GERDA MEIJER
The following pages contain the official report which I wrote during May 1945 and which is deposited with the Documentation Centre (NIOD) in Amsterdam.


              REPORT OF 'GERDA', COURIER AND SECRETARY TO DRAUGHTS I (HANS).
                                        September 18, 1944 - May 5, 1945



At the beginning of September 1944 the Allies tried to capture Arnhem. Unfortunately, the attack failed. The general railway strike in Holland broke out following this failed attempt. At the time I was a courier for the illegal monthly Vrij-Nederland, which meant that I had to travel a great deal and maintain contacts over long distances. Of course, this became impossible during the railway strike. At that time I was looking for other work and Mr. Van Geuns, the father of my friend 'Madeline' brought me into contact with 'Hans', who lived with Mr. Van Geuns.

I first met Hans at his house, 28 Zomerdijkstraat. Officially I also lived there. This was the address on my identity card and was also registered there in the population register.  In actual fact I lived somewhere else in a room, and kept the address secret. When I first met Hans he had been in Holland for about ten days. I introduced myself under my cover name, Gerda Lankhout, and Hans never knew my real name. He himself had taken the name of Hans Brandt
(Bruin), and both according to his papers and in actual fact he lived at 28 Zomerdijkstraat, so that in theory Hans and I lived in the same house. Through the contact address which Hans had been given in London - 150 Singel, Amsterdam, the home of Jeanita Lee - Hans landed up with Mr. Van Geuns. At Miss Lee's house (Joke) he met 'Laloe de Vries' who became his first courier. He also met 'Felix' there, who together with Dr.X organised the transport of arms from the very beginning.

The first task Hans of me was together with Laloe to look for a place were we could work. After that, to see to it that decent bicycles were available, so that we could get around easily. As soon as we had found a place where we could work, Hans left Mr. Van Geuns' house during the day and went to his first office at 150 Beethovenstraat. The three us of us met there every morning, Hans, Laloe and I, and divided up the work to be done. One of the first things Hans did after his arrival was to appoint Hil Schipper, from Spanbroek, who had been present at his arrival on Mandrill, as commander of the exsisting drop areas, as well as areas which still had to be found. The second task Hans imposed upon Dr. X and Felix, mentioned above, was to organise the weapon transportsand to look for couriers for himself. For this he found Laloe, Gerda and Madeline. Hans gave Madeline her first assignment about eight days after me.

The work assigned to us three girls was to maintain contact with the operators, Hil, Dr.X and Felix. This was carried out in the following way: from the time of Hans' arrival until the beginning of October, Laloe maintained the contacts between '
Bram' (Backgammon) and Hans. She delivered and fetched the messages and was the only one who knew Bram's address. On October 3rd Hans second operator Douwe (Boating), who had been dropped near Rotterdam, arrived in Amsterdam. Then it became my task to maintain contact with him and at the same time Madeline was given the same task with regard to Bram, after the latter had moved and his new address was known only to Madeline. Madeline remained the link between Bram and Hans until the end. Douwe soon took a private courier by the name of 'Anita'. She never saw Hans and maintained the contact between Hans and Douwe only via me.

Contact with the operators was maintained by Madeline and me in de following way: every morning at about 8.30 we each went to the house of our operator and fetched the messages which had been received during the night. We hid the telegrams in an envelope under our clothing and went to the office. Hans and Laloe would be there by then and we would decode the messages together. Hans would then answer the telegrams as far as possible and after that would usally depart for the office of the CNBS
(Henri Koot). One or two of the girls stayed in order to encode the messages and take them over to the residential or WT (transmission address) of the operator, and one was sent out every day with mail, maos, etc for Hil Schipper. Hil sent his own courier to the south every day, who would meet up with Hans' courier at a point about half-way between Amsterdam and Spanbroek at the farm belonging to Mr. de Groot in the Midden-Beemster. This point was about 25 km north of Amsterdam. All the correspondence between Hans and Hil would change there. In this way Hans received Hil's report every evening. The work for the two girls who stayed behind consisted of courier-work inside the city en encoding the telegrams which Hans dectated after his conference with the CNBS. He usually returned with the messages in the afternoon.

As far as Hans' work was concerned: his assignment had been given to him from England, but neither his task or his function were quite clear at first to the 'illegal' people with whom he had to work. He went through a great deal of trouble to make it cleat to the underground world what exactly each one's work and position was. In itself this was of course not surprising from the point of view of the illegal world. But very soon everything became very clear and there were never any problems about this question afterwards.

