Summary of the book 

Introduction
Youth 
Resistance 
Auschwitz 
Camp Liebau
"Camp sisters and mothers"
Liberation 
Wanderings 
Post-war existence

Introduction

From may till october 2004 I spend many afternoons with Ronnie Goldstein-van Cleef (1921-2008). The interviews are intense. Gradually, a picture emerged of a life dominated by both childhood and war traumas. Her fruitless longing for her morthers love is a central theme in our conversations. Below is a summary of Still today with a selection of (italicized) quotes from the book.

Youth

Ronnie is born in Amersfoort and grows up in a prosperous liberal Jewish family. She describes how she feels neglected by her parents. A younger brother and sister, whom she adores and who are both disabled, die shortly after each other at a young age. Ronnie becomes blocked.

After that, my parents tried to make something of their lives. But together. Not together with me. (...) No one wondered: What is wrong with that child? I created an imaginary friend. An older brother - I thought I called him Hans - to whom I could say everything (...) During that period, I often thought: I don't want to live anymore.

Resistsance

When the war breaks out, Ronnie is nineteen years old. She joins a resistance group in The Hague, to which her parents have since moved. The group is primarily involved in arranging hiding places and forging identity papers. After three and a half years in the resistance, Ronnie is betrayed. In 1944, she is deported via Westerbork to Auschwitz. 

1941. Ronnie van Cleef and fellow resistance fighter & friend Kurt Heinz Reiner. Reiner was betrayed in 1943 and died in Auschwitz in 1944.

Auschwitz

Work. Ronnie arrives at the Dutch barracks with her compatriots. They become her "camp mothers and sisters." They must stand for roll call before sunrise. Afterwards, they are given something that passes for breakfast - a brown liqui d- and then they must work. The work consists of hauling stones. Stacking, hauling, passing under the "Arbeit macht frei" gate, laying them down, stacking again, and bringing them back.

The infirmary barrack. After two weeks, Ronnie contracts scarlet fever and goes to the infirmary. She is seriously ill.

In the infirmary barrack, I fought for my life. For the first few days, I was semi-conscious. But I kept fighting to regain consciousness. (…) There were many women with typhus in the infirmary. They were dying like flies. You got used to it. The dead were carried outside and thrown at the entrance of the barracks. At one point, there was a high pile of corpses there. Naked bodies. That pile remained there for days. Until they were picked up by a truck. When the door opened, I saw that pile of corpses. Then I thought: THAT WON'T HAPPEN TO ME! Then I fought again.

The scabies barrack. Ronnie is gradually recovering. To avoid selection for the gas chamber by camp doctor Josef Mengele, the notorious "angel of death," she is secretly taken by a friendly Hungarian doctor, Julika, from the infirmary barrack to the Krätzeblock (the scabies barrack), where Mengele had been shortly before. The Dutch Frieda Menco also ends up in the scabies barrack. The women from the Dutch barrack smuggle food inside.
Frieda is constantly in a twilight state. Because there is not enough room, Frieda and Ronnie lie together in a narrow bunk with their heads next to each other's feet.

Frieda no longer cared about food. I mashed the food for her, pushed it into her mouth, and said: 'Chew!' She did. Then I said: 'Swallow!' She did that too. And that is how I fed her. (...)
In the bunk next to us lay a young Hungarian woman dying in a terrible way. There was no end to it. Her body was completely contorted. I had to keep looking. Almost compulsively… (…)
There were rats in the barracks. They just walked right over us. You got used to it. Every now and then Frieda felt something and asked: 'What was that?' 'Oh,' I would say, 'just a rat.'

Solidarity. When another selection is imminent in the scabies barracks, Julika sends Ronnie back to the Dutch barrack. Frieda stays behind. Julika takes care of her.

As soon as I came out of the Krätzeblock, I was placed against a wall. A woman pulled a string and, by way of a shower, a torrent of ice-cold water came pouring over me. I thought: I won't survive this! Because I was still weak. Then she shouted: 'Run, run. Schnell, schnell!' I was naked and started running to get warm and dry, towards the Dutch women. (...) Bloeme [Emden] (...) came to meet me. She was wearing a jacket, took it off, and gave it to me. I was so happy with that! In the barracks, Bloeme said: 'Guys, we have to organize, Ronnie has no clothes. Everyone hand something in.' With that, they could buy clothes from the Poles. Then I got a pair of trousers and a shirt and something like a skirt. The solidarity was enormous.

Escaped a selection. But Julika had been mistaken, for another selection soon took place in the Dutch barrack. Ronnie is in a panic: due to weeks of fever, she is weakened and emaciated, and she has large wounds on her shoulders. The prisoners stand naked in a long line before Mengele. In the middle of the barrack runs a low wall about sixty centimeters high and wide. For the selection, they must line up lengthwise along one side of the wall. Aufseherinnen walk back and forth along the wall with whips. Mengele stands at the end of the wall. The women who have successfully passed him walk back along the other side of the wall. Some women try to climb over the wall from the line. The Aufseherinnen keep knocking them off with their whips. Ronnie cannot explain how, but she manages to get to the other side of the wall unseen and thus escape a selection for the gas chamber.

Camp Liebau

After two months, she is evacuated to the Liebau labor camp. The camp is located near the Gross Rosen concentration camp in southwestern Poland, on the border with the Czech Republic. She stays there for six months .

A heaven compared to Auschwitz. Although there, too, we stood for roll call day and night, were punished, and received very little to eat. In the end, nothing at all. Then we ate grass. And gnawed on pieces of wood just to have something in our mouths.

Sabotage. She and her fellow inmates have to make snow chains in a factory.

We often sabotaged the whole thing. We wouldn't tighten the hooks all the way, and the girls at the welding machines wouldn't solder them. Then, when the chains were tightened around the wheels of those big army trucks, they would fly in all directions as they drove.

When the supply of materials dries up, the prisoners are forced to help construct an airfield by leveling uneven terrain. Afterwards, they are put to work in a quarry where they must use power drills to make holes in the walls into which the Germans place dynamite to blow things up. This is how the Germans obtained stones for their airfield.

