Chapter 12 Childhood Memoir The Misadventures of Hansje
Hansje Cheers the Rescuers
“Hansje!” Papa shouted, “Come on. The liberators are coming. Let’s go and see them. Today is our liberation day!” Hansje was only seven years old, and he had no idea what liberators were, but Papa sounded happy and excited, so he grabbed his jacket and ran to where Papa was waiting by the door.
Papa handed him a little Dutch flag with red, white, and blue stripes and said, “Today we can wave our flag again. The good soldiers are coming, and the bad ones are all running away.” Hansje waved his flag and saw that lots of houses had big flags on poles sticking out of windows and fastened to the roof. He had never, ever seen a single Dutch flag. Now he saw hundreds of them!
When they got to the big, central street, people were crowding along the curb. The bells in the huge St. Vitus church behind them were constantly ringing and ringing. Everywhere Hansje looked, people were laughing and smiling.
Papa was tall, so he could see easily from the sidewalk, but he pushed Hansje into the crowd to get to the front. Hansje squirmed and squeezed his thin body through the jostling crowd until he got a spot on the curb. The bright sunshine warmed his face, arms, and knees as he squinted into the light. He clutched his little flag, ready to wave, ready to shout, ready to sing a welcome to his rescuers.
He overheard two men behind him as they talked happily about the day. “It’s Tuesday, May the 8th, 1945. Today is a day we’ll never forget!”
Hansje heard the rumble of heavy army trucks up the street, and he heard the crowd there begin to cheer and sing. The noise grew louder until huge dusty green trucks blocked out the sun. Shouting, laughing soldiers waved their machine guns from the backs of the trucks. The applause and cheers of the crowd around Hansje nearly drowned out the rest of the crowd’s loud singing of the Dutch national anthem.
Then tanks rumbled by them, pulling long-snouted cannons. Their thunderous booming had kept Hansje awake a few nights ago. Now those cannons seemed to be sniffing the air, eager to chase away the bad soldiers from the next city.
Suddenly the cheers died down as a column of prisoners, bad soldiers in their grey-green uniforms, shuffled past. Their pistol holsters flapped empty on their brown leather belts. They held their now-empty hands high or laced their fingers on top of their heads. Good soldiers, each with his machine gun ready to shoot, walked alongside them.
The crowd around Hansje stood silently watching the prisoners go by, but then they began to boo and hiss as a small group of the bad soldiers’ officers came closer. Finally! No more proud strutting. No more snooty looks. No more angry shouting.
When Hansje saw them in their black officers’ uniforms, he felt a twinge of fear. He had heard bad soldiers in black uniforms shout, “Shoot them! Shoot them dead!” And he had heard the guns shooting. But now nobody was afraid of them. Instead, people in the crowd rushed out and spat on them so much that their black uniforms were all slimy and yucky.
The last truck in the parade rolled closer. Hansje cheered himself hoarse and waved his little flag at the good soldiers until one reached down, grabbed it, and waved it high as his truck rumbled on down the street. Hansje tasted the salt of tears, not because he lost his little flag, but for happiness at knowing the rescuers had arrived and that the bad soldiers would never make him afraid again.
As he turned to look for Papa, he realized he now knew what liberators were. And he knew exactly what he would thank God for in his bedtime prayer that night.