Hundreds of thousands of Dutch people had to go to Nazi Germany as forced labourers during World War II. A fate that also did not spare Henricus “Harrie” van Velthoven. However, the Eindhoven native managed to escape thanks to the impending birth of his daughter and went into hiding. “He got away well a couple of times”, his daughter says.
At the kitchen table of her apartment in Nuenen, his daughter, Wilma Brockbernd, conjures up photographs and paperwork. One of the documents shows a shy-looking young man. On the back is written ‘Mein letzter Wille‘. German for ‘my last will’.
It also reads that a Roman Catholic priest should come if anything happened to Harry during the Arbeidseinsatz (employment). He should be called to apply the last rites, a Catholic ritual performed when people are seriously ill or about to die.
Fortunately for Harry, his time as a forced cog in the German war machine ended with a hisser. At least, as far as Wilma knows. “There was hardly any talk about it after the war”, she says, almost apologetically.
Inferior race
However, she did catch snippets of his time as a forced labourer. He worked in a metal goods factory in Essen, a city in Germany’s Ruhr region. Most of the factories important to the German war effort were located in that area.
Not surprisingly, the danger to Harry came mostly from the air. Allied planes bombed the area on an ongoing basis. Hoping to damage the heart of German industrial war production.
As a result, he regularly had to flee to the bomb shelter. “Other than that, it wasn’t very bad I believe”, Wilma, as she points to a photo, says. It shows him eating on a staircase with her Uncle Toon and two other forced labourers.
According to her, he was lucky, especially compared to the Russians. Those were seen as inferior by the Nazis. “The Russians were really very mistreated”, she recalls.
That the Russian prisoners were treated badly became clear when her mother sent a package of bread to her husband. “It arrived moldy, still, he was able to make the Russians happy with that”.
Hiding
Those packages would come to an early end. In the spring of 1943, an escape opportunity presents itself when his wife Anneke is heavily pregnant with Wilma. He received permission from the Germans to attend the birth and travelled to Eindhoven.
He did not return to Germany. He went into hiding in Eindhoven, at various addresses. Harrie also, despite being in hiding, goes to work at Philips. “He had to have money, of course, because he was married and had a child”.
The decision to work for Philips nearly cost him his life, if Harrie wasn’t at the wedding of a relative at that very moment. “The Germans came to Philips then. Two of our dad’s colleagues, who were also in hiding, were picked up and shot”.
Through the eye of the needle
It is neither the first nor the last time Harrie crawls through the eye of the needle. At one point, Wilma’s grandmother hears the Germans approaching by the nails under their boots. Harrie is asleep in bed at that moment.
Harry’s wife, who is also with her in-laws, quickly jumps into action. Harrie needs to hide. “And my mother gets me out of bed and then puts me down where my father (Harrie) had been lying, where the mattress was still warm”, Wilma says. “My father crawls in between two mattresses. Grandfather had taken out all the lamps but the Germans came with floodlights, but they couldn’t find him”.
Unlike millions of others, Harrie survived World War II. Talking about that period he didn’t like to do. “I think they wanted to push away what they experienced”, his daughter concludes.
In addition to his daughter, Harrie had another son after the war. Harrie would be with his beloved Anneke until his death in 1977. Henricus “Harrie” van Velthoven lived to be 62 years old.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
