Janny van Duijnen-Vink

Janny van Duijnen-Vink *1935

May 7 1945

What do you know as a 80 year old woman about what happened 70 years ago? I will never forget that afternoon and it also had a great influence in my life. But details?
As a 10 year old child I went with Yns, our domestic help, to the Dam, not so far away from our home in Oud- West. I don’t remember how long we stayed there or what we did when the shooting started
Screen Shot 2016-06-05 at 19.31.38We were situated about 10 meters in front of  the houses between the Damrak and the NIeuwendijk. Everybody laid down and Yns laid on top of me to protect me. We laid there for a while and when the shooting stopped, the scouts guided us to a side-entrance into the Nieuwe Kerk. When we were in the church, I thought that I still heard shots. We were scared and for a while we were ducked away behind the pulpit.
After a while, the scouts let us out  via the backside of the church, they told us to go home via the Blauwehandsteeg, it is closed now. I can’t remember how the family reacted, but nobody spoke about it. My parents were very committed with the  Buddingh family, of which the young mother died after a few weeks on the complications of a bullet wound in her leg. She knew these people, they were member of the same church as we are. Not until I was an adult (or they wrote about it?) I got bother, I could not stand loud noises and always looked up the side with a large group of people. First I couldn’t talk about it, I started to cry immediately and wasn’t able to express myself. That is fortunately over, but the emotions always lay in wait, like the ‘Dam screamer’ some years ago. I was completely upset.

May 2016

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