FAMILY TIES: Henk Boer, with a painting of the Boer family’s departure from Holland, and, (back) a painting of his father, Fred, with his baker’s cart in the Netherlands.By KATH GANNAWAY
HENK BOER was just eight years old when World War II broke out but the memory of the German soldiers entering his village of Sappameer in the Netherlands and the hardship and horrors of five years of occupation, are very clear in his mind and in his heart.
As Henk talks of the war years, and trips back to his homeland and the death camps of Europe, they are, thankfully, almost a lifetime and a world away from what were the worst of times for his people and their Jewish friends and neighbours.
The Boer family migrated to Australia after the war and, following a family tradition of more than 300 years, Henk and his brother set up a bakery in Wandin.
Later they established Boer Bros, a food distribution business in Yarra Junction. The company was well known in the Valley, and beyond, operating successfully for more than 35 years and, at one time, employing up to 85 people.
These days, Henk and his Australian born wife, Gwen, are heavily involved in the Chaplaincy Committee at the Upper Yarra Secondary College. On 12 August at Yarra Junction, and again on 3 September at Warburton, Henk and his family will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands as a fundraiser for the Chaplaincy.
Henk’s remarkable memories and trips back to his home village, visits to the German concentration camps and talks with people who lived through it all are spellbinding.
“There was a camp right near us, about 40 kilometres away,” he recalls.
He said the camps, set up by the Dutch before the war to take refugees escaping from Germany were taken over by Hitler’s army and turned into prison camps.
“The Jews from Holland were selected every Tuesday to be sent to the concentration camps; we watched as they went right past our school.
“There was a large Jewish population in our district; only eight survived.”
His recollection of the liberation is just as vivid. “It was Saturday, 14 April, 1945. There was a feeling of great relief and celebration but it’s only in recent years that I have realised the enormous cost of lives involved. That didn’t dawn on me when I was a teenager.”
He said of the 40,000 Canadian Division, 8000 are buried on Dutch soil.
The evening will cover the resistance movement, how the Dutch people coped with the occupation on a day to day basis, the persecutions, the fate of the Jewish population, the liberation, the “Hunger Winter” of 194445, which claimed the lives of thousands in the west of the country, and more.
A video interview of Regina Beer, a survivor of the concentration camp AuschwitzBerkenau, as a 17yearold girl, is compelling.
There is so much written and on film about the Second World War and much of it, for people of the generations who did not live through it, is interesting, shocking, moving … but remote.
Listening at the Boer dining room table of Henk’s firsthand account of just some of his and his family’s experiences, makes it all very real.
The evening is not just about the horrors of war, it is a real celebration of the resolve and bravery of a village, and of the liberation which saw an end to war and a new beginning, in new lands, for hundreds of thousands of families like the Boer family.
The evening will include a segment of Dutch folk songs by members of the Boer family and supper. Tickets are $12.50, families $30 and concession $10, including supper. To book call Gwen Boer on 5967 1113, Bill Lawrence on 5964 7263 or Dina McLean on 5966 5566.
