Arnoldus Petrus Stroop – Nol

* March 16, 1905 Oosterhout
† May 7 1945

foto-ontvangenNol, a ground worker, son of Cornelis Hermanus Stroop and Antonia Jacoba Koreman, married Pieternella Marsman in Amsterdam on May 11, 1933. He died May 7, 1945 at 4 pm as a result of gunshot wounds. He was 40 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their only son Ton tells us:

“The Canadians were coming! So the whole family, father (40), mother (36) and I (5 ½) went to the Dam. We were standing near travel agency Lissone Lindeman. My father put me on his shoulder so I had a perfect view. I just remember that the square had filled up with people.

It must have been around 2:45 pm (in retrospect) that my mother wanted to go home. ‘Home’ was the Laurierstraat in the Jordaan. My father stayed behind. When we were on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal we heard shots. We kept on walking, fast, through the Raadhuisstraat and the Rozengracht to the Laurierstraat.

Of course my mother became worried when my father didn’t come home. It turned out that he had been mortally wounded and had been brought to the Zuiderkerk. How she got that information, I don’t know. But I do know that a neighbor identified him in the church. He was buried at St. Barbara’s on the Zuidelijke Wandelweg/Amstelveenseweg. In unconsecrated ground because he had not fulfilled his obligations at Easter!

My mother and I were left behind without any source of income. After all, my father had not died during the war so we did not get benefits. We had been living at the Laurierstraat 250 but then we had to move to my grandparents’ in the same street at number 220; my mother could no longer afford the rent. Many years later she finally got some payment for ‘war victims’; from which authority, I don’t know.’  [ed: Stichting 1940-1945]

Ludmilla van Santen
Project Group
December 2013

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