Rotterdam

Paris was memorable for the places David and I saw, places I’d read about and seen pictures of all my life: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre.  There were few surprises in Paris.

Rotterdam was even more memorable, but not for sightseeing.  In 1939, when Hitler went on his conquering rampage across Europe, he sent planes to bomb Rotterdam.  The city was destroyed.  In effect, he said to the Dutch, “Surrender, or I’ll do the same to the rest of your country.”  The Dutch surrendered.  After the war Rotterdam rebuilt, becoming once more the Netherlands’ most important seaport.  But it was not famous for architecture or historic sites.

Rotterdam was memorable for the people we visited.  Kees Bouw and I had exchanged letters for more than 30 years, yet visiting his family was full of surprises.

The first surprise was where they lived.  I knew Kees was not rich, but I did not expect to find him and his wife living in near poverty. 

In those days before GPS systems, I used a city map and only made four or five wrong turns before parking the car in front of Oldegaard 92.  It turned out to be one of many doorways in a block-long building.  David and I climbed four flights of concrete stairs to reach the Bouws’ top-floor apartment.      

The building on Oldegaard Place was the first public housing to be built after the war.  Because they had a baby, Kees and Marie were among the first few to be awarded apartments.  They were still living there 30 years later.  The facilities were austere.  There was no central heating, no bathtub or shower, and all those stairs to climb. 

As a young woman Marie was grateful, in the midst of the housing shortage, to have a place of their own, even if it meant hauling the groceries up to the fourth floor while also carrying a baby on her hip.  Teunis became a toddler, and she urged him up the steps ahead of her while she carried baby Margaret along with the bread and potatoes. 

Now both children were grown, married, and on their own.  Marie was middle-aged, a big, heavy woman with bad legs. She had to go out daily to shop, as her refrigerator was tiny.  Climbing stairs with groceries was extremely painful, yet she apologized to David and me for asking us to walk up to the fourth floor.  We Americans with strong, sturdy legs were not expected to do what she did every day.  

David and I arrived in mid-afternoon.  Marie welcomed us into a cozy sitting room, warmed by a small electric space heater. (I learned later that this was the only room they kept heated.)  Haltingly she explained that Kees was at work.  “I no speak English,” she said.  “Margaret comes.”

A short time later Margaret arrived, a pretty 30-something woman, who spoke fairly good English with a slight Dutch accent.  Several years before her father wrote me his concern during Margaret’s long struggle with cancer.  She nearly died and lost all her hair.  Now I met an energetic young woman with abundant blonde hair – wearing cowboy boots. 

Margaret had come to take David and me to her home in the village of Oud Beyerand, where we spent the next several days with her and her husband and their son, Dimitri, who was about David’s age, and where Kees and Marie joined us the next day.

It was the beginning of the best part of our trip.