by Neil Fleihmann
In March 1933, Nazi Germany rapidly transformed from a democracy into a dictatorship, characterized by the passage of the Enabling Act on March 23, which allowed Hitler to enact laws without parliamentary consent. Following a March 5 election that saw the Nazis solidify power despite not winning an outright majority, they established the first concentration camp at Dachau on March 22 to imprison political opponents.
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, Nell 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 second installment of her story.
Persecution of Jewish Citizens
Shortly after we were invaded, pages and pages full of obituaries appeared in the newspapers. Entire families, father, mother and children were listed. Some Jewish parents had killed their children and then committed suicide to escape the horrible fate awaiting them in concentration camps. Persecutions of Jews in Germany had been going on for years and Dutch Jews were well aware of this.
The announcements appeared for a few days and then stopped. Within a few days after the German occupation, already thousands of Dutch citizens had lost their lives; soldiers who defended their country, some Jewish families, as well as people killed in the bombings of Rotterdam.
Soon all Jewish persons were required to wear a large yellow star of David. My sister’s boyfriend made the mistake to show his sympathy with the Jewish people and wore a Star of David. He was picked up immediately and was lucky to return after a few months. He had been in Dutch prison.
Young Jewish men were ordered to staff the offices where Jews had to register. We noticed a nicely dressed Jewish young man walk by our home on a daily basis on his way to his job at the registration office. There were fierce penalties for those who failed to register. Jews were forbidden to use public transportation, or even their own bicycles. They had to walk and could only shop in Jewish owned stores. We knew various Jewish families. My sister and I played tennis with a Jewish couple. Until then I had never paid attention to who was and who was not Jewish.
At first we were told that our own Government would stay in power. But when some acts of sabotage occurred, this was immediately used as an excuse to put in a German Government. Orders now came from the Germans and changes were many and fast. Nice large homes were requisitioned everywhere to house German Officers. Some of the owners of these houses were Jewish, others were not, they simply bad to find a place elsewhere. The Germans did not care. They took whatever buildings they desired to house soldiers, and to set up their Army Headquarters and offices. Our freedom was now a thing of the past.
Deportations started in the spring of 1942. The first groups of Jews were herded into cattle trains for transport to Germany and Poland. The train shipments were very noticeable to the Dutch, who traveled a lot by train; many Dutch citizens commuted to work by train.
Railway stations in Holland are usually in the center of town. These shipments of human cargo were in full view of the public. In 1997 my husband Jack, and I visited Auschwitz in Germany. It is now open to the public and is a gruesome reminder of these evil times.
Some Jews went into hiding. Those who helped Jewish people were putting their own life on the line and also had difficulty providing them with food. If a person was found to be hiding Jews, they were sometimes shot on the spot.
Compulsory Labor of Young Men
Men between 16 and 60 were called up for compulsory labor in factories and on farms in Germany. They ere shipped there to replace German men who had been drafted into the Army. Many Dutchmen chose to go into hiding in their own home, where they still received food stamps. The dreaded Secret State Police, the Gestapo, hold razzias, as they called the searching of houses.
Rounding up young men, became a daily occurrence. My cousin, Frans Wilking was sent to work in a factory in Germany. He returned at the end of the war but died at a fairly young age. My youngest brother Fred was married during the war. He had worked for an international trading company. For lack of trade, they had to let their employees go, so he stayed home and hardly ventured out. One day he left his house to have his hair cut at the barber shop not far from his house.
He walked through two gardens crossed the street and was prompt picked up by a German soldier. His mother-in-law spoke fluent German because her parents were German. She had the gift of gab, marched off to the German command post, and told the simple guards that her husband was a high-ranking Dutch Army officer. They were impressed by that and let Fred go. Many young men fled and found their way through Belgium and France, to Spain, which was not occupied by the Germans. Here there were organizations that helped refugees find passage from Portugal to England.
A year or so later my then boyfriend, Kees Oudshoom, and three of his buddies, traveled to the northeast of Holland, and found work as farm hands on a dairy farm in Friesland. In return for work, they received food and shelter and were protected. When the war ended all four young men returned home safely. It was easier for people
to hide in the countryside than it was in the cities. My oldest brother, Piet, worked as a chemical engineer with Shell Oil. By order of the Germans, the Company was going to send him to Germany. He quit his job and became a grammar schoolteacher, which gave him a permit to remain employed in Holland.
An uncle of mine, Brouwer was his last name, owned an inland cargo barge. The Germans ordered him to continue transporting goods, but now it was for the Germans. He had little choice. A British fighter plane strafed the boat one day and sank it, killing my uncle and his two sons, my cousins.
While my boyfriend Kees went into hiding, I started dating a good friend of his. I do not recall why Ernst was free to move around. He and I met frequently; one day a messenger told me that he had voluntarily left for Germany to go and work in the film industry. He was quite photogenic and had an artistic bent. His brother had been working in the German film industry since before the war. That news was a unexpected shock for me. My parents and I felt that he was a traitor.
Once a week I would take the streetcar to The Hague and attend dancing lessons. Rather than return home after dark, I had a standing invitation to spend the night with a
girlfriend in The Hague. Miep and I knew each other from grammar school. Her mother was a widow. One night the mother brought home a few German Officers. I was highly uncomfortable, and Miep confided in me that she was most unhappy about her mother’s choice of companions. Thereafter, I stopped going to Miep’s home.
Dutch Army Officers were deported to German camps. My brother’s father-in-law was one of them. His wife was the one who previously saved Fred from being apprehended. Camp conditions were very bad and they were poorly fed. After the war Colonel Reeser returned home in poor health and died a few years later.
Part 3 (April 2026,edition), Dutch Underground Movement