While all the slaughter and destruction was going on in the world, we kept studying and hoping for a more constructive future. The fifth graders were moving up, ready to start their new school year in September 1942. We were divided into two groups; the clever ones who were destined for the HBS, Lyceum or Gymnasium went to grade 6A and came under the care of the principal. The not-so-brilliant ones came to study under Anton Zweers in 6B, a friendly man in his mid thirties, always impeccably dressed, with thinning blond, well-groomed wavy hair. Most of his students went on to the ULO (Secondary school) or Ambachtschool (Technical School).
Yes that’s me, that ‘scholarly’ looking little bloke with coat and tie complete with fountain pen in pocket near the principal Brother Koenraadt.
My daughter recently did give another description when her eyes came to rest on this photo, ‘oh you are such a little gentleman, a real nerd’.
Some classmates’ names come to mind, Burgers, Jansen, Freriks, Scheefhals (a strange name we thought ‘Wryneck’), van Dijk, Holman, Nienhaus, Schrevers, van Dalen, van Eijk, Bolgers, Liethof, van Praag, Mulder, Bos, van der Sluis, Heggelman, van Wijngaarden, Lensink, and Theo Koks, who had two charming sisters of which Betsy let me flounder with her bashful smiles and sweet face. Their father ran a café at the Korenmarkt.