Internal examination. In Auschwitz, girls were impregnated by kapos. In Liebau, Ronnie and her fellow prisoners are regularly subjected to internal examinations to check if they are pregnant.

For the examination, you had to line up with your underwear in your hand. Then you were laid on a kitchen table and had to pull up your knees. A Hungarian woman performed the examination. She claimed to be a doctor, but we have always doubted that. She examined us without gloves. Without water. From one to the other. During one of those examinations, I contracted an infection. I suffered a terrible hemorrhage that lasted for weeks. I was very sick. Because of that infection, I could no longer have children.

Cabaret. Together with Beppie Schelvis, who had worked in cabaret in the Netherlands, Ronnie creates musicals.

We performed the musicals while one of us stood on lookout to see if any guards passed by. The audience sat on the upper bunks. I would stand downstairs singing with a few girls. I used well-known opera and operetta melodies. I still have the lyrics. I will sing some for you.

Listen, there goes the whistle again.
Oh, how the wind is raging.
Now we must get up
and go to the factory.

First they have to start counting.
Do we have to stand any longer?
My feet are cold.
And I don't have any pants on. What
do you think of that damn Hungarian?
She's acting nasty again.
They're looking at me so strangely.
That chain is so heavy,
I can hardly lift it.
My hands are cold.
It's enough to make you shiver in here.

My stomach hurts so much.
That must be from hunger.
We are becoming lovers of a slim figure.

Camp sisters and mothers

Ronnie survived the horrors thanks in part to the strong bond between the Dutch women in the barracks of Auschwitz and Liebau – the bond with her peers whom she calls her "camp sisters" and with the older women, "my camp mothers".

Liberation

On May 8, 1945, Camp Liebau was liberated by the Russians. Out of fear of rape by the Russians, the women remained inside the camp gates for another ten days. Starving, they then went in search of food.

At the station in Liebau, there was a large warehouse with all kinds of goods that the Germans had looted from occupied territories: food, furniture, linen. You name it. We rushed towards it. We grabbed an empty pram and loaded it full with food. (...) I also picked out things for my mother. I found a beautiful little white bag for her and a pair of crocheted gloves, white with green. And I found a pair of SS trousers which I put on.

Poem by Ronnie Goldstein-van Cleef from Still today about the longing for her mother: HEIMKEHR In the evening when in the west the sun sinks and then the whistle for roll call rings, then the foolish heart goes home in a wide flight to the west, Mother, and I sigh...

Wanderings

On May 18, a number of women left Liebau and boarded an empty train that eventually took them to Prague.

Countless people from camps of all nationalities roamed through Prague. The consulates of most countries offered help, realizing that people from the camps were mentally and physically destroyed. That they needed money and identity papers. But from the Dutch, there was no one and nothing! They were not interested. They abandoned us. I am still baffled by that. The Swedish consulate considered it a gross scandal and took us under its wing.

The women were detained in Prague for weeks. When a transport to Belgium eventually departs, the Swedish consulate ensures that they can join. They stay for a week in a barrack in Bamberg, where many Dutch collaborators were also housed. At the request of an American, Ronnie, who has a diploma in shorthand and typing, types out transcripts of interrogations there.
After a week, she leaves via Vlodrop in Limburg and Den Bosch for her hometown The Hague

Post-war existence

Cold reception. Next, her post-war life is discussed: the cold reception in the Netherlands and the pain of the lack of understanding from her mother (who went into hiding during the war).

I was filthy and severely emaciated. I had lain on straw in a freight wagon for a long time and was wearing SS trousers with some crazy, blue checkered blouse. That is how I went to my mother. Blissfully happy! But the only thing she could manage to say was: "Gosh, child, what a sight you are!" I was totally bewildered. Completely devastated. I did give her a kiss. That much I did do... I had imagined so much more... I froze completely...

Ronnie is training to become a journalist. However, due to serious health problems, she has been declared completely unfit for paid work. She also talks about how she struggles with the loss of her father, family, and friends. She also discusses her psychotherapies and survivor's guilt.

Processing war traumas. Ronnie expresses her emotions in drawings and poems. She makes many drawings with children. Children who are taken from their mothers' arms upon arrival in Auschwitz to be murdered.

Maybe I was also trying to process the death of my little brother and sister in those drawings.

Writing poetry was her most important outlet.

Every time I had written a poem, I had let go of something that was bothering me. That was truly my salvation.

Her first failed marriage leaves her despondent. After eighteen years, she finally gets a divorce. She is happy with her second husband, Fritz Goldstein, for thirty years. While her therapist  takes her responsibility for her own life out of her hands and blocks the path to recovery, Goldstein helps her intuitively in a professional manner.

Every time my husband noticed that I became quite or tensed up, he asked if something was bothering me. Once we were driving in the car on a highway with those orange neon lights. That strange, orange light that all removes colors, I had seen for the first time in Auschwitz. Because of that everything looked spooky. That was so scary! I panicked, but couldn't utter a word. My husband stopped and asked what was wrong. When I told him what frightened me, he explained very calmly that it was just street lighting. He said: 'Just take a look around you. That light has nothing to do with the camp.' Then we stayed sitting together until my fear had subsided. We also once went onto a yard with freight wagons. Then my husband said: 'Look, those carriages are empty. Only to put materials in. You never have to go in there again. That is over. Just touch them. Nothing happens.' That way, he taught me step-by-step to overcome my fears. Because then I could reason it out. When I felt uncomfortable, I wondered why. And then I paid close attention to whether there was anything in my surroundings that reminded me of called upon the camp. A specific object. An image or sound. A smell or someone saying something. Then I tried to investigate. When I realized what was going on, I said to myself: This is not threatening. This situation is not directed at me. This has nothing to do with me. Then the fear subsided. That's how I was able to gradually get a better handle on my fears.

Mainly thanks to the understanding and patience of my second husband, I have been able to process my past in the camp. I still carry the images with me, but I can handle them.

