Timbres and Harassments
Surviving under the occupying force

»As we left the dining hall of the Gymnasium on May 10th, we had the feeling that the great sides of our young lives were lost«, noticed Arthur Vanhee, student of the Holy Hart College, the heart of the Herz-Jesu-Gymnasium in Waregem, in his diary. » Later it wasn’t like before. It followed: A life at the gymnasium and the university during the occupation, forced labour and Collaboration. Things that made us sad, since we were ensouled by Till Eugenspiegel’s mind. We didn’t know happy, casual and stormy student times like the other generations had. For us, everything was war. Always war. When the situation 1947/48 was finally cleared up, we were finished with the studies and we began living facing the reality and the “struggle of life”. « In fact. Waregem couldn’t escape from war either and was surprised by the German invasion on the sunny morning of may 10th, 1940. Stukas fell in the low-altitude flight over the rural regions and a bomb, meant for the train of Desselgem, destroyed a farm and the naive population was surprised and feared over night. It didn’t take long and the German troops went through the Flemish village, their motorcycles and their trucks rumbled over the cobblestone pavement.

The Belgian broadcasting mobilized now. Young people themselves should report at the CRAB, the “centre de Recrutment de l' Armée Belge”. The young men from Waregem and surroundings, too. But here and elsewhere the men suddenly left house and farm. To France, away from the enemy. The poor and the rich, old and young were on the way, with their possessions on the bicycle, on the carriage or in the car. The German army had stolen the village’s beauty.Then the occupying forces settled down.The normal life died. Aeroplanes shouldn’t recognize neither town nor village. There was no more street lighting and the windows were dark. Food was rare and later there was a lack of everything. The schools teaching curriculum reduced and the windows could only stay open for ten minutes. On saturday and on Sunday you stayed anyway at home, to spare the tyres of the bicycles. Someone who got extra work didn’t have to do it because there was a lack of paper. Because of that, you had to learn your exercise by heart. The Belgian schoolbooks had to be revised.
Books written by Jews or extracts published by Jews were forbidden. For the millennium they needed more workers, because the Germans fought at the front. So the occupying forces searched for young Belgians and they didn’t stop in front of the gymnasium. „They arrived in front of the H. Hartgymnasium , in the first Jeep two soldiers, the gun in the stop, behind two soldiers.“ a contemporary witness from Waregem remembered. The Bistum had forbidden the teachers of the catholic gymnasiums to write lists or to hand them out. These schools were proud of being a “free” school instead of a school controlled by state. So they left being unsuccessful. « A few peasants hid their sons on the haylofts. But raids weren’t forgotten and only those who had luck got along.
Rural Flanders under Nazihysteria. Since may 1942 the Germans abolished the social security for the working majority, the unemployed and other “useless” existences, in fact they deprived their living status.To escape of the forced labours in Germany not only farmer sons disappeared, but also all other healthy young men. You couldn’t stay at home. „ Everytime when the bells rang at night, I thought that would be the Gestapo“ said the youngest son of a family with many children. They were everywhere, the German soldiers. On the market, where they bought horses and oats, loud on the streets and in the shops. „In the class we were always silent when we heard them singing in the streets…..“ Life was disturbed but we tried to make the best of it. The official time “Oosters uur” were not accepted from the rural population. The farmers just accepted the time of God, the ringing of the bells. After the Angelus. They were stubborn and so they offered resistance. Leaflets were enlightenments, wrong papers were used, Eating coupons stolen and weapons provided. Life was dangerous. And the everyday life full of spies.

Everywhere there was dearth and hunger. On the land not so badly like in town. That the own people in Hitler-Germany get enough to eat, they exploited the occupying areas shameless. In the East of Europe they provoked the “ death from starvation” . For that in Germany we didn’t know , despite of saving and a bad year 1942, a misery. The German citizen got per week 2250gramm bread, 500gramm meat and 270gramm fat, while the Belgian people got just a third. On the official market in Belgium they didn’t have any potatoes any more, not even vegetables and fruits.

2 Pictures (not available)
(Everywhere hunger. You had to wait for a ladle of soup or you scrounged as much as possible. The Belgians were allowed 1250 calories a day, the Germans got three times that.)


