War Memories

By Toni Pyl

Antonia Maria Pijl (Toni) was born in Holland in 1931. Her father was a mechanic and her mother a seamstress.

Before settling in The Hague to raise a family of two girls, her parents lived in France for a few years and explored Europe on a motorbike with a side car.

Toni came to New Zealand after The War at the age of twenty with her fiancé; they married in Wellington and had 4 children, two of whom survive today. She kept journals complete with sketches about her life in Holland and New Zealand. Toni was mother and mother in law of Ineke and David Kershaw; she died at Wharekaka in January 2018 at the age of 86.

Part 1

When I was nine years old we lived in Kykduin, a seaside village which was a suburb of The Hague in Holland. The house was built in the sand hills, which were covered in thorny bushes. The sea was close by, the sound of the surf always in my ears.

On the 10^th of May 1940, we were woken up at 4am by gunfire. War with Germany we were told! Frightened people in pyjamas were soon standing in the street in groups discussing the matter. A few hours later Heinkel planes invaded the sky above our village, diving down low over us; the sound of machine guns was deafening.

There was an airport nearby that was the target and I was very frightened. The only safe place I could think of was the toilet (or the WC as we called it) so from then on that is where I sat during every attack with my fingers in my ears.

All the grown-ups, flushed and furious, listened to the radio. The Queen gave a speech telling us how indignant she was with the Germans. A few days later The Royal Family fled to England, much to the annoyance of the Dutch people, who would have liked to see the Queen stay like the King of Denmark did.

The day after the invasion, we watched a battle at the nearby airport from our bedroom windows upstairs. We saw parachutists being dropped and the Dutch soldiers crawling towards the airport. The Heinkel planes came back and we fled downstairs while bullets flew everywhere.

My father went to work as usual as he was a conscientious man but he did not get very far. After a few hours he came back covered in blood. He was not hurt himself but had helped others to dress their wounds.  He told us that when he entered a nearby farmhouse to get some clean linen, he couldn’t find anyone there apart from two very scared policemen under a bed!

The fighting lasted for four days and ended with the bombing of Rotterdam, which happened without warning.

To be continued.