1946. Ronnie (left) with her "camp sisters" Frieda Menco (middle) and Lisette - surname unknown to me - (right)

Looking back, Ronnie observes:

The concentration camp caused an appalling amount of harm. It left a mark on my life. Mentally and physically. Nothing compares to those horrors. And yet, looking back, I realize that my unhappy childhood also caused great damage. For there are things that destroyed me so deeply as a child.

Ronnie tries to reconcile with her mother:

I don't believe she realized how hard some things hit me. Recently, I accepted that my mother simply had no love to give me. I don't have to struggle with it anymore and can let it go.

Lectures and exhibitions. After the death of Fritz Goldstein in 2001, Ronnie gives interviews and lectures about her war experiences and exhibits her drawings.

What I would like to convey to people is that you have to be combative. That you must take a stand when you encounter injustice or misconduct. Things that violate your sense of integrity. (...) By sharing my experiences of the resistance and the solidarity in the camp, I hope to show how important it is to support one another. And stand up for each other

Turning point

REVIEWS Turning point

"Roelofs has been listening and watching very well. The interviewed persons come 
alive before your eyes. 
An inspiring book." 
(public press: Zinweb)

“An accessible writing style. Food for thought.” 
(Dutch National Public Library).

"A series of remarkable interviews."(professional journal: Care and health)

Beherzigung

Feiger gedanken,
bänglisches Schwanken
weibliches Zagen,
ängstliches Klagen
wendet kein Elend,
macht dich nicht frei

Allen Gewalten
zum Trutz sich erhalten
nimmer zu beugen,
kräftig sich zeigen
rufet die Arme
der Götter nabei.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

INTRODUCTION​

At the outbreak of the Second World War, seventeen year old Bill Minco joined the Geuzen Resistance, which had been founded in May 1940 by Schiedam teacher Bernard IJzerdraat. Together with a classmate, he created a spy map of his hometown, Rotterdam, containing all military data he could get his hands on, including the locations of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, military vehicles, and ships carrying war material. Less than a year later, the resistance group was rounded up due to betrayal.

Bill is arrested and sentenced to death along with a number of other resistance fighters. On March 13, fifteen Geuzen face the firing squad on the Waalsdorpervlakte in the dunes near Scheveningen. Due to his young age, Bill escapes this execution. On March 13, his death sentence is converted to life imprisonment.

He is transferred to the penitentiary in Untermaßfeld, where he spends seventeen months in solitary confinement. When the penitentiaries - as the Nazis satanically call it - are made Judenrein, Bill, who is Jewish, is deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp and put to work as a forced laborer in the stone quarry. After a year and a half of hardship and mortal terror, at the end of his tether, he is put on a transport to the Auschwitz concentration camp. After surviving the hell of Auschwitz and also the death march to Dachau, he is liberated by the Americans on April 30, 1945.

On the advice of his childhood friend and later professor of psychiatry Sijds Nijdam, Bill wrote down his experiences almost immediately after the war. In 1997 he published this manuscript under the title Cold feet (1). In the interview below, some (italicized) passages from Cold feet have been included.

Bill is now eighty-two and lives with his wife Astrid in a small town in the middle of the country. During the interview, Bill talks about the war experiences that affected him most deeply. About how they shaped him. And how this gave rise to the urge to “bond together.” He speaks in a calm tone. Sometimes putting things into perspective, with humor.

1. Bill Minco. Cold Feet. Pardoned to Life Sentence. The Account of a Jewish Schoolboy in the Geuzen Resistance - Oranjehotel - Untermaßfeld - Mauthausen - Auschwitz - Dachau. Nijmegen: SUN, 1997 in collaboration with the Foundation Artists' Resistance 1942-1945.

Bill Minco at a young and older age

“I was born three times: on May 18, 1922, when I came into the world; on March 13, 1941, when my death sentence was converted to life imprisonment; and on April 30, 1945, when I was liberated from the extermination camps.”

Upbringing

“My upbringing at home was, I think, limited. My father was a salesman and traveling all week. He had to work hard to be able to live at a certain standard. Food, drink, holidays, a room of my own. That was all perfectly fine. With love. But without any substance. I found that substance with my friends Sijds Nijdam and Benno Wissing. We had very profound conversations. I looked up to them. Because they both attended grammar school and, thanks to their classical education, had more background. I myself was a huge success at the HBS: I repeated almost every class. You see, I had absolutely no interest in learning. Only in the exact sciences."

"The war shaped me. In a negative and a positive sense. I cannot imagine what I would have become without those experiences.”

Resistance - Oranjehotel - Untermaßfeld - Mauthausen - Auschwitz - Dachau

"My war experiences consist of three parts: the death sentence, seventeen months of solitary confinement , and nearly three years in a concentration camp. In those four and a half years, I lived a whole life. A life that other people never get to experience. During that time, I went through an incredible amount. I saw people naked, literally and figuratively. I saw what man is capable of. To what lows. And to what highs. These are all building blocks that have enriched my life. For even negative experiences can - provided they are processed - contribute to the essence of man. Shape the human being."

"How is are people put together? What is man capable of? I have continued to find that question interesting, even after the war."

In solitary confinement , I -in retrospect - learned to know myself. That was due to the great emptiness in which everything became timeless. I no longer knew what an hour or a day was. I only saw that it turned light or dark. Time slipped through my fingers. I had experiences there that I myself consider almost impossible, such as stepping outside of oneself. If I hadn't written it down immediately in 1945, I wouldn't believe it now.

And then suddenly, lying on your hard bed, staring into the complete void; your thoughts and feelings are at zero, suddenly you rise above yourself and see from outside the cell, from the other side of the bars, your own body lying inside that cell. You think nothing of it, you experience it, you undergo it; it is an unreal but peaceful feeling. A sense of weightlessness and yet still closely connected to your body in the cell. You have escaped for just a moment; away from those walls, away from that confinement, liberated for a moment, just for a moment...

