It is pitch dark and Dick Oostindie does not know which direction he is walking. Yet the 16-year-old is determined: he must and will leave Amsterdam and find Drenthe. And he eventually succeeds, but not without a fight.
The Hunger Winter of 1944/1945 is in full swing during the Second World War. The Germans are not doing well and food transports to the west of the Netherlands have been blocked out of spite. A starvation disaster of catastrophic proportions is unfolding.
Henry, an acquaintance of Dick Oostindie, wants to go to his grandparents in Overijssel. It is better there and there is food. Oostindie likes that and together they leave for the North.
The journey is extremely difficult, Oostindie runs more than 200 kilometers towards the North. He hardly has any food, it is extremely cold and he eventually gets sick. Yet he arrives in Nieuwlande, where he is taken care of.
“He did everything he could to survive,” says Irwin Oostindie. He is Dick’s son and grew up in Canada. He came especially from Vancouver to Nieuwlande. At the De Duikelaar Hiding Museum he tells his father’s story.
“In Amsterdam, my father was told that the farmers in the Northern Netherlands had more food. That was also the reason for him to make the trip,” says son Irwin.
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