THE EARLY YEARS
I was born on the 13th of April 1918 in Amsterdam. My parents had 10 children in all, three of whom died at a young age (7, 2 and 3 years) and I was the fifth of those who were left. They were: Ries, Rietje, Kees, Joop, then I came, and the two after me - Albert and Frans.
(Rie, Herman, Kees, Albert, myself, Frans, Joop (Arie), and Ries Dobber)
I was born in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis and we lived at the time in the Haarlemmer Houttuinen. As you can gather from the name, Haarlemmer Houttuinen was not far from Haarlemmer Plain where Mum (Tiny Jagerman, my wife) was born.
I went to the St Joseph School in the Haarlemmer Houttuinen and when Mum and I went back in 1974 we found that that part of Haarlemmer Houttuinen didn't exist any more.
We moved to Binnen Dommerstraat when I was 7 and I remember helping to move by carrying 1 kitchen chair! As our new home was very close to the old one, we moved everything ourselves by hand.
I remember that one day we (I was 7 and the other little brothers were 5 and 3 years old) wanted to go to the Spaarndammer Dijk for some unknown reason.
I said to them "If we walk that way we will get there earlier" and we walked and walked until we were completely lost and we came as far as Halfweg, about 8 KM from where we started. We got very tired and someone - a "boerin" - gave us each a thick slice of bread. We were eventually taken home in the back of a truck and I think they hadn't even missed us at home!!
Another instant I remember is that I asked my father "Do you know where the Amstelveense Weg is?" and of course Dad said "Yes" and I said to him "Me too! You only have to follow Line 23, sometimes it says Halte and sometimes it says Vaste Halte". It started to rain and we sheltered in a bell-etage staircase and walked all the way back again.
So I must have been rather enterprising and I always had a good sense of direction.
My father had a parking- and repair place for pushbikes. Opposite there was a "water en vuur vrouw" where you could by buckets of hot water and a briquette to start the fire or to put in a "stoof" (foot warmer).
The butcher lived across the street and at one stage he thought that we were Jews because we all had dark or red hair!
Sometimes when my mother was having another baby, the other children were looked after by nuns in the St. Aloysius Home and my memories of these times are not pleasant at all. While we were there we had to attend a different school and although it was only for a short time, we had for instance to write with ink, whereas up till then we had only used pencil at the other school.
(My father and mother, Albert and Annie Dobber, with my nephew Joop and niece Ans)
POSTHOORN CHURCH CHOIR
At 9 years of age I joined the Boys Choir at the Posthoorn Church. The Director was Kapelaan (curate) van der Meer, one of the 5 Parish priests. The choir was a very important part of my life. The real name of this church was Church of the Immaculate Conception, but the name Posthoorn dates from the time of the "schuilkerken" when people were not allowed to openly practice their religion. We had practice for the choir three times a week.
One day we were going to sing - A Capella - the Missa Brevis by Palestrina, during Advent probably, but during the Kyrie, we dropped pitch to such an extent that Kap. van der Meer got very angry, throwing his baton at the soprano section. I remember this vividly.
In this choir were also two singers - in the Bass section - by the name of Jagerman. They were cousins. One of them (Johan) became eventually my brother-in-law. I remembered Joh quite well. On several occasions we sang the Mass in a direct broadcast on the KRO (Katholieke Radio Omroep). One of these broadcasts was a Mass composed by Luciano Refice. Once a year we were treated to an outing in a bus or to a playground.
I stayed in the Choir until I left to start my studies at Castelnuovo, Italy (see below).
STUDY YEARS
In November 1927 there was a Mission Exhibition in Amsterdam; it was called M.A.C.T.A., for: Missie-Actie-Tentoonstelling-Amsterdam and I went to see it. There was a stall from the Salesian Fathers and it interested me. They did not have a House in the Netherlands but I met Fr. Dury SDB at the exhibition. He took my name and sent me an invitation to attend an exam in Den Bosch.
There were about 20 or so boys doing the exam. I was accepted and in February 1932 I was on my way with a group of about 10 boys to Italy. I was 14 at the time. As my parents were not at all well off I had financial support from Fr.v.d. Meer with buying my outfit and with fares. My parents were quite happy for me to go.
In the train to Italy we had our first Italian lesson; "Non capisco"!!
We had to travel through France and stopped in Paris where we had a meal in a Salesian establishment. All I can remember of Paris is night time and the Metro. We had to take a night train to Italy and in the middle of the night I woke up and saw that we had stopped at a station called Chamonix and the snow and the mountains, never having seen mountains before.
We crossed the border at Modano and travelled on to Turin and from there to the nearby village (?) of Castel Nuovo, later to be called "Castel Nuovo Don Bosco".
