Five Brothers and a War

Dirk van der Lecq

In 1951, Kees married Flora van der Lecq. The van der Lecq family, consisting of father Dirk, mother Adriaantje (“Jeanne”), Flora (9 years old when the war broke out and 14 when the war ended), Ada (7/12), Emmy (5/10) and Dick (3/8), moved to the Tomatenstraat during the war, and were there for the Hongerwinter. With four hungry children to feed, and the pantry empty, Dirk had to go to extremes to locate food. Dirk and Adriaantje grew up in De Bilt, located just to the east of Utrecht. She still had a brother, Frans, and sister, Mien, who lived on a farm there. Frans, being a farmer, had access to food. However, getting there and back was a real problem because there was no public transportation, and no access to automobiles. The Germans had confiscated more than one million bicycles, and even if a person did not turn theirs in, riding across the country was an invitation to lose the bicycle being ridden. However, Dirk knew a doctor who had a patient who owned a handicapped bicycle—or more accurately, a handicapped tricycle because it had two wheels in the front and one in the back. Over the front wheels was a large basket device where a disabled person could sit.

van Pelt

Dirk and Jeanne made the heartbreaking decision to send the two middle girls, Ada and Emmy, away to the country. One would live with Jeanne’s brother and sister, and the other with another sister. It was far too difficult to feed six people in the city. On February 15, a rail-thin and very hungry Dirk set out with the two girls in the front basket to travel some 75 km (46 miles) to see his brother- and sister-in-law. After hours of peddling, he arrived at the farm. He spent the night recuperating and set off again in the morning for the trip home—without the girls, but with food in the front. At any point, either the Germans or the Centrale Crisis Controle Dienst (CCCD) could have stopped him and confiscated the food, as it was illegal to work outside the system.

Five Brothers and a War

Page 472