Farmer wives were busier than before. Their food, their butter, the home-made cheese, the delicious bread, their vegetables and their potatoes – the citizens could only dream of that. Because of that the citizens left the conurbations daily with the train, bicycle or by foot, just to get some potatoes. In the family Verplaetse had everyone an activity. The father led the boys school Sankt-Magareta- Pfarrei in Nieuwenhove and helped to maintain the little village church. The sons Léon and Albert were teachers in the same school, while the daughter Marie-José taught the girls writing and reading on the primary school next to them. And the younger sister Julienne worked in the kindergarden.

Picture (not available)
(The Verplaetses at a wedding on the country. Rudi hides in the second row, right to a family member in a white shirt.)


A teacher’s family from the picture book. The two younger daughters Jeanne and Cecile helped the mother in household and kitchen, while the youngest son Lucien the H. Hart College, the gymnasium in Waregem, visited. Rudi was the spoilt and had no special duties. Alternately Jeanne and Cecile ride the bike over the land and tried to get some needs of the family. The God-fearing teacher Clement Verplaetse, popular in the municipality, got some things illegally from the neighbours. Out of church, the school and a few houses there were just a few farms. Hunger was not present. And we were notify. Pigs ears, - feet and –heads were prepared with jellied meat or sausages and were for the war time a delicatessen. In hidings, often behind the house or in the stable, the housewife kept chicken, bred rabbits and sometimes a goat or a pig.
The small domestic animals were fed with potatoe peel or with fresh herbs collected by the children along the Gaverbeek. Cookbooks like »Ik kook zuinig« or »Sparsam kochen in
der heutigen Zeit« went fast. And the hay was en vogue again. How to bake a cake without eggs, without butter? How to conjure a delicious mayonnaise without oil? The skilled peasants got along well. They indulged in a cup of steaming pure coffee even in sparse times though it was actually not available any more and the desire had already accepted “Kneip” , a bitter stock out of wood-fired barley or wood-fired acorns enhanced with some succory.
In 1943, bought on the black market, a kilo of coffee sampled 120 times more than in

in times of peace. Two kilos of these magic beans were worth a whole piglet to the peasants. Who had secretely stored coffee in time made a good barter business, outflanked the peasant and “grew” himself his bacon.
Slaughter was done secretely. Since slaughter was punished with the maximum penalty. Those who were caught, were sent to prison. In fact for a long time.
At present, the hunt of peasants and bunnies was exclusively privileged to the occupying forces.
For this reason poaching became hip again. Who could mind? Only herring was available in large quantities.
After a wonderful fishing in the year 1943, in every household herring was eaten in any kind of variation: inserted acidly, roast, boiled in water mixed with vinegar, filleted, smoked or cured. Who is surprised about the fact that most of the Belgians could not smell not to mention eat herring after the war?
One was worried about the goods that could not be acquired from the peasants. Like sugar and salt, custard powder and pepper and many more. Therefore, food ration cards existed. Textiles such as new clothing and good wool or linen were almost not to gain, sometimes on card. The so-called surrogate soap was merely unusable and in addition it was just like other cleaning agent, meter cavity and brushes, a scarce good.
In Germany one had produced relief already before the war. The Nazis had introduced the rationing of textiles for the population not wearing a uniform by means of a “Reichskleiderkarte” which was valid for a year. The coupon consisted of 100 points that were discounted with the purchase of textiles. A pair of socks “sampled” 4 points, a pullover 25 points, a womens’ suit 45 points. Now this system had been translated into the occupied areas. But there was basically nothing to buy. So one had to patch and over again patch. Mother Verplaetse produced relief wherever she could. Because of her store she had certain relationships and indoors of the teacher’s family it was assiduously sewed, stuffed, patched and knitted. “ Rudi’s clothes are badly worn out as well, but Jeanne will endeavour to sew a new pair of shirts, panties and kielkens (aprons for peasants)” wrote anxious Marie-José to her cousin padre Idesbald in Westvleteren.
Fritz Mannheimer in Brussels was also dripping and wrote to his favourers in St.Sixtus: “ … have sold two good shirts two days ago for 500 frs. And now I have ordered 3 eggs and 100 gram of butter for Easter. In the meantime I have spoken to the mother of Rudi briefly. She is fine and she is fortunate about Rudi. The timbres of groceries are always complete for Rudi, aren’t they? Because I do not want anything to be out of order there.” The honest man mentioned at the same time that he would love to come to Westvleteren again to work “ afield etc” and told the Patres that he planned to visit the paschal fair at St.Gudula or St Bonifacius church from the Brussels .
Food ration marks ruled the survival. Organised gangs attacked city halls at night and stole whatever they could. Thereupon, all marks were treasured like gold and kept in safes by the responsible authorities
Parish halls were guarded.