The people with whom Hans made contact were:

1. The CNBS, already mentioned and his staff. He only visited them at their office from September until
    December. After that the only contact was via correspondence-addresses and telephone.

2.
Mr. Six (aka Van Santen) OD (Orde Dienst) - only in September and October. Hans visited him at his
    various contact addresses which continually being changed. Later he also maintained contact by
    telephone.

3.
With the RVV (Raad van Verzet) - September contact with
Freek (Wagenaar), but after the latter's
    appointment as leader of RVV there was not so much contact with him personally. Later there was
    more contact with
Richard (Van der Gaag).

4.
Peter Noord
(Peter Hordijk): first contact with him where he came to Amsterdam, as far as I know
    after December 5th, after
Frank (Van Beijnen), leader KP, who lived in Rotterdam, died. This happened
    as a result of some shooting which took place on the main road between Amersfoort and Apeldoorn.

5. Leopold
: I do not know where Hans used to meet him, but it was probably at different addressed.

6. Otto
or Martin, with whom he usually telephoned. That Hans had contact with more illegal people is
    undoubtedly true. But those mentioned above were the principal ones.


Meanwhile Hans' office had been moved to the home of mr. Van Goethem, 37 Milletstraat, where the three of us occupied a small room for our work. There was only a standard town-telephone connection (which could be overheard). We stayed at this house for about six weeks. After that we moved to a flat which was intended as a residential address for Hans, as well as for Madeline and Gerda. We believd we would be able more efficiently by combining our office and home address.

Meanwhile Hans' staff had expanded, as Jard
(du Celliee-Muller), alias Pietje, alias Harry Stevens, joined us. Living at our first flat did not turn out well because th eunsympathetic manner in which we were treated by the neighbours. Our next try succeeded better, so that we had a flat at the beginning of November, where the four of us lived and where Laloe came only during the day. The address was 37 Noorder Amstellaan. We went to live there under the cover of people who had been evacuated from Arnhem and we had no trouble with the neighbours, etc.

This address was Hans' last one. Here he got the private telephone lines he wanted, with the operators and via the central exchange with all illegal private and offices addresses. The man who organised al this was Mr. Carels, employed by the GEB (Gemeentelijk Electriciteits Bedrijf). He rendered great service to the underground movement in this way. The way in which the security was improved in this manner is quite obvious. These telephone lines, which could be used day and night, could not be controlled by the Germans, and they were never found, at least not the central-exchange. The Germans knew something about the exsistence of these telephone-lines. It is also obvious that Hans' work was made a great deal easier this way. The risks of meetings etc could now be almost completely avoided. At that time, Hans, together with Carels, worked out plans for telephone lines to be laid to the South which could be used when the troops advanced. To what extent these lines were in fact laid and used after Hans was arrested, I do not know.

The time we spent at Hans'last address was the quietest and least exciting period. In-coming and out-going telegrams were passed on by telephone. Our first offices were not known to any outsiders except Dr. X and Felix. Hans did not even give them the address in the Noorder Amstellaan. This was known only to Carels, because had to connect the telephone. Eight days before Hans' arrest '
Josephine' (Frankie Hamilton) came out of hospital in Haarlem. Since Hans thought he would have some work for her in the future, he invited her to our house. But she was not able to do any work yet and for that reason Guus (Frank Hamilton) allowed her to go to North-Holland. She left one day before Hans was arrested (February 10th)

The method of work during Hans' last period was more or less as follows: after the operators had received received their messages by about 11 o' clock at night, they were passed on by telephone and decoded by us. Hans always remained while this was being done. When there were a lot of messages he often went to bed very late, which certainly did not improve his health. He was not actually ill, but he felt very tired during the day. We always insisted on taking on the night work, but only seldom could we get Hans to go to bed. He wanted to be present himself during the decoding of the messages.

One of the culminating of his time was the successful bombardment of the buildings at the Adema van Scheltemaplein and Euterpestraat. Then came the attempt to bomb the "Lydia" building on December 24th, where a large group of the SD (Sicherheits Dienst - the German Security Service) were having a party. The Germans had taken part of "Natura' - the organisation dealing with food supplies for the Underground. Naturally this had been quite a bonus for them and they organised a celebration in 'Huize Lydia'. We did everything we could to deliver the Amsterdam SD the final blow that day. We were able to keep track of the party from one minute to the next, with the help of a female spy, and were kept informed informed by telephone. Several telegrams were sent back and forth that day but unfornunately the RAF was not able to bomb the place for reasons unknown to us.

