THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS: MEMOIRS (English Edition)

When I was between the age of 7 and 12, I experienced the invasion and subsequent five year occupation by the Nazi Germans of my then home country, the Netherlands. Although I was quite young, I fully remember the experience and feel confident that what the reader will find in this book is what actually occurred. My family lived in a literal war zone just south of the Rotterdam border in a suburb named Barendrecht. At 4:00 AM on May 10, 1940 I woke up and looking through our bedroom window we saw literally hundreds of German paratroopers descending. With no Dutch defense forces nearby, the air invasion was literally peaceful. We were occupied territory before breakfast on that fateful day. Three days later we saw Rotterdam burning from where we lived. The first bombing of the center of a major city occurred on that day. The Nazis would pay for that because the Allies later in the war began using the same strategy to force Germany to surrender. The invasion only lasted five or six days, and we became occupied territory of the German Nazis. Although the then Dutch government had hoped that the Netherlands would be able to stay neutral, they were wrong. Their country was strategically very important for the Nazis because it gave them territory from where they could launch their assault on Great Britain. Rotterdam had excellent port facilities, and would also become a submarine base. Later nearly all V1 and V2's largely targeted at England were launched from the Netherlands. We could see every V2 launched from where we lived. There were about 1,300 of them. Shortly after the occupation began, the Germans decided they needed barracks facilities for their troops and built them across the street from where we lived. Yes, we lived in a war zone for the full five years of the occupation. The most dramatic year of the five year occupation was the last year. Many events occurred, including the notorious famine which killed 18,000 people because of lack of food. Later an unknown number of people died from after-effects of the famine. The last year being the end of the war also caused the Nazi occupiers to become more brutal. Thousands of innocent people were executed because of minor incidents by the Resistance. The total number of Germans killed by the Resistance was less than ten. But the Germans found excuses to execute hostages in huge numbers. There was no mercy. Since the Netherlands was also in between Britain and Germany, there were many overflights of Allied bombers and other aircraft. During the five year war on average three aircraft crashed each day for a total of over 5,000 aircraft. In addition whenever an aircraft was in trouble it would dump its bombs. In most cases they ended up on farm land. But occasionally housing was also hit. In conclusion I am sure you will love this book. If you like war stories and the major war of the 20th century, read my book. I was there, and what you read is non-fiction but entertaining.