses and the greater part of all the motor-vehicles.

             During the war our city has been bombed for more than a hundred times and as you can understand it did very much harm to the city and a great many innocent people were killed.  Allthough we had some very narrow escapes, we always got out safely.  Moreover the V-weapons were shot from here to London and Antwerp and in this case harm was done from both sides.

            From September 1944 the Germans gave us less food every day and no coal to heat our meals and rooms.  Of course there was no electricity or gas.  At the end of March 1945 there was no more food in Holland.  We had been through the most terrible winter in our life.  Then the allied bombers started to drop food from the air and some weeks later the Germans in Holland capitulated and so we were free again after 5 years. In this last period of the war a lot of people died from hunger and cold.

           The Germans have tried to call me up for work in Germany several times but they never got hold of me.  In November 1944 they picked up 40,000 men and transported them to Germany.  During these raids I have been hiding in the townhall-building for 5 days.

           In this war-time I have been acting as a Civil Defense officer, with three officers in charge of the A.R.P. in Rotterdam.  I am demobilizing the A.R.P. - forces now and awaiting my being called up for the Dutch Expeditionary Force for the Far East.  When I'll not be called up, I am going to be police-officer or joining the American Express Co. again.

           The U.N.R.A. is giving us lots of food.  The only thing they don't give are cigarettes.  We have not had English or American cigarettes since May 1940.  We have been smoking all kinds of stuff, but since September 1944 we had no tobacco at all.  Since our liberation three months ago, we go 40 cigarettes only.  But there seems to be a shortage in it all over the world. You can buy cigarettes in the black-market only and it costs $1.50 for one Chesterfield or other American cigarette.

           The whole people in the Netherlands were forced to deliver their radio-receivers to the Germans, but I am glad to tell you that they did not get mine.  I had it hidden in the townhall where I had my office and now it is working again in my room.

           I'll have my 29th birthday on August 18th.  I am getting rather old and I am not yet married.  But that will not last long.

           Well, Lucille, I'll stop my letter now and I hope I will receive one from you very soon.  As me a lot of questions if you like.  When you look at the picture, please remember it was a war time engagement with hardly any flowers, no up to the date dresses and gowns.  It is a very bad picture of my sweetheart and myself and I'll send you a better one as soon as possible. Best regards to your husband and I remain your friend.
                              

                                                                                                 Jo Weij

 

 UPDATE: This letter has been submitted to the War Letters International sponsored by the Legacy Project as well as to several other international projects.

The Legacy Project
Attn: Andrew Carroll
PO Box 53250
Washington, DC 20009
E-mail: warletters2004@yahoo.com