Gert Regterschot, known as the TU/e teacher without a salary, has been deported. He has been on the street since Wednesday. The former teacher at the Technical University in Eindhoven was fired by the university in 1995. All those years, however, he refuses to go along with that. That is why Gert has been teaching under a staircase for 30 years, in the Luna building of the TU/e. “I’ve been waiting for my salary for 355 months,” he says. And so his landlord does that too.
It almost reads like a fairy tale, but it is a personal drama: the story of Gert Regterschot. The former Technical Business Administration teacher, which was praised for years for his knowledge and expertise as a teacher at TU/e. When he was fired by tensions in 1995, he did not agree. He denied everything. Even after the court had bent over it.
All this time he has continued to teach, under a staircase. And all this time he also has the months since his last salary: 355 now.
“I think Gert lives in a world that he himself created.”
“I think Gert lives in a world that he has created himself,” says former colleague Willem Bruure about him. The two worked together on the TU as a teacher. And when Gert was fired, Willem took care of him. In fact, he referred his own students to him. To the table, under the stairs. Gert then conjured up their numbers. “Because of him, many students have passed their exams, to jealousy from other teachers.”
The students walk away with Gert. He has a certain gun factor. Something disarming, no matter how star he could be. “He is probably somewhere on the spectrum of autism, but I also felt sorry for him. I wanted to support him,” Willem explains. Out of charity, but also from compassion. He stops a little money every week to help him. And students also started a crowdfunding campaign, so that Gert could continue to live in his house.
Only that fairy tale can’t last, because fairy tales have bad guys and princesses. And whoever who is in Gert’s fairy tale is quite complex. The university feels in the first place for him as the place that is in the way of his role as a teacher. That dismissal does not exist, in the world of Gert. It’s not there. He has been refusing to listen to that sound for 30 years.
And so he keeps going there, six days a week, under the stairs, to teach his students at a table. It is a crazy, gray area between passion and hopelessness. “I don’t believe in fairy tales,” says Willem about it. “And I already thought the situation would be dire.” Together the two went to the municipality to request a benefit. The bomb burst there. “He did not want to give insight into his financial situation because he does not trust the municipality. Then I slowly deducted my hands from him. He did not want to be helped and I no longer kept it full.”
And with that the fairy tale is out and bangs reality on the door of Gert: the money has run out and he has a rent arrears of a year. The bailiff has passed by and the judge spoke. Gerts’s home has been evacuated. He has been on the street since Wednesday.
“I hope he will learn from it.”
“I hope he will learn from it,” says Willem with mixed feelings. It clearly still does something to him, after he cared about Gert for so long. “But he may have to become a little more modest in his objectives. And acknowledge that he was fired by the TU. Maybe he can look a bit more realistic, now that he no longer has a roof over his head.”
Gert’s situation now
Gert currently only has a bag with teaching materials, the clothing he is wearing and a telephone. He doesn’t know where his things are. “There are a lot of valuables in between,” he says. His house is empty and he doesn’t want to walk past it: “Not to feel the pain.”
Gert has spent the night in the Lunagebouw after he has been put out of his house. “There was so much noise, you won’t last for days. But it was a nice experience,” he says. This Thursday evening he is going to the shelter for the first time, where he will take a shower.
Colleagues have also offered a place to sleep, he says. That is good for him. Journalist Inti Alexander Ibanez Matus has started a new crowdfunding on Tiktok for him. “Something has to come to complete this misery, because this does not keep anyone full. But things are going in the right direction again.”