During the last week before Hans was arrested we waited in suspense to learn if and when there would be a drop again. Because of the heavy snowfalls there had been no drops for a considerable time. The normal way we were kept informed  was as follows: information about a drop would be announced on the radio in the evening, and usually the weapons would be dropped during the night. Sometimes there were no drop, and about 7 o' clock in the morning, news would come in from Hil by telephone, so that we could immediately pass on the news of the previous night.

But after the snowy period everything seemed to go wrong. Hans had been present once before a drop, when it seemed to go wrong there each time. That had been on a site named 'Madeline' near Mijdrecht. He decided to go to North-Holland personally, to see everything was running smoothly. The reason for the failure of the drops- as far as we could make out - was the fact that Eureka and the S-Phone had not been operated correctly.

Hans
(Tobias) left together with Jard (du Celliee-Muller) on Wednesday February 7th at about three o'clock in the afternoon and arrived in Spanbroek in the evening, from wgere he went on to Martini (droppingveld). That night there was no drop. The drop which had been announced for Friday night did not take place either, so Hans decided to return home on Saturday, He had inspected the use of Eureka and S-Phone and couldn't wait any longer. He rang us up on Saturday morning, February 10th and said that we could expect him at about 12 o'clock. They were returning by car. However, they did not arrive and at about 8  o'clock in the evening Hil (Schipper) rang up to tell us that the car in which Hans and Jard were travelling had been stopped on the way and that they had been arrested by the Landwacht together with two other passengers in the car. They were being held at the townhall in Wognum. No further details were known as yet but Hil said he would keep us informed. Meanwhile we alerted Dr. X (Henk Veeneklaas) and the operators (Pieter & Paul) and we began to clear out the house (Noorder Amstellaan 37), first removing all incriminating material. On Saturday evening February 10th - the same day as Hans' arrest- Jard telephoned us. He had managed to escape and had arrived safely at Hil's house. He told us that there had been some shooting during the attempt to escape and that Hans had probably been wounded. This information proved to be correct. We heard about it the following day, Sunday February 11th.
We also got the word that he was supposedly in the 'Westergasthuis' in Amsterdam. Wecould do nothing but wait. Quite naturally we had placed ourselves under the guidance of Dr. X who told us to do nothing and await further orders. At that moment we knew nothing about his plans. Afterwards it became clear that he had made an effort to free Hans, which could possibly have succeeded, but for the well meant, but absolutely mistaken attitude of Carels which made succes impossible. Carels heard all the conversations which took place via his telephone exchange, and felt that he too should do his bit to help liberate Hans. Wat bedoelt zij hiermee?

We succeeded in getting the house 'clean'. The telephone was disconnected that same afternoon so that there was nothing left to prove that any illegal activity had been going on in the house. Laloe went
to het own rooms, the address of which was unknown to Hans and Jard. Madeline and I went to Madeline's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Ide.
Douwe (Paul Peters) had often transmitted from Jard's parents house, the address of which was on his identity card - 5 Nicolaas Maesstraat. The house was near the German 'Ortskommandantur' and that was why Jard's parents had left it. However, there was some technical stuff of Douwe hidden away there. He told his courier (Anita) to clean it out, which she did, but unfortnunately it was not done completely. When the Germans searched the house on Monday February 12th, they found some old telegrams and other papers, as well as an uccumulator and some less important technical material (a morse key).
On Monday February 12th Madeline and I decided to move to other addresses and live apart. We both found something, but Madeline would have to bring her own blankets. So I decided to go and fetch them from the house on the Noorder Amstellaan, which was of course very stupid of me. I went there the same afternoon at about 15.30 uur. I had locked my bicycle and stood it against the house outside with the key in my handbag. Just as I went in, there was a knock on the door. I looked through a small window and saw a child standing outside the door, who often came to get some food from us. I asked the boy for his address - perhaps I would be able to take some food over there later - and while I was talking to him, there was another knock on the door and I opened the door and a man was standing outside. I thought it was somebody else asking for food and I opened the door. The man at once put his foot between the door and the treshold, strode in and asked: "Is this Hans' office?" He was immediately followed by two men who must have been standing behind the wall. They walked in, pistols in hand, and demanded: "How many people are there in the house?" I was there alone with the boy and we both had to go stand in the room, after which they searched us. They found nothing in my pockets or in my handbag. Nor did their search of the house bring any results.