But you cannot escape; you end up back in your own circle, time and again! (…) And then you need a force again, greater than that of your own 'gravity' to get out of it: namely, mental strength! (…) Then, amidst the ruins of yourself, you rediscover new and unprecedented values ​​that prove to be of incredible significance in your life after your captivity.

The identification with the enemy was a very creepy experience.

It must have been the spring of 1943. I had already been serving solitary confinement for more than a year. Lonely, completely abandoned to my fate, without any anchor, without hope. The cell presses down on you, squeezing every human feeling out of you. You are influenced by the weekly magazine Der Leuchtturm about the victories of the Nazi war machine on all 'fronts'. You are under pressure from the 'Werkmeister' and the guards. You are hungry and you are cold. And then you are overcome by the only feeling that still seems to offer any solace: I am one of them; my enemy, who had threatened me until now, takes possession of me, overpowers my feelings. And when I am summoned to the administration one day, I give the Hitler salute and say softly: 'Heil Hitler'. Later, you do not understand how it could have come to this.

"Those experiences have a huge impact on your character. That is why I have always thought a lot about myself."

"A kind of anchor has been that I received German literature quite regularly from the librarian in prison. The first librarian only gave me Nazi reading material. His successor asked what I would like to have. That is when I often received Goethes Faust. I memorized entire passages. I was young. I had no intellectual baggage. I think that Faust shaped me in part. Made me think. I found it a beautiful language. Brilliant formulations. And in terms of content... At one time I identified more with der Herr, with God. At another time more with Doctor Faustus, with man and his inner struggle. And perhaps most of all with Mephistopheles, the devil. Faust has become a part of my life. I still regularly use quotes from Faust. At every opportunity."

Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor.

"Faust says: I have now studied this and studied that. Gained much wisdom. Achieved a position. But still I am unhappy. I am at odds with myself. And then he is tempted by Mephistopheles. I have experienced something similar myself. But der Herr says:

Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunklen Drange,
Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewußt.

So man is and remains - despite all difficulties and temptations - capable of choosing between good and evil. You will find this reflected in all my lectures. He is truly aware of the right path. That applies to me personally as well. I am well aware of what the right path is. Well, I haven't always walked it myself, of course. Because no human being can do that.”

"Faust alsoso helped later, after the war. At that time, it was impossible for me to hate THE Germans. Because then you would have to hate Goethe too. And a few other Germans. Composers and some other writers, for example."

"In the correctional facility, I didn't just think about myself. I also got to know the people. After all, I had all the time in the world to study the guards. To take them in. To see how they react. You learn that automatically. Within a few seconds, you had to be able to assess what kind of person was in front of you. Purely out of self-preservation. To know how far you could go. For they were very different, from cruel to human. Take, for example, that scoundrel who humiliated me when I once picked a flower during my fresh air break."

There he stands in front of me already, with his broad, wicked grin. My hands go up helplessly, on command, as prescribed. He even starts with my right pocket, where the flower is. He already has it in his hands, looks at me questioningly, and defiantly holds the flower right in front of my nose. He tramples it at my feet, and I get half a dozen slaps left and right. That is my Christmas present. I could cry with rage.

“That’s how most of them were. But there were also guards who treated me well. I was in the life sentence section with all burglars and murderers. Crooks like me... On top of that, I was Jewish. So I had to report myself as a Jew every time: Jude Sebil Israel Minco – my name isn't Israel at all – vebußt lebenslänglich und drei Jahren Zuchthaus wegen Feindesbegünstigung und Spionage. Every time the door opened, I had to tell that story again. Very humiliating! But there was an older guard who would say halfway through the story: stop. That was a human trait.”

“I also vividly remember that guard who came to tell me, with tears in his eyes, that I had to go to Mauthausen. While at that moment I thought: heaven is opening now. And only afterwards did I understand where those tears came from...”

It was a tremendous relief for me when I heard that I would be transported to Mauthausen the next day. At that moment, anything seemed better to me than being alone any longer. (...) At six o'clock in the evening, I was summoned to the house father. I received all my clothes back, and he also gave me all the letters and a photograph of my family that had arrived over the course of a year and a half and which they had not handed over to me. He knew that I was going to Mauthausen and, of course, understood what that must have meant for me. I asked him if he knew about the camp, and he told me that it was an Arbeitslager where people were forced to work. He looked at me so strangely as he did so, I would almost say wistfully. (...) He made sure that I had light that night to read all the letters and also that I had enough to eat. It was the first time in all that time that I had eaten a lot again. When he locked me back in my cell that evening, he came in briefly, closed the door behind him, shook my hand, looked at me for a long time, and then said: 'Long live and stay healthy, Minco'. I believe tears welled up in his eyes. He is one of those Germans to whom I owe it not to tar the entire nation with the same brush.

"I still judge people quickly. If I meet someone I’ve never seen before and I look into their eyes, I imagine I know what they’re like. Roughly. The annoying thing is that in nine out of ten cases, it turns out to be true."

In the Mauthausen concentration camp, I saw that people can be indescribably cruel. And I am referring primarily to the SS.

The SS knew how to amuse themselves in various ways both inside and outside the camp. A favorite pastime, for example, was to place a prisoner on a trolley, load heavy stones on top of him, and then have him driven down a high mountain so that he usually arrived at the bottom shattered. Another pastime was to make the prisoners 'parachute jump,' which was done in a special Nazi manner without a parachute. They drove the prisoners with a machine gun over the edge of a ravine up to fifty meters deep, into which they plunged. Whoever was lucky enough to jump as one of the last was cushioned by the corpses of the other prisoners; with not too much bad luck, he kept his neck and legs intact.

"I was astonished that those same SS men went home in the evening - they lived in cottages in the vicinity of the camp - and took a child in their arms. Then I thought: you have blood on your hands. Surely you can't hold a child with those hands?! What makes a human being like that? And when you read that ordinary German policemen were deployed to slaughter the Jews in the ghettos one after another in pits... That they took photos and sent them home... Then I think: what is a human being capable of?"

"Women were sometimes even worse than men. For cruelty is generally further removed from women. Women have to overcome more to cross the boundary of the inhuman. They have to work harder at it. And when they have finally crossed that boundary... Well, then all hell breaks loose."

