his holidays. 'I'm stuffed away in some old archive,
and my wife and kids dragging around the town, or
visiting the local museum. Often it means going
through cartloads of paper. What am I doing here? he
often thought to himself. Research costs a lot of time,
let alone money. But then: if I make that ONE marve
lous find, I really feel like the King of the Hill.'
Good guys and bad guys
One thing Heijkoop has really learned in all his years
of research and contacts: to seek the nuance 'The
story of the good guys and the bad guys never suffices,
the truth does not discriminate. In the province of
Zeeland, most soldiers were ordinary Germans, not
nazi's. The repression, the persecution of Jews, it was
nothing like the situation in cities: the bombing of
Rotterdam, or the Anne Frank/strike tales coming
from Amsterdam. And after the Liberation, common
sense soon had to prevail. Flushing was shot to pieces,
Walcheren was flooded. When tourism began to start
a few years after the War, the people of Walcheren seized
their opportunity. The Germans were collected by the
bus-load from the station in Middelburg. A few years
later, you could find citizens of Zeeland living in the
chicken-shack, whilst renting their house to German
tourists. Zimmcr Jrei.'
Whilst working on this current project, he finds
that matters are most often more grey, than simple
black&white. 'My new book is finished for 90%. It
tackles the issue of Kleinkampfrnittel. Especially one-
and two-seater Submarines. After the liberation end of
1944, the war raged on for six months along our
coast. From Hellevoetsluis, Hoelc van Holland,
IJmuiden and the likes, these mini-subs set out to
besiege the convoys from the south of England to
Terneuzen. A risky business. The crew aboard these
mini-Subs were by no means real Nazi's', Cor concludes.
They weren't even volunteers. True to their country,
but not to Nazism. They were just ordered to do the
job, and they too knew the risks involved. Himmelfahrt-
kommandos, they called themselves. True Kamikazes.
Through his research, Cor Heijkoop has maintained
a large international network and an extensive archive.
But most of all, he enjoys the personal contacts with
people, at home in Zeeland, or abroad. 'A Scot from
Stornoway was a sailor on the Valentine, that sank
near Terneuzen. The man was pronounced dead here,
but I found out he was alive. So I seek contact in
Stornoway, get a letter replying "I am Alive" and I
sent him his own death-certificate in Dutch. He [even]
wrote that he had bought himself a bottle of whiskey,
to celebrate. When I invited him over to the
Netherlands, he refused. "Naaaaah", he said. "They
had pronounced me dead once there, it won't happen
to me again".'
The BunkerMuseum can be found at Dune Het Pauwtje along
the Duinweg 40 in Zoutelande: www.bunkerbehoud.com.
Cor Heijkoop's most recent book is (in Dutch) Verdaagd voor de
boulevard, Vlissingen: Uitgeverij ADZ, 17,95.
9 Zeeuws Tijdschrift 2004/6-7
