A carved giraffe ECREDEASIY Thad hoard stories of visithis wife and daughter in Hilversum, aa ca pone but I knew riding his bicrels al ire vay cresnes im oly ding threosmont omen, But aid hats dc hard: and he Period hen Twas Ii years ld Seif mounted and dmountod hs yee On his birthday we gave re a the man’s way, much to the alarm of his sit ofa small carved wooden giao we Fira shocked and embarrassed to Win ths wor wie: Wieden ene aise anda When the —aurowuiowa and coud no sop eying. Se thea ates oft 6 ieitap inthe momingandesed He peers orn mano fend the newspapers and cried: He wen I don't know if he felt the momentous- erman ‘to bed and eried. All the atrocious ru- ness ofthe occasion and thot it would be : fete ha haabbeardactiog taser oere the last timo we would all bo together, soldiers ais Millions of on, women an cil or that he was in a foreign country and dren had been gassed to death in ovens. communication waa difele with a child le eran never ts sane sete sho spoke a language other than his own. me He died at the age of 97 in 1996. In Perhape his thoughts were forthe person : 1999 I took a trip to Holland, and man- ‘thofd po moiclouny carved the knocking, aged fo contac the person ing inthe giraffe. Maybe it was all of the above. a house where he had lived (turing ee 7 He wiped away his tears and laughed, Aah war Yes, the hole was stil thee, said the thanking us profusely. he hidin his sser.cnat was welcome to come and ‘Though not a soldier during the Second 00 it World War, he fought nonetheless. While hol ‘The house had been remodeled, and working for the Dutch railways he was ole there was no longer a cupboard above responsible for arranging the timetables the hole. But the man who lived there of trains running from Holland to lifted the floorboards in the living-room to Germany. He altered the timetables so reveal the hole. He made me a cup of tea that trains had to stop in the Black ‘and we talked about the war years, when Forest to wait for the erossing of another he was just a child. train. There in the forest waited the un- This was the neighbourhood where all derground resistance fighters. They forced the doors of the trains open, killed the guards and freed the Jews and Commu- nists packed in there like cattle. ‘The Germans caught onto the scheme and came looking for him. He became fan “onderduiker". A hole was created beneath a cupboard, big enough fo a man to sit in, When the German soldiers eame knocking, he hid in this hole, which was covered by a plank with a neat row of shoes on top of it. They questioned his wife | and daughter. Where was he? How \ long had it been since they had seen him? They were separated C% for questioning to corroborate their stories. The German soldiers stole all their food and valuables and left, threatening to come back. From time to time, they did. the railway workers lived, he told me. \ In some parts of Hilversum there are oe still underground tunnels connecting the 2 houses. During the war, he and other chil- dren were instructed to play in the street ‘and let the adults know when the Ger- ‘man soldiers were on their way. Children rran from door to door letting everyone in the neighbourhood know when the Germans were coming s0 that the railway ‘workers had time to hide. “Thave something that may interest you,” he said before I left. “There is a kist up in the attic that was left behind. It is empty, but you may have it if you want it.” It was made of wood and far too heavy for me to carry home. But I saw my grandfather's neat handwriting on it~ the address of the house in South Afriea where T had lived my entire childhood, and the date - During the last year of the war, he hid —_— 1971, when I was 11 years old. with his sister in the little fishing village ‘The carved giraffe wasn't there. of Loodrecht. Now and then he would (wikipedia org/wiki/Dutch_resistance) a 2 asm Wisc: 209