Dik de Boef
Dik de Boef (1940) was a child in wartime and that determined his life. He experienced the bombing in Rotterdam on 14 May 1940, still in his mother’s belly. The family moved to Arnhem and there Dik barely survived the mistake bombing of Operation Market Garden on 22 February 1944. The second bombing in his short life. After half a day of searching, he was rescued from under the rubble.
The story is recorded in the booklet “I was a child in wartime and that determined my life”. The book is a co-production of the National Hiding Museum and the museum and memorial center former concentration camp Sachsenhausen Oranienburg Germany and it has been published in both Dutch and German by Metropol publishers, Berlin. The booklet is illustrated with photos and a number of drawings by Karel Kindermans, visual storyteller.
He talks about that story and the road he takes to deal with these traumatic experiences every year at schools. This year he would talk about it at the commemoration of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which was liberated 75 years ago today. At least, if corona hadn’t prevented it.
The Sachsenhausen camp was a concentration camp in Nazi Germany during World War II. The camp was located 35 kilometers from Berlin and was built by prisoners in 1936 on the occasion of the Olympic Games. The camp was located in the Sandhausen district in the city of Oranienburg.
The story is also included in the Exhibition ‘Child of Freedom’ in the Hiding Museum Aalten, which was to be opened on 3 April by HRH Princess Margriet. The booklet would also be presented there. Unfortunately, the Corona crisis has thrown a spanner in the works.
The two forewords by the director of the Hiding Museum Gerda Brethouwer and by the director of Sachsenhausen Axel Drecoll speak of a story that symbolizes all the stories of children who have experienced war and violence anywhere in the world. This history applies not only to the years 1940-1945 but also to the present, as evidenced by the contribution to the exhibition by Ghassan Aleleiwi, who fled from Damascus, Syria with his parents and sister.
It is a story not only of suffering but also of resilience, this applies to all the people present in the aforementioned exhibition.
Gerda Brethouwer writes in her foreword; “The child in ourselves is addressed and at the same time our needs to protect it. Let’s listen to that child’s voice and work together to ensure peace and freedom.”
Axel Drecoll writes in his foreword “his life story is on the one hand sad and thought-provoking. But it is also a beautiful story that tells about a man who works very positively and connecting and will continue to do so. In any case, this impressive life story is very much worth reading”.
The booklet is available through the National Hiding Museum, info@onderduikmuseum.nl.
