Home and Leaving

My father was one of 7 children, member of a close, but huge family.

With 6 boys and one girl, my gram was thought to be busy with her family full time.
In fact, she was one of the members of a network of family members who were almost all members of the resistance.

The house was large, had entrances in the front and back, a large cellar (with it's own entrance) and could be entered, especially at the back, unseen from rather far away because of the low garden paths which were overgrown by bushes. The gardenpaths were connected in such an unorganized way that people even got lost going to their own home when they entered the area from the other side of the huge block.
And the entrance from the other side...it was near the woods.
So the house was perfect to leave and enter unseen and hide people.

Because we had a large family there was no need to involve strangers in the activities, some of the members were connected to the liasons which were connected to other liasons of other groups of the resistance.

After the war I heard many, many stories about the activities of the family, ranging from exchanging lists of people who should be deported into lists of people who were nowhere to be found, warning young people to lave the city, smuggling goods, decoding messages from England and sending coded messages to England, stealing foodvouchers and falsifying them, and helping crashed airmen to leave the area.

It is believed my father went to England with one or more of the pilots.
He never said a word about how he left, only that he was in England in 1943.

When we were in France he suddenly appeared to understand the language quite well, which was amazing, because he only spoke Dutch and English, and he knew his way around in Paris. Which was suprising as he always said he'd never been there.

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