Aalders of NZ & AUS

Antonius Bernardus Jacobus Maria Aalders  born 7 May 1903 in Amsterdam Son of Hendrik Adriaan Aalders and Bernardina Caminada. Anton never married . He trained as a chef .He saw how enormously hard his father had worked as a confectioner  ,so he was not interested to follow his Dad .Anton lived and tried to work during a period of economic depression prior to WWII in Europe .They were very tough times ….  

He served as butler to the Kruize family in Laren N H  and post WWII ,served with the UN forces in occupied Germany . There he learned a lot about the catering industry .He migrated to New Zealand in 1953  in the SS Strathmore . He managed the cafeteria for the Fletcher organisation in Penrose., Auckland for almost 30 years . He enjoyed private catering which he did for Sir James Fletcher ,who took him fishing .He encouraged his half brother/cousin Gerard to follow him in migrating to New Zealand in 1956. Anton never married and assisted his brother and wife Jo  to acquire their first house att 6 Ruapehu Street Mt Eden Auckland . 

 He was well read and read and spoke German, English ,Dutch and a little French .In later life he moved in next to his brother in a house they both owned  .He was a keen photographer . He was a kind and decent man, well educated , He died 9 May 1983 in his chair while waiting for his cup of coffee which his brother’s wife customarily  offered him upon her return from Sunday Mass. 

Hendrik Aalders and Maria Johanna Caminada had a son 

Gerard Adriaan Johan Aalders  born 30 Nov 1910 in Amsterdam . He was the son of Hendrik Adriaan Aalders and Maria Johanna Caminada , Gerard was blessed with a fine sense of music .He played entirely by ear .There was clearly detectable a certain artistic gift  which had clearly come from the side of his Caminada mother .His cousins Leo and Caspar  Caminada were also blessed with artistic temperaments and  fine and kind natures , as was his mothers brother , Uncle Henri Caminada .  They were gifted people but not very business like . Gerard had two electric organs at his home where frequently there were  music making get- togethers from people from the organ society to which he and his wife belonged .Gerard married Johanna Parijs ,the only child of an Amsterdam cafe licensee , Johanna Fromme ,who herself had been kept waiting for permission to wed her man, Jacobus Parijs, a non Catholic with Belgian nationality . Once she was 31 and then of Dutch legal age,the couple married and Johanna was conceived .   Jacobus died a year later  hardly knowing his child .

 Johanna Fromme was not cut out to be maternal material .Running a cafe she drank too much.to be a mother .As a toddler Johanna was placed with Johanna's cousim Jan Sluiter who had marrired Aagje   This couple had two sons and Jopie was reputedly happy in that family . Soon Uncle Jan and Aunt Aag became "Daddy and Mummy" to young Jopie .                                                                                 That infuriated her mother no end ,who decioded to pace her into a Catholic  orphanage ,where a nun "Mother Theresienne " soon became a "de facto" mother to Jopie . Jo was apprenticed in the hairdresser profession .Cafe's in Amsterdam's red light district keep late houirs . Consequently Jo's mother was hardly ever home .Gerard was a fine decent man of good character and a non drinker ,             The couple got on and loved eah other .Gerard was not to the liking of mother Johanna and she refused to attend their wedding, .Needless to say that Gerard and his mother in law did not like one another .Yet eaten up by bowel cancer .she convalesced and died at the Aalders  home in Hilversum in 1948 .

Johanna  was trained to be a hairdresser .Gerard and Jo married in Amsterdam on 5 May  1937 . She was 18. Gerard was 26 . Despite of the age difference it turned out to be a harmonius marriage.

  Johanna Aalders -Parijs 1918

World War II  , an Ode to Johanna Aalders-Parijs 

Shortly before their first child was born in Dec 1939, Hitler invaded Poland . 5 months after the birth of Henry Anthony, the Germans occupied the Netherlands .The new Aalders family  saw its beginnings in 5 years of war.

