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Eyewitness Story: Kees Platschorre
Kees Platschorre, from Ellewoutsdijk, was seven years old when the war broke out. He was the youngest of ten children. His family’s house was located by the sea, next to the fort of Ellewoutsdijk. Initially, Dutch soldiers were stationed at the fort. When two of these soldiers asked the family for civilian clothes, Kees’ father threw their traded uniforms into the sea, sinking the helmet with stones. Shortly after, German soldiers arrived with weapons drawn, searching for the Dutch soldiers. The war had begun, and soon the area around their house was swarming with German soldiers.
Working for the Germans
Kees’ brother was forced to work for the Germans in the fort, where he had to clean and pack ammunition. Kees’ sister also had to work for the Germans, peeling potatoes and scrubbing mold off bread in a tub. Although there was little organized resistance in the village, illegal activities still took place. For example, Kees’ father regularly slaughtered a pig at night. To keep the numbers on paper accurate, he immediately replaced the large pig with a piglet.
The Evacuation
Toward the end of the war, the Platschorre family’s home was seized, and they were forced to evacuate to the center of the village. Even there, it was dangerous, and the falling bombs from the Allies, aimed at German positions, sounded to Kees like howling wild wolves. Eventually, the entire village had to evacuate to Driewegen, but even there it wasn’t safe. When the Scots arrived, fierce fighting broke out. Kees remembers the fearful nights when the children were allowed to sit with the adults.
That One Shell
During one of those nights, disaster struck. A shell exploded in the house, turning everything into a massive cloud of dust. “It was a single flash and a huge dust cloud. Walls bursting apart, and shrapnel flying everywhere,” Kees recalls. His mother, who was sitting diagonally across from him, was struck by a piece of shrapnel in her neck. Kees crawled through the wreckage on his knees, trying to warn his sisters to leave, but they stayed put. “That cost my mother and two sisters their lives,” Kees says. He was eleven years old when this happened.
The next morning, Kees left the house, numb, and sat on a bench along the road. As the Scots marched by with their bagpipes, he heard music for the first time since the war had begun. “Even now, whenever I hear a bagpipe, everything comes back. But that’s okay, because it comes back anyway.”
Kees Platschorre
Read below the story of Kees Platschorre, a boy from Ellewoutsdijk, who lost his mother and two sisters at a young age due to a grenade explosion during the war. He grew up in a village where the war gradually closed in, with German soldiers stationed in the fort next to his home. Despite the terrifying moments, Kees continued to fight for survival and to protect his family. His story is a testament to loss, courage, and the indelible memories the war leaves behind.