Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999

The Battle of Arnhem

And in 1944 that's--this is the site of one of the major battles of uh, the Second World War?

Yeah.

Do you remember the battle?

Yes, of course, it was horrible.

How...

It was most horrible.

How did you--how did it begin? Do you remember when you were first realized what was

going on?

Well, we listened to the radio, Radio Orange, from the BBC.

Hm.

Um, from um, the Dutch radio in London, we listened to the BBC at night when there were uh, wooden shades to close from the outside at night. Um, in the evening, when the light was on and downstairs they, they, they had on the outside, such wooden things, you can open, you can--what farmers have sometimes.

Shutters?

Yes.

Yeah.

So they closed that big shutters...

Uh-huh.

when we were downstairs at night and we were listening to the radio. And if somebody came from the uh, who went out and he came in, he knocked on that shade and he did this, da, da, da, da; da, da, da, da. And then we know it was safe. That was--we used that from Beethoven...

Hm.

the same as Radio Orange did.

Uh-huh.

It was not very uh, uh, uh...

Original.

Yeah, original, but we did it. But we all didn't go out, only uh, the, the Vandenbergs. So they did, na, na, na, na; na, na, na, na. And then somebody could open the door without going in hiding, because we had hiding places.


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