by Neil Fliehmann
Nell Fleihmann, Oakland, is 103 years old and is the mother of Jack Fleihmann of Concord. She is one of a very few people still alive to tell the story of living through Germany occupation during World War II.
In 1933, Neil lived in Holland. She was only 10 years old and would have no understanding that Hitler’s rise to power in Germany would relatively soon change her life. It was sudden.
She has written her experience of life under the German occupation of the Netherlands in a 50-page booklet that she and Jack has shared with the Diablo Gazette. This is the third installment of her story.
Dutch Underground Movement
A Dutch underground movement emerged and was immediately in place and organized. They began to obstruct the :movement of trains, blew up railroad tracks between Rotterdam and Delft and also established contact with Dutch command posts in England. Citizens who had gone to High School in Holland, all had learned English and German. Many German operations were sabotaged.
The Germans retaliated by rounding up a dozen prominent Dutchmen, such as a politician, a famous football player, a popular actor, a president of a large company, and other well-known citizens. Their pictures and names were re-leased to all the Dutch newspapers with the message that these persons would be shot to death if another act of sabotage occurred. It briefly ‘Slowed down destructive acts by the underground, but pretty soon the pace of their sabotage sped up again. And sadly, those hostages were all shot to death. That first incident, of course, was well advertised. This cycle repeated itself a few times. The Dutch underground kept sabotaging during the entire occupation.
One day in an upstairs bedroom, I heard a sound in the air so terrifying that I dropped to the floor and crept underneath the bed. It was the sound of the first V-2, a large missile shot off by some German soldiers from a launching pad just one block from where we lived.
Over a period of months many more were shot off. They did not all go to England, as intended. The missiles would be shot into the air, stop suddenly, and then fall back to land. I always hoped that once I heard the sound that it would continue, rather than stop and fall back, possibly on us. Many missiles landed in Antwerp, Belgium. They were so unsuccessful that eventually they were no longer launched.
At this time, I had finished High School. For the first ten years of my life, I lived in Indonesia. My father worked there for the State Railway Company when the Great Worldwide Depression in 1929 changed our lives drastically. He was put on early retirement, received a small pension, and our family of six returned to Holland, where my parents came from. In those days, girls in Holland seldom went on to higher education after High School. Besides, my father could not afford further schooling for me. His savings for the future were wiped out, due to the occupation of Indonesia by the Japanese.
My First Job
Just before the German occupation started, I had begun my first job as a secretary. It was a rather peculiar job. I worked for three men, whose names I no longer recall.
They owned a company that imported and sold light balsa wood. I was told that at times when I had nothing to do it was perfectly all right if I filled my time with personal business, as long as I answered the telephone.
I was studying French and German and knitted an entire sweater while in their employ. The three men must have started out as friends. But now two men were no longer on good terms with the third. Soon after I started working there, the Germans confiscated their entire inventory.
Normally the Germans did not buy, they just took. But since these men seemed rather flush with money, they may have been paid for their large inventory of balsa wood. They had nothing to sell anymore but kept the office and did not let me go. During the day they popped in and out of the office. One confided in me that they preferred this overstaying at home, and I knew they liked to go out for lunch or have a drink in town. This was still possible early in the war.
The third man was very friendly to me and told me that he had just bought a nice big house and had given his wife a lot of silverware — and that I should come and have tea at his house sometime. He did not make it a secret that he wanted a young blond mistress. Politely and tactfully, I declined his invitation. A few days later, the youngest of the three men came in and told me that the guy he did not care for and his wife had been murdered the previous day and their house was burned down. Apparently, the murdered man had been doing lucrative business with the Germans. The office was then closed and I was let go. I was ready to leave this unusual job anyway.
Next month, “Some Partying Around the Curfew and Severe Food Rationing”