Even the harvest on the fields was not safe anymore. At harvest time a Boerenwacht was employed, a kind of scrapper crew for the monitoring of the fields.
The peasants also did not come off . They had to supply the occupying forces with cattle, breadstuffs and potatoes.
However the Nazi - bureaucrats knew far too precise that the amount of products of slaughtering or harvested products imposed and requested by the authorities could not be true and immediately demanded severest control.
From 1942 the Belgian mayors and their authorities being responsible for the control were instructed to start a black list. A precarious matter. Should the mayor be denouncing the own folks? And harm the starving population even more? Not without reason ,some war mayors tried to avoid this office. And were insulted anyhow as collaborators by the native population.
There were people and people. Also in Waregem, where the former war mayor Joseph van Heuverbeke, member of the Flemish-nationalist party, of the VNV, has a good reputation until now-a-days. During the occupation almost all of the mayors in Flandern were members of the VNV, of the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond, a party established in 1933 in Flandern aimed at uniting the split Flemish-national political scenery. This party sympathized with the new order and was impervious to the Belgian form of government. Her members doted a “Groot-Neederland” or “ Dietsland”. This meant the breakup of Flandern from Belgium and its confusion with the Northern Netherlands, with Holland. A utopian idea and at the same time a stillborn child. Only few Belgians could take to it and the Dutchmen had little sympathy for the idea as well.

Except of the members of the family from Nieuwenhove only the district judge from Harelbeke, the dean of the church in Waregem and the war mayor knew about Rudi’s jewish origin. Though Joseph van Heuverbeke, surely more or less a sympathiser of the Germans, supplied family Verplaetse often with food ration cards for the little boy and guarded the boy’s identity.
Even today the family protects him. 60 years after the war, one still holds that van Heuverbeke was a just man and affirms: “Waregem was more important to him than the occupying forces.” The qualified teacher and talented intellectual ensouled by the Flemish theatre scenery and socially committed, was called a “wise” mayor and both the jury and the upper classes of the community of Waregem at that time supported his candidateship in 1942.
In contrast to some war mayors, he tried a grinding tightrope walk between love to his country and its’ people and the demands of the occupying forces. He knew about hunger and smuggling, about benevolence and delusional racism. About distress and calamity and about corruption. According to stories of the natives , he was endued with the necessary and sane appreciation for reality.
A transfiguration of facts? After the war the aesthete was arrested as collaborator at first, later he was rehabilitated in “ere hersteld”. Today his portrait can be found in the city hall between all of the dignitaries and mayors of the small town of Waregem.
During the winter of 1942/43 a defeat of Germany didn’t seem impossible anymore. BBC announced damage of the Germans and reported on the uprising in eastern Germany. The situation inclined. There was hope again.

On April 19, 1943 an uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto against the NS-regime had broken out after organisations of the “Waffen-SS” and the police wanted to dissolve the ghetto.
For three-quarters of the year up to twelve thousand inhabitants had been deported daily from the ghetto being established mid 1940 by the Nazis to the extermination camp in Treblinka.
The anguish was deep, very deep. And the enragement. Now the badly armed 1,100 members of the Jewish battle organisation ZOB fought a viewless struggle until the 16th May.
David against Goliath.
By detonations, conflagrations set by the Nazis and executions 12,000 people were killed during the revolt. The revenge of the Nazis was barbaric. After the abatement of the rebellion over 30,000 people were shot and 7,000 were sent to the gas chambers.

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