I am born in 1931 and on May 7 1945, I was 13 years old and lived then in the Bloys van Treslongstraat in Amsterdam-West.
On May 7 1945 I went to the Dam to see the arrivel of the Canadians. When I arrived at the Dam it was crowded. I had a place in front of the Palace and nearby the Groote Club.
Suddenly there was a shooting from the Groote Club into the crowd at the Dam and everybody started to run. I ran in the direction of the Bijenkorf, I got a kind of bump in my back and felt blood streaming along my back. I tried to hide behind a lamp post. It was less crowded at the Dam but the shooting kept on so I stayed behind the lamp post.
Suddenly a man with a carrier cycle came towards me, he put me on his cycle, with the risk of his own life, and brought me to a hotel (I don’t remember the name) at the corner of the Dam/Damrak.
They bandaged me provisional there, and next on the carrier cycle to the Binnengasthuis. A jeep with Germans came by, the man drove me into an alley and stood in front of me. The Germans solve a few shots and disappeared, the man said laconic: ‘we leave that behind us’. Without further incidents we arrived at the hospital. It seems I had a shot wound in my back, the doctor told me that when the shot would have been a few inches lower or higher, I would be paralyzed.
Photo: Hans Sibbelee, collection Dutch Photomuseum
After been bandaged, the Salvation Army brought me home. In the picture above I lay on a stretcher and that is the moment where I was taken home by the Salvation Army. I had to lay on my belly for six months. I never known the name of the man who saved my life.
Wim Anderiesen
February 2015
Postscript: This contribution has been obtained via the letter Jan Pols, from the collection letters Budde
Wim Anderiesen make’s his debut on March 11 1951 in the first team of Ajax
