Ineke’s Grandmother (Sientje)
“He always wore a leather box around his neck with a strap; the engineer from Amersfoort. He had seen our farm from the locomotive many times and went looking for it, thinking there was likely food to be had there. At that time, Bathmen still had a station. It was very dangerous for the engineer because reconnaissance planes often flew over the farm since it was reasonably close to the railway line. So he waved a white cloth and only came when it seemed safe. We churned butter on the farm in a milk can. The butter would float to the top. We used a stick with a round wheel at the bottom. You still had to churn for quite a while. We then scooped off the butter and let it drain in a cloth, just in a linen pillowcase. You had to knead the water out or press it out with a wooden spoon. Then you’d have butter for a while. It’s always a bit different from what you buy now. There was a bit of a sour taste, but we didn’t care because we ate everything back then anyway.”

Roosje’s Grandmother (Frederika)
“Frans was very good at drawing and was very precise. He had a graphic talent and was therefore an excellent forger. But such an identity document first had to be stripped of the information you wanted to remove, and I had to do that. Just messing around with bleach or something similar, and you would get rid of the wrong things. Then the paper had to be made writable again. Yes, it was mainly about signatures, I remember. You can remove ink writing with bleach. I even do it sometimes now, haha. But if you’ve treated that paper, you had to rinse it off with water and ensure it didn’t go further than absolutely necessary. After the paper dried, you had to make it writable again, and for that, you needed egg white; I needed egg white granules for that.”