The Resilience of Willem Bakker: Surviving World Wars in the Netherlands

Willem Bakker, a horse saddler born in 1874 in Rotterdam, navigated through World Wars I and II. Despite personal setbacks, he moved his family to Velp during WWI, ensuring their survival. His generosity and moral integrity shone through during WWII, securing his family’s future and reflecting the universal quest for freedom and safety.

Picture: @WW2 Cartoons

Freedom, that's what many people around the world are still eagerly looking forward to. Freedom of thought and action, and above all action. Peace of mind, being able and allowed to think normally, not out of fear for your survival those spinning thoughts in your head repeatedly. Where am I safe? Today I find enough food for everyone I love, and whom I am expected to take care of. You don't pay a single second of attention to tomorrow without realizing it, no matter because. There are still thousands of seconds to overcome in safety.

Can you see the safety coming?

Safety in their actions, that is what many people miss in the unpleasant periods of unnecessary strife and war anywhere in the world. The idea of being able to dispose of the time that you may stay on this earth from our dear lord. For many people on our planet, living in freedom is still something they eagerly look forward to, sometimes day and night. Many don't even know that they lack the status of free human beings. These people are already so accustomed to the tyranny of others that they don't even know the meaning of being able to think and thinking autonomously.

Who do I often think about in my mind?

Picture: Willem Bakker and his wife Cornelia Maria van Eijck and there Grandchildren.

Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Willem Bakker, my grandfather (1874-1948), he was born in 1874 in Rotterdam. He was a horse saddler by trade. During this time, much work was done by the noble animal, the horse. Public transport and cars were few and far between, so walking and horseback riding came first. The wars and annexations were already in full swing all over the world. New York annexes the Bronx, and the Netherlands takes control of several territories in Indonesia. The first Dutch boat service offers a crossing to New York, while many people drown in a flood in the Netherlands.

How Spectacular Can Life Be?

Willem Bakker works as an itinerant horse saddler, mainly through the west of the Netherlands. On his journeys, he naturally encounters the female sex. His first wife he married in Leiden in 1899 was Alida Wassenaar, from whom he divorced again in 1906. In the same year, my grandfather married again to Barbara Johanna Killesteijn, a lady from Amsterdam from whom he divorced again in 1914. I have never been able to ask my grandfather about the reasons for these two failed divorces, as he died in 1948. He was a God-fearing man, who attended church weekly. During the two marriages described above, Europe was at war (1914-1918). Germany declared war on several European countries. This war will last for four long years. My grandfather does his thing in the neutral, war-thriving Netherlands.

Why does this trench warfare occur?

According to insiders, this war, which encompassed a large part of Europe, was caused by the fear that various government leaders had for the ever-expanding German Empire. Even though the Netherlands was impartial in this First World War, its impact was felt by the Dutch population. The logistical apparatus suffered a lot from combat action in the countries around them. It was especially difficult to get food in the west of the Netherlands. In 1914 my grandfather married again to Cornelia Maria van Eijck, a lady from Nederhorst ter Berg, a small village near Amsterdam. With this woman, my grandfather eventually had twelve children. At that time, people had to make sure that they had enough offspring, because they had to take care of them after their "retirement", there was no old age legislation yet.

Did the family have to move because of the devastating war?

Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, my grandfather realized that he had to move away from the west of the Netherlands to another part of the Netherlands. The food supply came to a halt in the western part of the country, causing many elderly people to die. My grandfather and his family moved to the middle of the country, to Velp near Arnhem.

Was the move a blessing in disguise?

In Arnhem, the baker family initially had a happy (?) life. Business was fine, there were still many people at that time who transported themselves on the backs of horses. Horse saddles and harnesses also had to be repaired regularly. Cornelia and Willem did their thing and attended the church services of "De ouwe Jan" a small church in Velp, which had been named after a carpenter who took a break during a rain shower during one of the renovations of this church, and said because others thought that the construction site was not well covered: "Leave the old man in the rain,  it will take care of itself." The peace lasted until suddenly the Germans got it back on their hips. Not all twelve children were living at home anymore when the Second World War broke out and plunged Europe into terrible chaos again. It was a terrible time for many people and the suffering was especially incalculable by the Jewish people who were almost exterminated.

How did the family survive this crazy war?

Fortunately, horses were still there, and of course they also had to be cared for and hung with new or repaired saddles and harnesses. My grandfather still had plenty of work. He was, as I wrote before, a God-fearing man, so he also distributed his "wealth" to the people who needed it in this terrible war. He made many repairs on credit, or strengthened loans to those who could not pay for his work immediately. Because of these loans, his own company almost got into trouble.

How did the liberation in the Netherlands go?

The liberation from the Germans became a fact on 6 June 1944 with the invasion of the Americans, Canadians, British and fourteen other Allied countries. It was a horrible event. First, a glider had to be sent inland. This aircraft was able to reach the bridge in France in utter silence, which had to remain intact under all circumstances to allow the Allied land troops access to the rest of the occupied countries. The order to the Allied soldiers was that they should always march straight ahead, against the violence. To look back or turn around meant certain death because of desertion. Tens of thousands of people were killed on Omaha Beach that day. A little later, the Netherlands was liberated as far as Arnhem. The rest of the country remained occupied by the Germans until May 1945, which led to a lot of famine in the occupied territories, rats and flower bulbs were eaten.

