went to the local town halls, confiscated the registries, and rounded up the “untermenschen” for extermination. In short, Napoleon’s registration system made possible the mass exterminations by the Nazis in Europe during World War II.
During trips back to the Netherlands, people noticed my middle name and asked if I knew, or was related to their relatives. Clearly, the surname means nothing for genealogy when randomly chosen in a forced registration process. Thus I have no knowledge about mine beyond my grandparents, and what little I know about them came through word-of-mouth.
Chapter 2
Australia (1939-1947)
My family boarded one of the ships of the Union Castle Line in Southampton during July, 1939 and steamed into the Atlantic. My parents decided we should take a short vacation in Madeira, and disembarked for ten days. I recall the high relief of this volcanic island with lush tropical vegetation. I also pushed open a glass door at the hotel with my hand, shattering the glass, cutting one of my arteries, and ending up in a hospital emergency room. Once treated, we stayed a few more days and then boarded the S.S. Arundel Castle bound for Australia.
En route, we stopped in Cape Town, South Africa. I still remember steaming into the harbor and seeing Table Mountain. We visited onshore, and then proceeded to Durban, South Africa. It was my first introduction to human diversity as I saw my first black people, or Afro-Africans (Native Africans?) to use a politically correct modern term.
We then sailed into the Indian Ocean, stopped at Perth for a shore visit, and continued onto Melbourne. While in the Great Australian Bight on September 1, 1939, we received news that Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. We arrived and disembarked in Sydney a week later.
The city of Sydney was founded by the British colonial government in 1788 to house a penal colony for those committing minor offenses. British losses during the American Revolution required a new location and Sydney was as far away as they could send them. Long after I left Australia, the original settlement was restored as a tourist attraction. During my life in Australia, this historical origin was only mentioned rarely in hushed tones.
My parents found an apartment in Neutral Bay with an outstanding view of Sydney Harbor. During my spare time, I watched all the ships, ferry boats, and tug boats sailing back and forth. As World War II intensified, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth and other flagships of allied steam ship companies came to Sydney to pick up Australian troops to fight all over the globe.
Shortly after moving into the apartment, my parents enrolled my sister at the Redlands Ladies College. It also had a co-ed kindergarten. I was enrolled there, but because I was considered a ‘big kid’ for my age, my parents were told to enroll me in first grade in a state–supported school at the end of the term. Next term, I enrolled in Neutral Bay Elementary School.
Both Sydney and Australia were unquestionably provincial in 1939. Sydney only had one decent restaurant, ‘Princes’. Because the war had started, xenophobia was evident. During the seven years I lived there, the most popular song was “Buy British Buy”. When people talked about “Going Home”, they meant returning to the UK, even though they were third or fourth generation Australians who had never gone back. Being a ‘foreigner’ meant high visibility and I suffered my share of slurs, epithets, and bullying by older boys in school.
Some of it I brought on myself. My first year at Neutral Bay Elementary School, my class decided to play cricket, and not knowing a thing about the game, I ended up captain of one of the teams. They picked me because I was a ‘big kid.’ That was a major error. It became obvious when I delivered the first pitch not from the wicket at one end, but from the middle of the pitch. I never played the game again. Cricket was a very boring game and I never understood it.
My father established an import-export business and did moderately well. We bought a car, and drove all over the Sydney area and into the Blue Mountains to the west.
The Dutch ex-pat community in Sydney was very small. My parents became very good friends with the Dutch Consul, Kai Van Der Mandele and his wife, Dora. Kai later became the first Netherlands ambassador to the UN, and in 1960, ambassador to Denmark, where he hosted me in 1963 at their chancery. Their second good friend was a business man named “Appy” Van Roijen who had contacts with every key player in Sydney. He proved to be a valuable resource person for our family.
During the 1940-41 Australian summer, my parents decided it might be a good experience if my mother, sister, and I took a vacation on an Australian version of a “Dude Ranch” located in Porepunka, NSW. We travelled there first on an express train to a certain city (can’t remember it) and transferred to the ‘Porepunka local’ for a 25 mile trip. It consisted of several freight cars with a passenger car at the end. It was hot and there was no air-conditioning. Every time we came to a village, the train stopped, a rail car or two was offloaded or added or both. The train then proceeded to the next town to repeat the process. It involved a lot of shunting back and forth. As I recall, it took almost a half-day to travel the 25 miles to Porepunka, and the same was true on the way back.
At the ranch, I learned horse-back riding, played tennis and quoits, and experienced Australian rural culture. I also witnessed sheep shearing, and one day, they demonstrated how they slaughtered a sheep with a machete. I enjoyed horse-back riding the most.
We received word from the US consulate in Sydney that we were approved to immigrate to America in January, 1942. The Pearl Harbor attack delayed us. Soon after Pearl Harbor, the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) was occupied by the Japanese and the remnants of the Netherlands East Indies Army retreated to Australia. My father sold his business and volunteered to serve with them. He reported for basic training at their Air Force base in Canberra, ACT. Meanwhile, my sister and I were sent to boarding schools in Orange, NSW. I attended Wolaroi College in Orange (now the Kinross-Wolaroi College) for seven months and it was a most unhappy experience. It was run by the Methodist Church and was far too strict for my taste.
During a vacation visiting with my mother in Sydney, we were woken one night by a loud explosion. The entrance to Sydney Harbor was protected by a series of nets which were opened to let shipping in and out. Apparently that night while a ship left, three Japanese kamikaze subs entered the harbor and one torpedoed a ferry boat, waking up the city. The subs were captured and put on display in a local park. We discovered that the submarines couldn’t have been more than 12 feet long, and were operated by one person.
After my dad completed basic training, he was given a special assignment in the Dutch East Indies Army headquartered in Melbourne. Although an enlisted man, he was put in charge of their entire financial and business operations, literally telling generals how to spend money. The Netherlands armed forces in Australia completed an analysis of all personnel and because my father was the only person who ran a business, he got picked for this plum assignment.
However, it became obvious to the Dutch East Indies Army officer corps this arrangement had its drawbacks. Whenever meeting with their counterparts from other allied armed forces, it was awkward for a buck private to discuss finances on behalf of officers. Consequently, within a year, he got promoted fast to corporal, a week later to Sergeant and then to Lieutenant. It improved the business negotiating position of the Netherlands East Indies Army in exile.
Knowing we would be in Melbourne for several years, my parents bought a newly-constructed ranch house on the city’s edge. It was a unique experience because during the summer, the paddock across the street was occupied by sheep herds. Some strayed into our front yard and left their ‘calling card’. When the sheep left in the fall, the paddock sprouted a large number of mushrooms, fertilized of course by sheep droppings. We harvested a lot of mushroom during those years.
My
