What are the experiences of the young men in Drenthe who had to do forced labor in the Second World War? Annemarie Houkes from Erica wants to get the hidden stories above water. “It’s a tribute and is about recognition.”
Houkes had been walking around for a long time with the idea of telling her grandfather’s story. Pieter Feiken from Smilde was employed in Warnemünde. Houkes’ Grandpa was one of the hundreds of thousands of Dutch young men who were summoned in the Second World War to work in Germany.
“My grandfather has always told a lot. Exciting stories, but sometimes also intense, because it wasn’t always an equally good time.” Houkes is happy with grandfather’s openness. “A lot of people know little and still have many questions. The generation of my mother, people aged sixty and seventy, especially ask themselves: Gosh, what has the father actually experienced? He has never really said anything.”
She found out when the relatives of other forced laborers were looking for one Pieter Feiken, because their father had been in Germany with him. “They actually knew very little about what their fathers had experienced in the Second World War.” Houkes could share all the stories of her grandfather with them.
For example, the seed was planted to share more stories like this. There is now a website. “We have made a call in the newspaper, we have had 45 responses to that. Now we are busy making all stories and put them on our website. But there are probably many more Drenten who have gone. We are we are Wondering who they were and whether there are materials and stories to get a more complete picture of all those young men who have been far from home at the time. “
A search in archives is limited. “The archives have been lost. Partly the Germans destroyed it and partly reused in the time of paper scarcity after the war. So we have no idea who has all been there.” And so it’s all about gathering stories and memories. “By placing different eyewitness accounts next to each other, an increasingly complete picture is created.”
Houkes sees it as a ‘nice tribute’ to make the list more complete. “It is also recognition. Some men really looked at their necks on return, because they had worked for the enemy. Not that they had a choice, but they still got that mark.