Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 113 continued ... I was born in Holland on January 14, 1923, the second of six children born to Louie and Maria Cuppens. At that time, my family was living in the village of Wychen, about 10 km from Nijmegen where my father worked as a carpenter and my mother as a homemaker. When I was seven, my father received a contract to do the finish carpentry and scroll work on a church that was being built in Nijmegen. So, in 1930, we moved to a house on the outskirts of that city only a couple of kilometres from the German border. There I attended a school run by the Urseline order of nuns. It was a very strict school where "yes" meant "yes" and "no" meant "no". You were there to learn. On May 10, 1940, the day that Germany invaded Holland, the sky over Nijmegen was black with airplanes on their way to Rotterdam, the Hague and other major cities being targeted for German Attack. Because Nijmegen was so close to the German border, we did not experience this kind of armed aggression at first. The Germans simply walked in and took over. Not much changed during the first year of occupation. But in 1941, especially after the general strike in Amsterdam, in February, the Germans started to really clamp down on us. Food rationing was introduced. At first it was only meat, butter, rice, coffee and tea that were rationed. We used to make coffee by roasting grain in our wood stove, then grinding it in a coffee grinder. I still have that grinder in my kitchen. My mother would also use the grinder to grind grain for making bread-a kind of heavy rye bread. As time went on the rules and regulations got worse. You couldn't stand or meet with friends on a street corner. You couldn't stay out past 8 p.m. Radios were not allowed. Clothes, shoes, even our blankets were confiscated by the Germans. But it was the Jewish people who had it the worst. They had to wear a star on their clothing and were forbidden to do practically anything. Then we noticed that Jewish people were disappearing. There was a Jewish lady I looked after for three or four months. But because we were not allowed to associate with Jews, I had to enter through her back yard, through a big construction site. One morning when I went to her house, I found the door locked and everything closed up. I never heard from her again. One thing you learned very fast was how to speak German. So that if a German asked you directions, you could send them in the opposite direction. But then they started to catch on and things got nasty. The Germans kept a registry of all able-bodied workers. My older brother who was 22 at the time was forced to work on a streetcar until the fall of 1944. In November 1943, I was finally called to work in a convalescing hospital for German soldiers who had come back from the Russian front to recuperate. There, I, along with seven other girls, peeled potatoes and other vegetables seven days a week. Twice a week we took turns working 12-hour shifts for which we were given special permits because we would have to be outside after the 8 p.m. curfew. Soon, my hands were cracked and bleeding from peeling so many potatoes. After a few weeks, however, I was promoted to working in the kitchen upstairs. This gave me the opportunity to steal food from the Germans who had lots of everything. So I would steal a few handfuls of Anna Marie Cuppens Lamont
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