"Apart from the attitude of the SS men, something else in Mauthausen made a deep impression on me in retrospect: the depths to which people can be driven to survive. For the system, the brutality, takes possession of everyone. Even the prisoners. For instance, there was a Dutch boy who was the sweetheart of an SS man. He was fat from eating. When I asked him for a piece of bread, he said: no, then I run too much of a risk. After the war, he even had the audacity to write a book about his experiences in Mauthausen...”

"After Mauthausen came Auschwitz. The mass extermination. The use of prisoners themselves as overseers, or kapos. Often these were Polish criminals. But also Jews. To survive themselves, those kapos were usually incredibly cruel. In Auschwitz, there was also the so-called Himmelkommando. That is a cynical name for a group of prisoners who pulled people out of the gas chamber and then had to force their mouths open to remove the gold fillings. How can someone who is imprisoned themselves do such a thing?! Yes, I know the answer: when it comes to your own life, you are capable of anything. The only way to survive is often at the expense of another. But then you have sunk to the deepest depths of human existence. Or if you haven't reached that point yet, you might think: Let me just side with the enemy to save myself. That didn't apply to the Himmelkommando, however, because such a group was wiped out after a certain amount of time so they wouldn't have anything left to tell. Then a new squad was deployed again."

“But none of that is unique to Auschwitz or Mauthausen. That is just how human nature is, I fear. Just look at what is happening in Iraq with those four Americans they are dragging mutilated through the streets. Or actually, in the entire Middle East. I have an image in my mind - well, I am simply more involved with the Israelis than with the Palestinians, although I find it terrible what is happening everywhere and on both sides in that region - an image of them mutilating an Israeli soldier, throwing him out the window, and hacking at him while he is still alive. That image... How can people do such a thing?! On the one hand, it continues to amaze me. And on the other hand, I have seen it all myself. I know it is possible. And how it works.”

“In the camps, I also experienced highlights. I’ll mention one: Leen Sanders, an illiterate boxer from Rotterdam. I don’t think he could even write his own name. Leen was someone who rose far above himself. Admittedly, because the circumstances were favorable. You see, he knew a Pole from the kitchen against whom he used to box. But such a man... We arrive in Auschwitz from Mauthausen with a small group. All with the same experiences. All Jews. A Dutchman from the Schreibstube tells Leen that a Dutch boy arrived with the transport from Mauthausen. Within a few minutes, I have a loaf of bread under my arm. That was Leen Sanders!”

“I walk with that loaf of bread under my arm. Next to me stands a boy, also from Mauthausen. He asks: can I have a piece? Then I say: no. A whole loaf! And yet I say no. So I don’t just look at others. I look at myself too. After Mauthausen, I was completely broken. And then you get that greed. That selfishness. So what happened is not unfamiliar to me. I have experienced it myself, too. On a small scale. Or let me put it this way: I know how it works.”

Every morning and every afternoon when we went out for fresh air between block eight and block nine, I received food from Leen Sanders - and not only things he could easily spare, but also, on many occasions, of which he himself possessed only a limited quantity. I therefore owe it largely to him that, a year and a half later, I was able to endure the hardships of the evacuation.

During the war, I unlearned all respect for education, status, or social position. Ranks, classes, high, low... they mean nothing to me. I only have respect for people. Not for people just because they are educated, for example. Well... I do respect people who can play the cello beautifully. I only have respect for people with character. For people with self-respect. For people who – at least in my view – have truly achieved something themselves.”

"Looking back, I had built a wall around myself during solitary confinement. In Mauthausen, that had become much worse. Because there, it became a kind of self-protection. Literally. In Auschwitz, that wall crumbled completely. There was nothing left of me there.

how should you describe what a Muzelman is:
when great distress and deprivation
silence instincts and habits...
when you cannot straighten your knees because
the weight of your emaciated body
is still too heavy
when you permanently lower your head
because you have no strength left

because you have given up
the struggle for existence has slid you down to the bottom, by yourself,
like water flowing to the sea... 
exhaustion has taken hold of you 
every spark within you has been extinguished 
you are even too worn out to suffer 
you are ready for the gas chamber...

Bill survives because, according to the bizarre, contradictory rules of the Nazi bureaucracy, he was not allowed to be gassed. He was, after all, a so-called Schutzhäftling, that is, a prisoner with protected status;

... and the Germans reasoned as follows: whoever has committed a crime receives a punishment, and whoever must serve a sentence must therefore not be gassed, otherwise that would be a reduction of the sentence.

A year and a half after Bill's arrival in Auschwitz, the camp is evacuated because the Russian army is approaching. Then follows a death march to Dachau.

During the evacuation of Auschwitz in the harsh winter of '44-'45, we had to endure the death march almost without clothing or footwear (only wooden clogs wrapped in a cloth) and with a blanket so soiled that it generated no warmth. In the snow, the emaciated prisoners, completely petrified by the cold, walked, mechanically propelled as if in a trance, driven by the SS toward a nowhere.

Eventually, the liberation by the Americans follows.

It was eight o'clock in the morning on the thirtieth of April when I looked onto the road with a premonition of a major event. Without having betrayed themselves with the roar of engines or gunfire, American tanks suddenly came rolling around the corner onto the road. Hardly had I realized they were actually American tanks, and I looked around me; the SS had vanished without a trace. I acted almost automatically, without thinking. I took off my annoying wooden shoes, slung my blankets over my shoulder, and ran across the lawn as far as I could. I only fully realized that we were truly liberated when I held a Camel cigarette and a piece of chocolate in my hand. I had no matches.

Post war life

“I survived it. And I was incredibly lucky in doing so. But it is no merit. It all just happened to me. That is how it turned out. That is how it went. Despite myself. I have sometimes compared myself to a pinball machine, one of those things with lots of bells. Every time that little ball rolls a bit further, it hits a bell. That is the thread of luck running through my life.”

