The second of my collection of World War Two letters. This one is written two months after Operation Market Garden. My grandmother describes to her best friend Dien what happened and what she saw.
Letter one was delivered by the postal service. The other letters were handed to people travelling to Horst, where Dien lived. (In World War Two letters took ages to reach their destination if they arrived at all.)
These letters eventually did. Now that there is no longer a board of censors reading the letters my grandmother starts naming things directly. ‘They’ are now ‘the Germans’ and ‘racket’ is now ‘bombs and shells’.
The lady she calls ‘madam’ in the World War Two letters is the lady of the house where she worked, her employer’s wife.
27 Nov. 1944Dearest Dien and Everyone,
How are you all? I am so keen to find out about you. I read the papers every day to see if Horst had been liberated. I was so worried about you. And finally last Friday it was in the papers. I was so very happy. Now I just hope you are all all right. I heard the Germans blew up the church but other than that I heard nothing from Horst. I am writing in Zeilberg. The back of the house was hit and it looks very strange with all the planks but they are all all right. They were in the Boumans’ basement.
Now I shall tell all our news. We were liberated straight away on 17 September. It started in the morning at half past eight. We were in church. They were shooting with machine guns from airplanes. At half past ten the bombers came. We were very scared, you can well understand. The house was shaking. It all lasted until about half past one. Then suddenly we saw para troupers descend above Groesbeek. That was a lovely sight. There was heavy fighting for a while. There were dead and wounded scattered around the house. And then it calmed down. We helped to bring away the wounded and thought we were done then. But it was only the beginning.
From Germany Groesbeek was under shell fire. We hid in the basement for twelve days, then we fled to Mook, to the monastery. There were hundreds of refugees there. Also the sisters of the teacher school. It has been destroyed. A shell fell in Mook and madam took a fright. She fell and broke her leg. She had to stay in Mook with that leg for 16 days, then the English took us to Nederasselt with an ambulance. Me too because I was ill. It was terrible there. The next day we were brought to Uden and there we were lodged with people and still are.
All the Groesbeek people are gone. Many are in Helmond and Eindhoven but also in Belgium.
Madam is much better. She is walking again, but she wants to go home. There is not much use in going home. We own nothing more than a little suitcase of clothes each, the rest has been stolen. That is how it is in all of Groesbeek. Everything has been destroyed or stolen. There are still shells falling in Groesbeek. No one is allowed in.
Yesterday I managed to borrow a bicycle to go to Zeilberg. But I could not go back because of a flat tire. I will hand this letter to the van H.s in Deurne. Maybe one of them will go to Horst some time. I can’t get there because I don’t have a bicycle. I had still had no news from Zeilberg so I was happy I could go there. I hadn’t heard from Deurne either.
Dien, we are alive and grateful for it. Maybe I will hear from you one way or another.
Bye bye. All my best wishes and kisses from
Mariet
I have often thought ‘I wish I had my bicycle’. I would come to Horst. But now I can’t. Maybe it is the only possession I have left, if they didn’t confiscate it in I.
Back to the top of this World War Two Letters page
Let me see the first letter in the series of World War Two Letters.
Take me to the third letter about Life after Operation Market Garden
Back to the homepage.
