L.J. Kampen van Ommen

I was 11 years old when I went with my parents to the Dam. We stood in the middle when the shooting started. We came in an alley where I lost my mother. My father smashed a window from the vicarage of the Nieuwe Kerk and lifted me, and tens of people, through that window, inside. We had to lay down between the pews, there were also people dying. After a while, in my experience a few hours, my mother arrived in the church. She had fled to the back of the furnishing shop of Mundheim and had heard from friends that we were in the church. My mother told us that in front of her a man was shot in his neck. You have to realize that we were all squatting at the Dam, so that man laid a little higher then my mother. Afterwards we were escorted outside, I believe by the Domestic Armed Forces, and we were heading home via the Jordaan.

That’s my story and I hope never to experience something like this because it remains with me throughout my life.

Greetings,
L.J. Kampen van Ommen