They showed me a letter, which I recognized at once as having been written by Hans, although the writting was very irregular. Hans wrote that he had been wounded and was in the 'Westergasthuis' and one of us to come and see him. Although I recognized Hans' handwritting, I pretended I did not and said that I had never heard of Hans, and that there must be a mistake somewhere. Of course they did not believe me and I had to tell them what I was doing in the house, who I was, etc, etc.
To understand the situation, the following must be explained: The house at the 37 Noorder Amstellaan had been rented from Mrs. Schotte, an elderly lady who lived there alone. Since October 1944 nearly all gas and electricitu supplies in Amsterdam were out or cut off, and this lady could not stay in het house alone and went to live with her daughter. The house which was completely furnished, was rented to us. Mrs. Schotte knew something of our illegal activities, but she did not know what kind of work it was (After I was arrested the Germans took everything out of the house) I told the man who interrogated me that I was an acquaintance of Mrs. Schotte and had come to fetch some blankets for her. They did not believe me and went on asking and searching the house, but when they found nothing, they took me over to 125 Apollollaan, the SD headquarters, where they had moved after the bombardment at the Euterpestraat.
I was seached by women but they found nothing. Then they tried to find out who I was. My papers were in the name of C.M. Egink, my address was 28 Zomerdijkstraat
(the address of Madeline's father). The papers were inspected and to my great relief they were found to be alright. Actually they were false, but the SD never found out. After that they began to interrogate me. Four officers were present in addition to the Dutchman who had arrested me, and whose name I do not know. (Wie was dit?) I knew the officers' names: Ruhl and Visbahn (Viebahn). I did not hear any other names. The interrogation began at about 17.00 hrs and lasted with breaks in between until about 22.00 hrs. I had to tell them everything about myself. The main point which they questioned me about was my insistence that I did not know Hans. They could conclude from this that I had nothing whatsoever to do with the whole affair. It was easy for me to deny everything as they had found nothing on me or in the house. To convince himself that he was not mistaken, one officer took my identitycard to the hospital where Hans was lying and returned with two pieces of information, both of which were very distressing for me. In the first place he no longer addressed me as 'Egink' but as 'Fraulein Gerda'. This was the name by which Hans knew me
I was able to conclude from this that Hans had told them that they got hold of the right person. The second fact was that they showed me another letter from Hans, which he had apparently just written and which was addressed to me. He wrote: "Gerda, can you see to it that the following telegram is sent to England?". There followed a long telegram in English, in which Hans wrote that he had been wounded and was now in the Westergasthuis, and asked if there would be a possiblity of a prisoner-of-war exchange. They handed me the letter to read but I told them that I did not know English and could not read it. They then had the letter translated for me. To make things worse, the Dutchman suddenly appeared with the tyres of my bicycle, two new English tyres and two inner tubes. I told them that I had bought them on the black market. At 21.30 hrs. Ruhl told me that the other girls had also been arrested and had already confessed, so that it would be best for me to confess too. Although I did not beleive his tale, it began to be impossible for me to deny everything and after Ruhl gave me some time to think things over in a dark cellar, I confessed that I had been Hans' courier. I had to face the following facts:

1. Hans had stated that he was an agent from England, as I gathered immediately after my
     arrest.

2. He had also said that he had one operator and three couriers, of whom I was one.

These were the facts the SD knew at that moment. And in addition there was the English telegram. I did not know if Hans had written this voluntarily or under duress. But there it was and the SD knew that I could contact the operator
(Pieter de Vos). They knew of the existence of only one operator and kew no names, either of the operator, or of the girls. Before I was taken away, Ruhl announced that I was to be taken over to Hans that same night. So everything looked rather hopeless. I did not quite understand what Hans' intentions were,but I was glad to go to him. Maybe I would understand more of the situation after I had seen him.