We went to a secondary school, where we learned the usual subjects plus Italian and catechism (questions and answers in those days) all in Italian. Catechism was the only lesson given in Italian, the other subjects were given in the Dutch language.
I was in Italy only for 5 months and then, through administrative difficulties we went back to Holland and after waiting for reorganisation of the study program I was put in a group that was destined for the French Salesian Province and sent to Belgium.
This particular Institut, St. Paul in Melles-Lez-Tournai, had only 4 or 5 Belgian students out of 200, and the rest were French plus our Dutch group. Most of the Dutch boys didn't like the living conditions and after the summer holidays only 2 came back: Louis Sonius and I.
After 6 months we had learned enough French to be able to follow normal classes. Apart from the regular subjects I had organ lessons (after breakfast) before lessons started, and I played the saxophone in the band.
Every year I returned to Amsterdam during the summer holidays. My Mum and Dad had to scrape to get the train fare together, and sometimes we didn't have enough to eat.
During the last term in year 6, some of my classmates and I planned to go to Brittany on pushbikes in the holidays. I was to meet them at their parents' home in France.
The first day on my way there I rode from Amsterdam to Roosendaal near the Belgian border where I spent the night and the next day I crossed Belgium and arrived at my friend's place in France the same day at night time. Because one of the chaps had trouble with his bike they called off the trip and I spent some time with them.
On the way back to Holland on the bike I remember at one stage being so tired that I slept standing up with my head on the bike saddle.
After the holidays I started the Novitiate at Port-a-Binson, near Chatillon-sur-Marne. After 6 months I decided that celibacy was not for me after all and I returned to Amsterdam in 1938.
WORK AND WAR
I came back from the seminary in 1938 and then had to find a job. I kept looking in the newspapers until I found an advertisement for a free training course for Radio Operator with the Royal Dutch Navy.
It was necessary for this job to have a sense of rhythm and about a third of the applicants dropped out in the first three months of the course because of the lack of this. The other requirement was a good understanding of Maths, especially Trigonometry.
After 18 months in May 1940 when the Germans invaded Holland, we were no longer allowed by the Germans to study transmitters and Morse Code, for obvious reasons. In November 1940 I got my 2nd class ticket and I kept on studying and passed the exam for lst class, with a deferment of Morse Code because of the war situation. For second class the requirement was 16 words per minute and for first class it was 25 words per minute, a big difference.
During the occupation the Germans sealed the room where the transmitters were kept. The school then initiated a course for Radio Technician, which I did with limited success.
In 1938 I also joined Servio, because my brothers Ries, Joop and Kees were in it and at that time Mum and I got engaged (see Mum's story - Oma Remembers).
In 1941 the Radio School was closed and I had to find an occupation.
Tine Goeman had a business relation by whom I was offered a job in the administration of Jewish property. They would pay me Fl. 450 (per month) salary, which was very much in that time, with the proviso that I give Fl. 100 to the provider of the job. I was in a quandary and after discussing it with a priest from the Krijtberg I refused the offer. Tine Goeman said afterwards, "If you had accepted it I would not have wanted to know you any more".
Tine Goeman was instrumental in giving me a position at Numan's Blikfabriek to help us and to keep me out of the hands of the Germans (see Bescheinigung). I was an assistant manager and my job was cost price calculations, time- and motion studies and energy conservation.
In 1940 during the holidays of Radio Holland I landed a job as tour guide with a bus company and did trips around Holland. Because I looked rather young, and to make an impression of greater maturity, I let my moustache grow. It is interesting to remember that even as early as the beginning of 1940 there were anti-aircraft guns erected in some paddocks. My knowledge of French and some English was an advantage.
MERCHANT NAVY
(Frederik Dobber)
As soon as the war with Germany was over, I offered my services again to Radio Holland and in early July went to Rotterdam (by boat because the trains were still not running) and signed on.
My first trip was with m/v TIBA to Montreal in Canada. I found that my French was more use there than my English which was still a bit scrappy at the time. I bought things to take home which were not available in Holland such as bicycle tyres, and of course cigarettes, which I could get duty-free on board.
We navigated in convoy, because the war with Japan was still going on and some German submarines had not been accounted for. We were paid extra 'danger-money'. I arrived home from this trip on 15.8.1945, which was VJ-Day (Victory Japan Day).
On this first trip to Canada I went in "civvies" because uniforms, or any textiles, were as yet unavailable in Holland.
I made several trips with s/s KELBERGEN to HUELVA (Spain). Coal was loaded first in England for Huelva and on the first visit to England I received landing money to buy a uniform etc. in Cardiff.
