Amanda's World War II Interview

For a school assignment, Amanda had to interview someone who had lived through a war, so she interviewed her Grandpa Redeker, Myrna's husband. John posted it on the Conrad My Family website, but I thought some of you might find it interesting, too.

Interviewed Ted Redeker, lived during World War II in Holland in 1940-1945 when the Germans took over

1. Me: How did WWII affect your daily life?
Ted: Not very different, just hungry. Everything was mostly normal until 1944 when there wasn’t any food. We had to steal our food. There was an 8:00 curfew, we went out and cut down trees at night. I got shot in the knee, but that wasn’t too bad. I kept quiet about it.

2. Me: Was there anyone you knew who fought in the war? If so, who?
Ted: Well I was 11 years old when the Germans moved into the city, lasted till I was about 16, at the end of the war. There were just underground people doing stupid things, like killing a German sergeant. The Germans retaliated, killed them quick.

3. Me: How did your community change as a result of being occupied?
Ted: Not much. Just had to do what the Germans said. They passed out the rules, took all the Jews. They got all the Jews out of there and took them off to concentration camps. There was a Jewish family living on my street before that.

4. Me: How did the war affect your family financially?
Ted: My dad found a job; I worked in a bicycle store. We earned enough, but it was about $500 for a 100 lb. bag of potatoes. You had to be careful about people stealing your stuff. We turned garbage cans upside down to see if there was anything to eat. I only weighed 95 lbs at end of the war and I was over six feet tall.

5. Me: How did it affect your government?
Ted: Government was completely out of control. Germans were in charge. Germans weren’t afraid to shoot you. You weren’t even allowed to listen to the British news reports on the radio. No radios allowed.

6. Me: What positive experiences did you get from the war?
Ted: Nothing good came out of the war. After the war, I was pretty much wearing my underwear. Wearing whatever we had. My mother couldn’t really find any clothes for us.
Me (follow-up): Where there any things in it that have helped you in life?
Ted: Nothing. We were glad it was over.

7. Me: What kinds of things were in the newspapers about the war?
Ted: No newspapers. We weren’t told anything at all, unless you had a radio hidden in your house. That was the only way. They didn’t want us to know that Germany was losing. They had us eating stinging nettle and chewing on grass.

8. Me: What were the scariest parts of the war?
Ted: The bombing. My wife lived in the area where the bombs fell. There were a lot of people there who died. A kid in my school class died in a bombing.
Me (follow-up): How many times do you think Holland was bombed?
Ted: Not too many times, just a lot of alarms. There were planes flying through the air. They’d come back at about 8, 9 o’ clock. Not much damage done.

9. Me: What sort of things did those in Holland do to protest being occupied? Did people try to go against the Germans?
Ted: They did. But they had to do it secretly or else they were dead.

10. Me: What were the worst things you went through personally?
Ted: Being shot at, got shot in the knee. Germans chased us, my dad, brothers, and I almost got caught. We high-tailed it out to the country side, hid in the bushes.

11. Me: What did you think of Hitler?
Ted: He was the villain that did it all. I would have shot at him soon as he was born.
Me (follow-up): Did you ever see him? Did he actually come to Holland?
Ted: I’ve seen him once. In the car, touring some of the cities. He was proud of what he did. He was a short looking guy, very short, but he had a mouth like an elephant.

12. Me: What sort of things did you hear about the Nazis and concentration camps in other parts of Europe?
Ted: They killed all the Jews. They killed 6 million Jews. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. They took them to concentration camps and that’s where they got gassed to death.
Me (follow-up): Were there concentration camps in Holland?
Ted: No. They were all in Germany.

13. Me: How long was your country occupied?
Ted: 5 years. 1940-1945. I think it was in May 1945 when it was over. There were planes, lots of planes, with lots of food to keep you alive on. They were opening up food banks and giving out a certain amount of food to all the hungry people.

14. What did your parents think about the war?
Well, I don’t think they enjoyed it very much. There were two of them and five boys to look after. They didn’t know what to do for clothes.
Me (follow-up): What did they do for work.
Ted: My dad was a carpenter. He was picked up by the Germans to work on the electric power lines. That was what the trains ran on. Him and my brothers all worked there.

15. Me: How often do you think about the war now?
Ted:Just about every day. The Germans did anything they wanted to do to you. You just had to keep your eyes open, watch out for yourself.

16. Me: How was your schooling affected by the war
Ted: It was normal. Good. We went to school every day.
Me (follow-up): Did the Germans try to control what you learned in school?
Ted: The Germans left the schools alone. Didn’t care much.

17. Me: How was your country different after the war compared to before the war?
Ted:It was pretty much the same. They started to rebuild the buildings that were bombed.
Me (follow-up): Nothing was different?
Ted: Not really. Just rebuilding stuff. Starting over.

18. Me: Where were you when the war ended?
Ted: Right there in the city. That was where we lived. We never moved. Life just went on to normal again. I stayed there till 1953, that’s when I left for Canada.
Me (follow-up): What was your house like by the time it ended?
Ted: It was rented. One living room and dining room, 3 bedrooms, and a washroom. No showers. You had to get into the sink and wash yourself there. The house was never damaged, but some were.

19. Me: How hard was it to get food and other necessities while occupied?
Ted: There wasn’t anything to get. Grocery stores were emptied. The doors were closed. We turned garbage cans upside down, looking for anything we could eat.
Me (follow-up): Was there very much meat around?
Ted: No. You couldn’t find it any place. You couldn’t find vegetables, potatoes, a pound of sugar. Whatever we ate we stole or got it some other way. A lot of people died of hunger. One woman on my street weighed 400 lbs, but, by the end, she looked like a teenager from the back. Slim because she was feeding her kids. She died anyway. People did that. They gave all their food to their kids to keep them from starving.

20. Me: What were your feelings when you heard the news it was over?
Ted: Oh, we were happy. Jubilant. I couldn’t even go to work, I had to go to the festivities.
Me (follow-up): What sort of things were people doing to celebrate? Ted: Street parties. If you could get hold of a little bit of beer, there was a bit of that involved, but we didn’t have much of that. We mostly just let the Germans leave, but we picked off a few. When they had taken over you couldn’t even a wear a paper clip on your shirt. They tore them off.
Me (follow-up): What did the paperclips mean?They were the sign of victory. They tore one right off my shirt. After that, I just decided to keep quiet, out of the way.