After I had confessed the Germans became very friendly. They offered me cigarettes and when I refused they asked me if I was afraid that they might be poisoned. I should not believe all the talk about them, they said. They were not so bad
(remember the Rustenburg affair!). But first I would have to tell them were Hans' papers were. I told them I had burned everything immediately after I had received word of Hans' arrest. Fornunately they believed this. At about 23.00 hrs I was brought over to the Westergasthuis accompanied by two officers and a guard of ten men. This heavy guard was because they seemed to fear an attack by the KP (which I gathered from their conversation). After we arrived at the hospital, Hans was first interrogated alone. Later on I understood what this was about. Before I was allowed to see him I had to promise two things:

1. That we would not speak English together.
2. That I would not tell him that the papers had been burnt.

I promised this and was admitted. He was lying in the German part of the hospital, alone in a room, with two guards outside the door. I got the impression that he was in a pretty bad state. His jaw drooped to the right, because he had been hit while being interrogated in Wognum. He lay flat on his back and looked very pale. He had probably been operated on that day. He had been shot once and the bullet had gone right through his body and had damaged one lung. At first all four of us had to pick our words carefully as neither the SD officers, nor Hans or myself knew how to begin. Finally I started to ask Hans why he had written that second letter and had requested me to send a telegram. He surely knew, didn't he, that I did not know a single address of the operator. This was a painful moment, Hans then said he would like to have the telegram sent and that I ought to be able to contact the operator some way, by telephone or via a cut-out address (someone who was known and trusted, but not in any way involved with the work). He also acknowledged my declaration that I did not know any address of the operator.
The SD then proposed the following: I would be allowed to sit alone in a room and make a connection by telephone with the operator. This was to take place at the Apollolaan
(SD HQ). First, though, the officers had to give their approval for this plan, then they asked us what we thought of it. I said immediately that I agreed, for although I knew that they would be able to follow the conversation without being present, I intended to ring someone, if I had the chance, who had nothing to do with the whole business, but who would nevertheless be able to warn the others. How I was to do this, I did not quite know yet, but I had the whole night in front of me to think it over, as the SD had said that it was to take place on the following morning (February 13th). This was the most important thing we spoke about there.
After the conversation with Hans I was taken to the prison on the Amstelveenseweg. I expected to be put on trial the next morning, but nothing happened. I stayed there for eight days in so-called 'Einzelhaft' and was taken to Scheveningen. I was put under the supervision of the head of the espionage-department, Francke
(Friedrich Frank) and my Sachbearbeiter was Otto Haubrok". This man had worked during the whole period of the occupation in Holland and had been occupied with English agents and everything in connection with them.

On Wednesday February 21st I was interrrogated by Haubrok for the first time. He began bu showing me a letter written by 'Nol' (Arie van Duin) at the instigation of Hans and signed by the latter. Haubrok told me first of all that Hans was in Scheveningen and that 'Nol' and 'Tony', two agents, who had been dropped, and were aloso arrested and taken to Scheveningen, were taking care of him.
In the letter addressed to me, Hans asked if I would see to it that he got some food and toilet-articles. I then asked Haubrok what the meaning of all this was, for it was rather difficult for me to attend to all from my cell. Haubrok then told me his plans. He told me that Hans had been brought to Scheveningen five days earlier and that Haubrok had spoken to him quite a lot. They had come to the conclusion that it would be better in all respects, if the two operators, Douwe and Bram, whom he actually mentioned by name (
!) would agree to have themselves made prisoners-of-war. (This would mean that Tobias was brought over to Scheveningen on February 16th and he gave away the fact that he had two operators.)
He thought that I would certainly be willing to cooperate on this. I would also have to reveal the technical material. I I would agree to these demands, no more people would be arrested. They would no longer look for the two girls and he would release me.
Haubrok told me he would accompany me to Amsterdam to carry out his plans, so that I would be able to attend to these various matters. Of course this liberty would only be granted after a male prisoner would agreen to 'stand bail' for me. In order to convince me that I would be rendering humanity a great service, he told me that the agents, once they were in Scheveningen, were so relieved to be out of the 'illegal world' at last, because it was such an awful mess there, that they unanimously declared: "If we had known all this before, we would have stopped our work long before this."
To make this clear to me, he illustrated his remarks with a number of examples from the 'illegal world' from which it was supposed to be evident how much discord there was, and the great danger of Communism. Without their knowledge of it -so he said- the agents were being forced to send coded messages to Russian spies. In Rotterdam alone there were five such spies, he said. As an example of the widespread discord, he told me the story of the arrest of '
Lange Jan' (Jan Thijssen, RVV). He also told me  all the details of Tini (Didi) Gaazenbeek. He was most indignant about this affair. Tini courier to 'Nol' had been set free by him so that she could contact 'Bert' (Bert de Goede) from Rotterdam, and had been picked up by the KP. (Haubrok dacht dat Didi door de KP geëxecuteerd was.)
Of course it would be possible for me to meet the same fate if I cooperated with him, but he promissed to go about more carefully this time. He insisted that in any trials I would have to undergo, it would be best for me to cooperate completely. He said that Hans was also strongly in favour of this. I asked if I could speak to Hans again and he gave his permission.
The same day he took me to Hans' cell. He was known there as
Hans de Bruin - at least that was the name I saw on the note where his temperture was recorded. Hans looked much better than in Amsterdam; he looked more normal, and talked quite naturally with me. Haubrok stayed with us, and Nol (Arie van Duin) was also present. The conversation was not very important. Hans told me he was being treated decently but he felt pretty bad. He was not able to sleep and was not given a sleeping draught as he was still too weak. He asked about Pietje (Jard) and I told him he was OK. Then he told me that Haubrok was the man who represented the SD contact and to whom we had to deliver the technical material in December 1944 and whose address we had received from England: Anna Pavlowastraat, Den Haag. Hans had chosen Felix for this task at the time and Felix had gone to The Hague to deliver the material and find out how matters stood. They had been given the wrong address - it should have been Anna Pavlowaplein. The whole thing had been a trap, for when Felix returned to the address on the A.P. plein, he sent someone else over and waited a little further on. They were both arrested by the SD (The Saskia Game). On his way to prison Felix, who had not been searched, opened fire and escaped. One German was killed and Felix had been wounded. So without realising it we had been in contact with Haubrok before.
After talking to Hans for about half an hour, I had to leave and Haubrok continued the conversation with me alone. Inside Hans' cell we had not spoken about Haubrok's suggestion.

