Erika's and Ton's story

Erika and Ton grew up in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. However, a lot of German was spoken and sung at home because their mother was German. The siblings knew that their parents had met in Berlin during the Second World War, but this was rarely discussed in the family. It was important to their mother Martha that her children went to university, as she herself had not been able to do so during the war. Erika studied primary school education. She married her childhood friend Bram van Santen and moved with him to Capelle aan den IJssel, where they started a family. Her brother Ton, ten years younger, first studied astronomy and later business administration. He moved to Mierlo near Eindhoven with his wife Ine van Vijfeijken and their children. When he was 40 years old, he lost his ability to work due to health reasons. In 2016, he began intensively researching the history of his family. In the estate of their father Kees Maas, the siblings found diaries from his time as a forced labourer in Germany, as well as letters from Kees to his parents and from Martha to Kees. Based on these documents, Ton wrote a book about the history of his parents.

“And there was such a tension in our home, I didn’t know what it was, but I felt it.”

Erika

The story of the parents

Born in the Netherlands in 1923, Kees Maas was transported to The German Reich in 1943 as a forced labourer, where he had to work at Telefunken in Berlin. He met 25-year-old German Martha Kopka at the doctor’s when they both wanted to take sick leave, even though they were not ill. They spent the day together and fell in love. When Martha was transferred to Reichenbach, now Dzierżoniów in Poland, they met secretly in Berlin and Reichenbach. With the help of friends and a fake travel permit, Kees even visited Martha in her home village of Alt Hammer (Kuźnica Katowska), southeast of Breslau (Wrocław) in what is now Poland. After the end of the war, they reunited in Ichstedt in Thuringia. Martha became pregnant and they married. Kees returned to the Netherlands and Martha and her daughter Erika were able to join him in 1947.

Birth certificate of Erika van Santen, 28 March 1946

Erika was born in Artern,Thuringia, in 1946. In late 1947, Martha Maas was allowed to leave the Soviet occupation zone with her daughter. She followed her husband Kees to the Netherlands, where Peter and Ton were born.

Private property van Santen

The diary of Kees Maas for the year 1945

Kees recorded observations, encounters, experiences, and feelings during his time as a forced labourer in the German Reich in several diaries. His first encounter with Martha is also recorded in these diaries.

Privatbesitz Maas

“We were a happy family, but there was also a lot of hidden sadness.”

Ton

Growing up in the Netherlands

Martha knew that life would be difficult for her as a German in post-war Dutch society. Nevertheless, she decided to live there with Kees and her children. Erika remembers her mother talking to the teachers when they expressed their anger towards Germans in class. Martha was worried that this anger could affect Erika. Martha spoke only once to her children about her experiences in the war, shortly before her death. Although Kees talked to friends about his time as a forced labourer, he told his children very little. Today, Erika and Ton regret not having asked their parents about their story. Ton’s daughter, however, was interested in the family’s history from an early age. She interviewed her grandfather Kees, thus preserving his stories for the family.

Interview