“After four and a half years of physical and mental humiliation, of course you can’t just turn the page on April 30, 1945. I was beaten to pieces. I came back in wreckage. There was absolutely nothing left of me.”

Childhood friend Sijds Nijdam on Bill upon his return:

His facial expression was tense and also emotionless; I did not recognize the expression in his eyes, a mixture of unspoken fear and regression. He could fly up like an SS officer, constantly pacing back and forth with the ever-repeated command: “Aufstehen, hinlegen” (Stand up, lie down). I asked nothing. I stayed with him for a few days. The conversations often revolved around his great disappointment regarding the reception in the Netherlands, both spiritually and materially. Occasionally, something of his camp experiences seeped through. I advised him, because I strongly felt that they kept coming back at him anyway, to write down his experiences—yes, to write them off his chest.

“Those pieces had to be put back together. IT HAD TO BE DONE! I had to summon that willpower. The will to do it! To live! Or you had to give up, like so many... Lie awake... fall apart...”

"It took me at least ten years to get those chunks back together somewhat. To put cement in between. And I always have to be careful that the cement stays in between. That is the common thread in my life. Because chunks remain chunks. Those joints always stay there."

"I have a beautiful, blue Chinese ginger jar standing here. It used to belong to my mother. I dropped that jar. As an image of how I came out of the war. Completely shattered. After that, I glued the jar back together. But it remains a glued jar. I am just like that jar: glued solid, but full of cracks. And furthermore, the gluing isn't quite right here and there. That’s just how I am."

“I didn’t have feelings of hatred. I didn’t want to have feelings of hatred! I wanted to stay standing. To keep the pieces together. Not that I can’t hate, mind you. I’ve always said: if I come across an SS member I recognize, I’ll bite his throat off. That’s easy to say, of course. I wouldn’t do it. But the most important thing is: I don’t want to hate. Because I have experienced firsthand what hatred drives people to.”

"Despite everything, I continue to believe that the good in people
can prevail."

The fact that they
considered and treated me like vermin
is no reason to
stop feeling like a human being.

“Not hating, that, was indeed quite a process... In the first years after the war, incidentally, I had absolutely no room for hatred. Or for any feelings whatsoever regarding the war. Because I had to build a life.”

"It sounds strange, but upon my return to the Netherlands , I also had positive feelings: I am alive, so I have to do something with it. No clue what. But I must do something with it! I didn't survive for nothing. IT CAN'T HAVE BEEN POINTLESS! I am destined for something."

"The Russian painter Chagall was a significant source of inspiration for me after the war. I no longer remember how I came into contact with his work. Chagall is a Jew who breaks free from the ghetto. From poverty, from humiliation. And who creates something beautiful as well. Who can play so beautifully with sparkling lines and colors! Who arrives at magnificent creations. Yes, that captivated me."

"He lived with his past and the future in the present; perhaps that is also why I feel a kinship with him. In him and me, consciously or unconsciously, the old Jewish traditions and the horrors of the persecution of the Jews struggled. Chagall showed me that between and through them, comfort and hope can be found."

“Shortly after the war, I was sent by the Resistance to recuperate for tuberculosis at a Dutch sanatorium in Switzerland. That was paid for me. By the Swiss government or the Dutch government. Or perhaps by the Red Cross. I don’t know by whom. That is where I met my wife. The first woman in my life after I had supposedly become an adult. Because I had skipped four and a half years of my youth! She was a nurse at the sanatorium. Very nice. Very sweet. Very interested. She read my manuscript that I had with me at the time. We never talked about it. You see, it’s impossible with people close to you. Because they don’t want to hurt me. Or because they get emotional themselves. I don’t know. It is much easier to tell my experiences to strangers, as I often did later at school.”

“After I returned to the Netherlands, I bombarded my nurse with letters. To make a long story short: we got married. But the cheerful appearance she projected as a nurse turned out to be just a facade. She was a completely traumatized woman. Her mother had died very young. She had a stepmother. A shrew. A terrible woman! Her father and that shrew had another child together who was favored. My wife and her little brother were pushed aside. If visitors came on Sundays, they were put out on the street in the morning and weren't allowed back in until the evening. Such a childhood is almost comparable to Mauthausen. I have therefore never held it against her.”

“I had no education. I had no job. I had only done a project for a memorial book. As a sort of journalist, I interviewed resistance fighters about their experiences in the war. At some point, I got tested at a career guidance agency. Because I didn't know what I wanted. The report stated that I was suitable for architectural draftsman. But I couldn't do anything with that at the time. Furthermore, it said that I had a high IQ. That was very positive for me. Because I really needed a boost at that moment. The report also stated: he is very focused on details. I took that to heart. Then I must have thought - because it is hindsight - that is a bad trait. You shouldn't do that. Since then, I have tried to learn to think a bit more broadly. That has become part of my cement. The cement to hold the pieces together.”

"That attention to the whole, to the big picture, has become second nature. I have benefited greatly from that later, both professionally and in politics."

“To make a living, I first tried to set up a tie factory with two partners. Because my father was in the textile business, he could get hold of fabrics. That project turned out to be a failure. At the time, my wife and I were living in the barn of a farm with someone from the resistance. That is where our son was born. We named him Victor, because we had won, after all. So then we needed a roof over our heads. And we needed food. We needed clothes. But I had no income. Benefits... shelters... none of that existed. I didn't know the way either. Because the last thing on my mind was seeking help. I was just glad I was there!”

"At that time, I read in the newspaper that a shop with a day care center in Hilversum was for sale. I could rent it, but I had to pay key money. So I didn't have it. But I got it from my father. He didn't have it either, because during the war he had to spend all his money on going into hiding. But suddenly it was there after all. I never wondered where that money came from. So then we had a day care center with a small kitchen. I cut a piece off the shop to use as a bedroom."