Belgium decided that it could not cope feeding its own people . All foreigners,which then included Gerard’s half brother/cousin, Thony , were expelled.  Jobless ,Thony arrived at the homer of a likewise  jobless Aalders couple in Hilversum . Almost immediately the plunder of the country its resources ,food supplies and its people had begun .The Aalders had to eat . 

The Aalders boys had an uncle ,a chemist in the Hague , an uncle  Giel ,who sold them alcohol, which .on  order of the occupier had been coloured purple to make it less useful. They scoured the markets for empty bottles of then local  perfume maker “Boldoot”.    Then they filtered the alcohol with “ Norit “ an activated charcoal, used to absorb impurities and added essences to make the potion  smell nice, The empty Boldoot bottles were refilled and sold . Everything made  during WWII was “Ersatz” but the  Aalders family did eat  that week .

The War effort could not keep up with the disposal of ammunition at the front , Labour was needed and German men were dying at the front. The occupier demanded that all Dutch able bodied men report for slave labour in German factories.  Gerrard and brother Thony and a third man,.a Mr van der Velde , had no intentions to report . They dug themselves a hide-out underneath the corridor of 17 Copernicus Straat  Hilversum,my parents  rented home  , where they hid for the remainder of the war.

There were “Razzia’s “ when soldiers in numbers would suddenly appear at one’s home in order to plunder or arrest people they considered should not be there or to drive fear into the occupied population .As a toddler I remember my mother pressing me firmly against a wall in order to protect me and my baby sister from bullets fired into homes including ours.

 My mother rode her push bike with her hairdressing gear  to Spakenburg and Bunschoten offering farmers a hair cut in return for a few eggs . “ I make you look handsome again and my family eats “ was her motto .She went out at night in the dark with her push bike and a hand saw. She returned with a young “wet”  tree she had cut that night from one  of the parks .    Wet timber is not the best fuel for a fire but it will burn in a pot belly and provide heat and a hot plate to cook on .  During these terrible times my mother was close to her 22nd birthday at the onset of occupation and close to her  27th birthday  when the German surrender was signed in 1945. There is no doubt that my mother during these 5 years was required to “wear the pants” and did so with merit . Thank God that she did . .She was a brave and resourceful woman. At times she did feed 4 adults and 2 children .

During WW II there was a total radio block out .Other than the government operated propaganda chanel, it was illegal to possess  a radio receiver.My mother recorded how one dark cold evening there was someone banging on the door ,who introduced himself as an Inspector of the Dutch police in Hilversum .  :”We have information that you possess a radio receiver in your home” was the charge  My mother naturally denied it . Then the inspector pushed her aside and walked directly to the place where it was hidden . “you have been betrayed “.   ” Fortunately we ,at the Dutch police intercepted the information, now get rid of it immediately “ My mother ashen and young agreed .

There were some beautiful patriotic people serving in the Dutch police force of the day ! 

Raising a family in post WW II Holland was tough . The country through plunder as near bankrupt ,and Gerard was the motivating force to bring his family to New Zealand in 1956 .He never regretted it . Gerard died 22 March 1985 . On 5 May 1937 Gerard married Johanna Parijs  born 3 July 1918 in Amsterdam , Of the couple,  Jo was the one more business like.  It was a house where Jo wore the pants and Gerry was happy with that situation .They were a good and caring couple 

21 Birthday despatch rider Joseph Braconnier ca June 1945 Hilversum

Hilversum was liberated by Canadian and Polish forces in early May 1945 

Gerard and Jo being  multi lingual , opened their home to Canadian soldiers  some of whom were not much younger than Jo Aalders . They made life long friendships with all of the lads who frequented my parents home at least once every week . Gerard and Jo made three extended trips to Canada to visit their liberating friends          

Gerard and Johanna had following childern

Henry Anthony Aalders born 28 Dec 1939 in Hilversum the Netherlands 

Wilhelmina Johanna Maria Aalders was born 2 July 1943 in Hilversum the Netherlands 

Gerrard Francis Leonard Aalders  was  born 23 Jan 1953  in Bussum the Netherlands