In Huelva, I nearly lost the badge of my uniform cap and some local girls took me to their home to sew it on again. It is in that family that I saw Andalusian dancing as performed by the common people. This whetted my appetite for Andalusian folk music and I bought some records and also a guitar. On this trip I had an assistant who went to sea for the first time. He proved to be very good and when I gave the inspector my report he was transferred to tug-boat duties, because he was good in receiving messages under heavy traffic conditions. This was a plum-job because the crew received extra salvage money.
I can only give sketchy impressions of some trips, because I had very little money to spend and gravitated mostly to Catholic churches initially.
The STAD MAASTRICHT was an awful ship. I went to India in this one and my cabin was behind the funnel and the carbon monoxide made me very sleepy.
I made other trips to India in the CERAM, which was a better ship. In Bombay I went to Mass at the pro-Cathedral. The Bishop was Indian but I had no trouble following the sermon, which was in English.
In CALCUTTA we went to the Pictures, because it was very hot and the theatres were air-conditioned.
In MADRAS I met a Dutch missionary who was working there. He gave me some Indian things to take back to his parents in Amsterdam. He also gave me the little nut, which contained about a dozen bone miniatures, which has ever since enchanted my children and grandchildren. Paulette has it now.
With the ZAANSTROOM we went to FAR OER (Faeroe Islands). Here I met again a Dutch missionary. He was on his own. His bishop was in Danmark. If Catholic people wanted their children to go to a catholic school, they had to go to Danmark as the schools on Far Oer were all Lutheran.
ICELAND is a country without trees. I visited Reykjavik. The houses are built from imported cement, and roofs were corrugated iron.
I met a French speaking priest who took me to a Carmelite Convent in Kevlavik. These were Dutch nuns and the priest spoke in French to them and one of the sisters tried to translate but when they found that I could do it better they left it to me. I also attended a concert where a tenor sang. I bought some wool, which was rather coarse and thick but cheap. Tantan knitted a jumper from it, which we called the IJSLAND jumper.
(Frederik Dobber)
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APPENDIX: THE STORY OF THE JEWISH WOMAN MY PARENTS GAVE SHELTER TO DURING THE WAR.
A woman relation of my mother worked as a housekeeper for a Jewish family called Sachs when the war (World War 2) broke out. The family consisted of a mother and her two sons, who ran a typewriter business in the city.
The two sons managed to escape the clutches of the Nazis by moving to the United States, but they couldn't persuade their mother to come with them. She had to find a safe place to hide and the housekeeper approached my parents. At the time my parents lived in Beuling Straat in a 18th century house which had many nooks and crannies.
It was decided to provide shelter for this lady whom we called Tante Bets, because she didn't want us to use the name Sachs (which was very Jewish) by accident. We, the immediate family, knew she was there, but no one else was supposed to know.
Tante Bets had the use of the front room and in that room there was a cupboard which housed the electricity meter. Therein Kees found that there was a small room behind the meters. The back wall was then transformed into a door with a hook on the inside. This was the hiding place for Tante Bets in case of emergency.
All this happened when Mum and I were already married.
(After the war we found 27 spaces in this old house, that were papered over).
It so happened that our neighbour was suspected in a robbery case and the police came to look for stolen property. Because it was on the same floor they also searched our place. First they saw a little table on wheels, which had a curtain hanging down in front. Before lifting the curtain the policeman said, "Oh, you have a clandestine radio receiver here", and that was true. All radios were supposed to have been handed in to the German authorities.
They continued their search and when they got to the meter cupboard, they saw the fake door, as it was not properly shut. They pushed it back and said: "They've got an old Jewess here too!"
We didn't hear from the police anymore so they must have been the 'right' kind of policemen.
While relating the story to us, my Dad said, "I have thrown the wireless in the Herengracht". (Of course he hadn't, but had hidden it somewhere).
Because Tante Bets was not registered, she needed ration cards, which were provided by an underground support group. This happened in the following manner: We never saw these people. They just rang the bell and left the cards on the stairs.
Through this organisation, we got later on several more Jewish people to look after. They were housed in other parts of this warren of an old house. However, this did not last very long because one was a young man who could not stand being cooped up all day and night, so the underground collected them and put them somewhere else.
The way the underground got hold of ration cards was by raids on Distribution Offices.
Tante Bets stayed till the end of the war. She was very grateful and so were her sons, for what my parents had risked for her.
In gratitude they sent us a packing case full of clothes from Macy's. Later we were notified that a tree had been planted in Israel in acknowledgement of my parents' support. It has been verified by one of our relations that this tree was indeed planted.