"An uncle of mine from the wiped-out family on my mother's side had a small mattress factory. He asked: what do you need a shop for? I said: I don't know, I wasn't looking for a shop, I was looking for a place to stay for my son, and I have that now. Then he asked: shall I send you a few mattresses to sell? Well, I had nothing to do, so I said: go ahead. I didn't have a single diploma. No business diploma. Nothing. Establishment requirements? Receipts? I knew nothing about it. I didn't even have the clue that you could charge more if you sold without receipts. I just charged the price that was listed. Furthermore, I had no desire whatsoever to follow any rules, because I had just had to follow rules for four and a half years. So I was a useless businessman. I knew nothing about entrepreneurship. I just wanted to live with my family."

“In the first years after the war, I was actually very suspicious. When I met someone, I could only think: how would you have behaved in a concentration camp? Or: what did you do during the war? I don’t know how long that lasted. It has worn off. I remember a colleague, a shopkeeper. He had gone into hiding as a Jew during the war, had lost his whole family. He felt the same way. He would often run into people about whom he thought: something isn’t right. Then he would ask in broad Amsterdam dialect: did you help Jews too? Nothing more.”

“In the first ten years after the war, I kept the business more or less running through trial and error and on the brink of bankruptcy. At one point, I owed that uncle thirty thousand guilders. He sent the bailiff then. To educate me. And then my father arranged that with him. How, I don't know. Two figures from the Economic Control Service also came by once. They said: 'Sir, what are you doing here? You don't have a permit at all! Your business is being closed.' I can still remember those two standing in front of the counter in my shop and me saying: 'I spent four and a half years in a concentration camp and I learned a great deal there. You should just try to close my shop!' Then, just in time, I got to know the Association of Ex-Political Prisoners. The Expoge. A number of mechanisms were set in motion, allowing me to obtain an exemption from all permits and register with the Chamber of Commerce. I did some pretty good advertising, and after about ten years, the shop started to pick up a bit. Later that shop grew into a large bed store. With everything that goes with it: bed frames, blankets, bedroom rugs... Later, when I went into politics full-time , my son took over the business. And expanded it with an enormous assortment.He was a real businessman.”

“We had two more children. Because there was no television back then, and you had to do something, after all. My wife - as it turned out later- was a neurotic patient. And she had a herniated disc. I don't know to what extent that was psychological. On doctor's advice, she would sometimes lie on a stretcher for three months at a time. And that with three small children. I had to partially replace her. When I came home in the evening, I had to do the housework. Taking care of the children, the clothes, the food. I don't complain about that, mind you. On the contrary. My wife's condition was, I think, actually my salvation. It dominated my entire life. So I had absolutely no time for my own troubles. For that vulnerable part. Over that vulnerability, however, there was always a softness in our family like a down blanket. That blanket brought light and warmth, even though it was never spoken about. But that marriage was... Well, we never argued. Because if you want to pick a fight with me, you've got to be pretty tough.”

“That, too, is a consequence of my experiences in the war. Shielding yourself from pain. And trying not to hurt anyone else. I can’t argue and find it very difficult to bear when others do so in my presence. I don’t know if that is a good trait. Because sometimes arguing can be very refreshing. Sometimes I think afterwards: maybe you should have just had a good argument. But I can’t do it. I didn’t experience that in the war: having a good argument. Arguing is life-threatening.”

"It must be fear, too. Fear that the pieces will fall apart. Because I don't know my own limits. If I were to let myself go, I don't know what would happen. And I protect myself against that. So that is also part of the cement: I don't want to pick fights. If there are disagreements, I try to channel them in the right direction. In my private life and also in the positions I held later."

“It took about ten years before I felt a bit human again. Partly because things at home and in the business gradually stabilized. So when everything settled into calmer waters. During that time, the thought occurred to me: if the government interferes with me regarding rules, laws, and regulations, I also want to interfere with the government that makes the rules. I want to make my voice heard. That is how I became chairman of the retailers' association. In the late fifties, I was asked to join the municipal council in Hilversum. I did that for twenty-five years. First as a council member, then as a delegate for the Regional Council, and subsequently as an alderman. My heart surgery in 1982 brought that to an end. In the mid-eighties, I became chairman of the Geuzenverzet 1940-1945 Foundation. The foundation's goal is to pass on the ideals of the Geuzen to the younger generation. In short, that is: striving for respect, for the equality of people, for a more humane world. In this way, my life gradually gained more substance.”

“In the 1970s, I found things very difficult. I had already been serving for several years as the delegate for spatial planning, natural beauty, and recreation on the Gooi- and Eemland Regional Council. That was a collaborative body of a number of municipalities. A former minister was the chairman of that Regional Council. At a certain point, that chairman was succeeded by a prominent member of the Labour Party. That man, a younger man, was so terribly intriguing in politics! Every conceivable meanness: manipulating, lying, pitting people against one another, deceiving. He wanted something, and so nothing was too outrageous for him to achieve it. That is what he would try to do - with or without his colleagues. I didn't have enough experience to stand up to him. Which, incidentally, I did try to do. That man's behavior reminded me so much of my experiences during the war! Of the tricks, the meanness. Of the experiences with people who tried to destroy me. I thought: there it goes again! And that he was Jewish too! At a certain point, I just couldn't accept that. That was a low point! I completely froze."

“I had never been in psychiatric treatment. The only one who treated me - in quotation marks- was my childhood friend Sijds Nijdam, who had become a psychiatrist. He gave me good advice every now and then. But I ended up with Professor Bastiaans anyway. I must have felt very shocked and powerless going to see him. Because that was just not for me!
I was familiar with Bastiaans’ work through the former resistance. I knew that he worked with LSD to bring repressed war memories back to the surface. According to him, all inhibitions would then be released, and you could bring the story to the surface. I went to see him once. I was given LSD, and then he started talking and asking questions. And he let me talk.
He couldn’t get through to me. He couldn’t help me. My war experiences were locked up behind armor.”