This was the last time I saw Hans, he died three days later, on Saturday February 24th.

Not only had Haubrock told us a great deal, but he also asked me a lot of questions. he asked about the drops, BBC messages etc. I told him nothing about all that, saying that I had no information about these matters. In addition he wanted to know the contents of the telegrams, and I declared that it was mainly about political and military matters, and last but not least about internal problems. I did not give him any further details. He changed the subject of these internal difficulties and came back to his suggestions, and finally promised me that I would be allowed to speak to the imprisoned agents myself and could ask their opinion about his plan. Luckily it never came that far.

On Friday February 23rd the operator 'Lammert'
(Jan Hoogewoning) and his courier 'Ank' (Akke Cnossen) were brought in from Utrecht. They had been working for the 'Albrecht' group and Haubrok then had to devote all his attention to this affair. After I had been alone in a cell for another three weeks, Ank and I were put together. Lammert was sent to Amersfoort and was shot there on March 7th, in a reprisal for the attack on Rauter.

Haubrok never mentioned his suggestion to me after Hans died and I did not know what the reason was. Nor did he interrrogate me officially any more. He only told me about Hans' death three weeks later. He did not comply with my request to be allowed to send a letter home. I was not permitted any contact with the outside world.

On Wednesday February 28th I was interrogated by Oberleutnant Weiss, who was the head of the D.F.
(direction finding) department. He only asked me about technical matters, code-systems, contact with the operators, etc. He showed me the telegrams which had been found at 5 Nicolaas Maesstraat and wanted to find out if I had written them, which appeared to be the case.

However I told him nothing about the contents. Since I was not informed about any technical matters, I could sit there quietly without giving any answers to the things he asked. Both Haubrok and Weiss showed me a number of photographs, asking me whether they were people I knew. Although of course I could easily gather who they were, I told them that I only knew Hans and that Hans had never brought me into contact with any of the others.

I was kept in the prison in Scheveningen for another two months and on May 1st Haubrok came to fetch me from my cell together with Ank. he told us we were to go free and that he would take us home in his car. At first we did not trust him, but afterwards it proved to be OK. He planned to 'dive under' and first wanted to set all his prisoners free. It was his intention to go and meet the troops together with
Nol (Arie van Duin). For this purpose he had arranged to meet Nol in Utrecht in front of a shop at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. we were late though, and only arrived in Utrecht at 14.20 hrs, so he did not find Nol at the rendez-vous. After having waited for about five minutes he set us free and he returned to The Hague. He told me afterwards about the appointment with Nol, when Douwe (Paul Peters) and I put some questions to him in the prison in Rotterdam, where he is now.

In the evening of May 1st I arrived back in Amsterdam, where I immediately tried to contact Hans' successor
Dr.X via Carels telephone-exchange. I waited at his office at 82 Weteringschans for definite news of the liberation.





                                                    

      
                                                         
w.mugge@home.nl