Col’s Chat – Locals through my Lens – Catharina and Hendricus Vullers

Col’s Chat –

Locals through my Lens

Catharina and Hendricus Vullers 

World War Two: A conflict that engulfed over 70 nations and set political and geographical agendas that still resonate today. Eighty years on, and the raft of Hollywood interpretations, documentaries and literary chronicles remain as popular now as they ever were. Sadly, the firsthand experiences that were generated during this turmoil are fading as the years and the storytellers slip by.  

So, it was an absolute delight to meet Catharina and Hendricus, two locals with Dutch heritage whose story was in parts thrilling and heart-warming. 

Catharina was seven years old when the war broke out in the Netherlands. Hendricus was five. Despite living a few kilometres apart in different villages, they did not know each other or the life they would eventually have together, but their memories of that time are still fresh.  

I begin by asking her about her early memories of the War and Catharina immediately recalls a time when she needed to protect her father from being taken for ‘Arbeitseinsatz’, German for labour deployment. “Dad was in the army when the war broke out, so he had to hide from the Germans. He had a hiding place in the cellar. We were playing outside with a ball, and if the Germans came by, we would bounce the ball against the window as a warning for him to go back to his hiding place.”  

The risks were real. More than 500,000 Dutchmen between the ages of 18 to 45 were forcibly transported to Germany during the occupation to work in factories and farms to replace the German men who were called up for military service. At eight years of age, Catharina took the arrival of occupying forces in her stride, but threats were all around. Her home town had a large contingent of NSB members (the Dutch Nazi Party), who collaborated with the Germans. That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t do her bit to stall the Nazi war effort. Catharina explained, “We lived across from the railway station. On one occasion, as we were fooling around, we put water in their kerosene cans. Another time, the Germans laid out sticks to identify sites for landmines, but when they had gone, we removed the sticks, so that when the engineers arrived, they had to leave that part of town free from mines.” 

The town’s locals were also playing their part. Catharina’s Dad was summoned to return to the army, but the post office staff decided the best was to avoid that happening by simply failing to deliver the telegrams. What you don’t know, you can’t do.  

Although Catharina and Hendricus would not meet until after the war, their stories intertwined when an RAF Lancaster was shot down in their area. Catharina continued, “I took my younger brother and siblings to play in the woods, and we found an Allied airman hiding behind a hedge. We gained his trust and helped him bury his parachute and uniform. We took him to my dad and he was taken into the charge of the resistance, and eventually returned to Britain”. 

Meanwhile, only a few kilometres from Hendricus home, the crashed plan was searched by a local farmer and a briefcase of orders and navigation charts was taken into hiding. It wasn’t until the 1980s that this briefcase was revealed, and showed that the airman Catharina has rescued, was a New Zealander called Bill McGee who lived a long life after the war.  

A few years younger, there are times when Hendricus’ memories of the war are like a Boy’s Own adventure story, but the realities of life were harsh. Many people in the northern part of the Netherlands suffered extreme food shortage and thousands died of starvation in the last year of the war. Thousands of Jewish people were transported from the Netherlands to Germany before and during the war. Many Dutch people reported the Jewish people to the authorities, whilst others hid them within their homes at a great risk to themselves. 

Hendricus clearly remembers the end of the war. “My family were in our cellar under the house, because the British and Americans were pushing east, and there was fighting in the streets. My parents, eleven kids and my grandmother were huddled together. News was normally passed from house to house with a note strapped to a stone. Then on one morning, as the Americans came into town, we got a knock on the window from someone shouting, “We’re free!”  

As our chat continues, stories of inadvertently picking up landmines, sharing horse meat and building makeshift shelters go to demonstrate just what childhood was like for Catharina and Hendricus. For all of the hardships and challenges, there are moments which seem somewhat surreal now. Catharina explains, “I was running in a school sports day when the Americans were in town. I won the race and got a fountain pen as the prize presented to me by General Eisenhower.” Hendricus then interjects, “I got a gift from Eisenhower as well!”  

Catharina and Hendricus’ stories of courage, trust and survival was but a precursor for a life well lived. They married, left Europe, arrived in Australia, and built a hugely successful business and life for themselves, and a wonderful family. Perhaps that’s a story for another time.  

It occurs to me however, that this pair should have someone write a book about their wartime adventures. Well, as if by magic, Catharina and Hendricus’ daughter-in-law, Di Taylor has done just that. A local in The Gap, Di has taken their story, along with those of their childhood friend, Matt Theunissen, and turned their amazing war time experiences into a fictionalised book, entitled Anna’s War.   

Based on the three children’s life stories, Di’s debut novel has garnered excited reviews and is a scintillating retelling of an oft forgotten time in history. When I ask Catharina if she enjoyed reading the book, she replied simply, “I am Anna.” 

Truth is, it seems, stranger than fiction.  

Author and photographer: Colin Bushell / Colin Bushell Photography