Was moving a blessing in disguise?

Fortunately, my grandfather and grandmother had made the right decision by moving to Velp in 1940. This village was liberated from the Germans in 1944. Because Velp and its surroundings had been a kind of main residence of the Germans, there had been a lot of fighting, a lot had to be rebuilt. My grandfather's business was bankrupt because of the money he had lent to those who could use it better in this crazy war. He was allowed to celebrate the liberation with his third wife and his twelve children but died in 1948. He had made the choice to leave his beloved west of the Netherlands, to give his children a better life without hunger. With this earlier decision, he also ended the Second World War a year earlier for these children, without being able to foresee it. My parents lived until 1981 and 1991. They enjoyed the years of liberation that the generation before them had given them.

Guardian of sovereign deceit

The Jewish Council, or Judischer Rat, operated during the Holocaust under Nazi occupation. These councils, comprised of Jewish community leaders, were forced to collaborate with the Nazis, implementing their orders and policies among the Jewish population. While some members attempted to mitigate the harm inflicted on their communities, their power was severely limited, and they often faced impossible choices between collaboration and resistance. The role of the Jewish Councils remains a subject of debate, as they were both victims of Nazi persecution and, in some cases, complicit in facilitating the Nazi agenda.

Now there is a lot going on in the world, there is a lot of unrest. In several countries, the violence of war flares up again. Where there is no war yet, there is plenty of provocation. The Arab countries are opposing the State of Israel, and vice versa.The land of Palestine, which until the year 1948 was mainly inhabited by various Arab peoples, is proclaimed the State of Israel in that year. Of course, this didn't just happen. As early as the year 1900, many Zionists Jews moved from Europe to Israel. This migration came about mainly because of the anti-Semitism that had arisen in Europe. The fact that the Jews are moving to Israel is not entirely unexpected, after all, it is the country where a large part of their roots lie.

Portrait of Karl Lueger (ca. 1900), mayor of Vienna. He used anti-Semitism as a political strategy.

To judge whether it was a right or wrong choice for the Jews to move to their own state is a question that we can only answer if we go back a bit in our time. As mentioned, "Jew-hatred" once reared its head in large parts of Europe, but when exactly, and why? There is no exact date in history for the origin of this hatred, but according to many history books it begins around 1500 ADAround the beginning of the sixteenth century of our history, this hatred slowly began to develop, according to many scholars it had to do with the rise of Christianity. The Jews became a minority group and became easy prey for the rest of the other believers. Over the centuries, it got worse and worse. It was whispered that the Jews did not belong, there would be something wrong with these people. It was thought that the Jews had evil intentions, and that they were plotting against the rest of the world. As a result, the Jews also became easy prey for Adolf Hitler in World War II.

As you will undoubtedly know, Hitler started the Second World War around 1939 with an invasion of Poland, he wanted to create a new order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in Europe. Even though religion played a less important role in Europe in the twentieth century, the Jews still became a target for Hitler and his Nazi party. They (He) pondered on the difference between races and peoples. According to them, the Jews belonged to a different people. Even converted or nationatlized Jews were not accepted.He even saw the Jews as the cause of losing the First World War.

At the outbreak of the war in the Netherlands, the persecution of the Jews also began to take on greater proportions, but this was slowly initiated by the Nazis, first a so-called Jewish Council was established. These were representative bodies in the Netherlands, Belgium and France that were led by Jews. Please note that these councils had nothing to do with the later deportation of Jews to the extermination camps, this only started in 1942. The establishment of the various councils gave the Jews the feeling that they were allowed to think and talk with the Nazis.

Two Jewish men with the famous star on their jackets that Jews were forced to wear during the Second World War. It is a picture of a scene out off the movie Jewish Counsel.

At that time, no one foresaw the disgusting plan that Hitler and his followers had of course already devised. The Nazis said they wanted to place the Jewish communities under a central leadership body to facilitate communication with them. The established councils functioned as a social platform, especially the people were increasingly isolated from the other population groups in the countries mentioned. They were increasingly isolated and thrown back on themselves, the beginning of the separation.

Photo's of the Jewish Council with one of the chairmen's David Cohen. the other chairman was Abraham Asscher.

There are many people in this world who are much better than me at sifting through history. People thought differently than they do now and may have had different motives. After the Second World War, research was done into the how and why of the Jewish councils, why did they listen to the Nazis?Many others also see "collaboration" with the Nazis as self-preservation, simply to be able to keep eating. A few years ago, I was at the famous war cemeteries in Normandy, France, and as I stood there among those thousands of graves, I thought to myself: "what had you done?"It occurred to me that in many wars the military can only "move forward", whether they like it or not. If they didn't carry out an order, it was desertion, the bullet in your own head was their reward. In the Netherlands we sometimes say that a "white lie" is allowed if you really can't do better, or don't know any better........ Were the Jewish councils in World War II good guardians of a gigantic betrayal?