“I went on sick leave for a period at that time. But when the Alderman for Finance in Hilversum resigned in 1978, I was asked to succeed him and was able to get back to work. As Alderman for Finance, Economic Affairs, Sports, and Recreation. Without any formal training, because I only had a Road Safety Certificate. But then again, that does allow you to enter politics. After all, you know the difference between left and right. The municipality was nearly bankrupt at the time. I discovered a new sport then: ‘leaning on the government.’ You can imagine that in that position - with only a bit of common sense - I had to walk on eggshells. I was working day and night, though fortunately with good staff. Otherwise, Hilversum would have slid into a financial swamp. I served as Alderman for four years. After my heart surgery in 1982, my cardiologist told me I was no longer allowed to work. So I had to resign.”

“After that, I became chairman of the Geuzenverzet Foundation. With all the responsibilities that entailed. Until last year. Then I became honorary chairman. In my role as chairman of the Geuzenverzet and of other resistance organizations as well, I have always spoken about my war experiences. In all sectors. In Westerbork, at universities, to teachers. But especially a lot to children from the eighth grade of primary school onwards. Because they are all growing up to take on some kind of responsibility, whether that be as a father, a businessman, or a politician. That was truly the most important motivation for me. When I stood in front of a group of children, I always said: why am I doing this? Well, because I feel that nothing has been learned from the war. Just look at the television. Just read the newspapers. Then you see what is still happening everywhere. So we must tell our story. Then people can hear how terrible it was back then. And that it must never be like that again. And you never know if the future Prime Minister is sitting here in the class. So listen carefully, everyone! Because you might need it later. Furthermore, I have done many interviews, given, in newspapers, magazines, on the radio and television.

So, I've been pretty busy. That's part of the cement. But by talking about the war and answering questions, my experiences found their place in my life. If you can talk about it, half the problem is solved."

"Since 1987, the foundation has awarded the Geuzenpenning every year to someone who has contributed to a more humane world. This is always on March 13, so it is also a commemoration of that day in 1941 when fifteen Geuzen were executed in the dunes near Scheveningen. It was very important to me that in 1990 I was allowed to personally present the Geuzenpenning to the President of Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker. Weizsäcker was the first post-war German president to point out that the Germans must acknowledge their past. That the genocide of the Jews is unparalleled. That without that acknowledgment, no reconciliation is possible."

"Within our own circle of the former resistance, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding. You can perhaps imagine that the Geuzen who had survived the concentration camps had enormous difficulty presenting that Geuzen Medal to a German, no matter how noble it is - in quotation marks. But as a former Geus, that is exactly what I wanted to do. At that moment - in hindsight - I won the war. That I was capable of that! I consider that a highlight! For it is not difficult to make friends with your friends. It is much harder to make friends with your enemies. I have consistently conveyed that within my own circle as well. As an example. People look up to me... I can't help it... Sentenced to death, pardoned, a number of concentration camps behind me and who knows what else. Yet leading a process of reconciliation. You can make use of that situation to convey your thoughts. Because people listen to you.”

"In January 1995, it had been fifty years since Auschwitz was liberated. I really wanted to attend the official commemoration, but I couldn't make it through the Dutch Auschwitz Committee. Coincidentally, a few weeks beforehand, I spoke to a former resistance fighter. He was affiliated with Military Household. of the Queen. I mentioned in passing: I would love to go to Auschwitz. Then he said: the Queen is going; shall I ask if you can come along? I said: I think it would be wonderful, but of course, that will never work. Well, what did it turn out to be? On board of the plane, I was her only guest! On the way, I also sat and talked a lot with Prince Claus.

In 1997, I personally received an award from the Queen. The House Order of Orange-Nassau. A very high one, they say. That was also because I tried to live without hatred. And because I convey that message to Dutch society. I am truly proud of that. I’m not getting ahead of myself, mind you! But it was still a highlight for me.”

"By then, I had already been married for fifty years. But my wife and I were living our own lives. In my eyes, my wife’s life was quite boring. And mine was full. With politics. And with searching for the meaning of life. The only thing we had in common was music. Sometimes that can be enough...

Until I met Astrid ten years ago. I had skipped my youth. Puberty, too. I needed to reclaim human feelings. Perhaps that was when I fell in love normally for the first time in my life. I left my wife and married Astrid. The cheerfulness that my nurse had as a varnish in 1945, Astrid truly possesses. She has had bad childhood experiences too. But she has managed to break free from them. It is a natural optimism. A natural cheerfulness. With all the less desirable qualities that every human being possesses. After all, I have never seen a person with only good qualities. That would be very boring, too. I can't even begin to imagine it! Astrid and I share an appreciation for beautiful things. She draws and paints, too. And we are currently taking a sculpture course together.”

Bill shows me a sculpture he recently made in clay and had cast in bronze: a series of seven heads that become progressively smaller. The first head stands proudly upright; the subsequent heads sink deeper and deeper into the ground one by one. The last one has sunk almost completely. Bill explains:

“This symbolizes the downfall of man in Mauthausen. But you can also reverse it: then you see a trampled person rising again.”

"The only thing I regret in my life is that I didn't have an art education or can't play an instrument. I didn't have time for that. Anyway, I'm really enjoying myself now! It's just my health that isn't good. Although you might not say so if you saw me sitting here like this."

"I look back with wonder at how my life has unfolded. And I can talk about my war experiences as if it were someone else's story."

“I am covered in scars that hurt in bad weather. Like all scars. I came out of the war in pieces. And they remain pieces. I think I have spent my whole life trying to ensure that those pieces didn't fall apart again. To keep that cement in between. But I don't feel like a victim. On the contrary! Part of that cement is the way I have manifested myself in society. The structure is put together quite well. If you were to ask others what they think of me, do you think they would say: that is a man held together with cement? No, I don't believe that.”

“Last year, I stepped down from all my positions for medical reasons. I do miss that, because managing has become second nature. And the organizations might miss me too, because I am - as they called me at my farewell - a bridge builder. It is a need for me to keep people together. To bind other people together, I think I use the same cement as for putting my own pieces together. Both are a consequence of the war: hold everything together! Because I have seen how not to do it.”

© Saar Roelofs

Cement is authorized by Bill Minco.

See also Saar Roelofs' 
cycle of paintings

THE GIRL AND THE WOLF
About a girl in a concentration camp
A story of many times