Description
Object description
Dutch schoolchild in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5/1940-1/1945; courier with Dutch Resistance on Texel Island, Netherlands, 2/1945-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1932-1940: family circumstances; education. Recollections of period as schoolchild in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1940-1945: memories of German invasion, 5/1940; Royal Air Force attack on Gestapo Headquarters; reaction to air offensive overhead whilst staying in Zutphen area; church scheme for taking underfed children to eastern Netherlands; sight of United States Army Air Force aircraft being shot down; sight of Royal Air Force aircraft shot down over Schiphol Airfield, 5/1940; role of Schiphol Airfield during Second World War; reaction of Dutch civilians to German invasion of Netherlands, 5/1940; sight of German Army's entry into Amsterdam, 5/1940; parent's attitude towards Germans; comparison between fate of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, 5/1940; initial behaviour of Germans in Netherlands, 1940; effects of curfew; identity ration card system; round up of his father and uncle.
REEL 2 Continues: method of which father and uncle disposed of their identity cards in German custody; father's resistance activities; acting as look out for theft of battery from German car, 1/1945; method of obtaining local power, 1/1945; cutting down of trees for firewood, 1/1945; brushes with German Landswacht auxiliary police; character of Dutch National Socialist Movement (NSB) members including memories of local Dutch Nazi; removal of Jewish civilians; fate of Dutch family who concealed Jewish child; reaction to reading 'The Diary of Anne Frank'; reaction to Dutch Royal Family going to GB, 5/1940; listening to Radio Orange; incident of neighbour putting illegal leaflets under family's front door; effect on morale of radio broadcasts from GB; German propaganda. Recollections of period as courier with Dutch Resistance on Texel Island, Netherlands, 2/1945-5/1945: role as courier with Dutch Resistance.
REEL 3 Continues: food supply and sending food to family; presence of Georgian soldiers in service of German Army; Georgian mutineers killing of German soldiers and liberation of island, 5/4/1945; his mission to warn Dutch population that Germans were going to take revenge; German recapture of Texel Island and treatment of Georgian mutineers; arrival of Canadian Army troops to liberate island, 20/5/1945; clashes between Georgian and Germans after arrival of Canadian Army, 20/5/1945.
REEL 4 Continues: German search for Georgian who shot German, 20/5/1945; post-war visit to Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. Aspect of liberation of Netherlands, 1945: return to Amsterdam, 6/1945; contact with Allied troops, 6/1945; father's lecture on his need to revise behaviour after liberation; breakdown of school discipline immediately after liberation; health problems after liberation; post-war career; impression of Second World War on his memory. Aspects of period as courier with Dutch Resitance on Texel Island, Netherlands, 2/1945-5/1945: character of Georgian mutineers; Schutzstaffel (SS) influence on island; belief of Georgians that they liberated all of Netherlands; Allied treatment of Georgians; question of treatment of Georgians by Soviet regime; escape of Georgians and Dutch to GB, 4/1945; question of effect of reliving Second World War memories.