From the Frying Pan...: A Young Boy's Experiences

By Eddy Raats and Ian Richmond

Eddy Raats is already deservedly well known in the Esperanto community. It was a surprise when he published an autobiographical work, "The Long Journey" (2009), in which the experiences he recounted gripped the reader until the final page. As a four-year-old in Switzerland, where he had been sent for tuberculosis treatment, he suffered

• Language: Esperanto
• Publisher: Monda Asembleo Socia
• Release date: Nov 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9782369602101

Book preview

Introduction

Although my first nine years were chaotic enoughI – in Switzerland, where my dad passed away and where I lived for five years during World War II, far from my homeland and my family – during the subsequent years, for the ten-year-old child, teenager, and finally young man that I was, the chaos persisted and was even exacerbated by further blows of fate.

I had dreamed of happiness and love in the bosom of my family, with my mother, my brothers and sisters. It proved to be just the opposite: my return to Belgium was a journey into hell. In Switzerland, with my last war-time foster parents, I lived the life of a rich child. In spite of this, I dreamed day and night of returning to my own family. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – I was unable to foresee the future. In my adoptive country, I was materially well off. Also, my foster parents strove to give me the love that had been so lacking in my life. It was only later that I realized my error: to be happy, do not crave what you do not have or cannot get, but rather appreciate what you already have. The result could surprise you.

During my almost five-year absence, I developed an idealized image of mummy. Her lovely face and black hair were certainly real, but my fantasy, which created in my mind a wise, clever, caring and loving mother, proved much later to be at odds with reality. In the image I created, she was the nicest and kindest being alive. The long separation and the language problem, however, formed a strange wall between us. I did everything possible to gain her attention and respect, but it was all in vain. Nevertheless, this failure spurred me on to even greater efforts to be good and to satisfy her. Yes, she looked after my material needs, but she never gave me a mother’s love. Why? I am sure that my long absence was responsible, but at that time I did not realize that there could be other barriers. Later, I came to understand that she was unconsciously jealous of me, jealous because she and her other children lived through the war in Belgium in wretched circumstances, while I had the good fortune to live in relative luxury in Switzerland and to have regular contact with our seriously-ill dad. I was the only family member at dad’s funeral. She was able only to visit his grave five years after the war. She was denied the possibility of saying goodbye to her beloved husband, the father of her children.

In Belgium, I found a country half destroyed, heart-breaking poverty and, worst of all, hatred and a desire for vengeance. We suffered not only from poverty, cold and hunger, but most of all from the cruel psychological aftermath of the war. A war is not over when the generals sign the peace treaty; from that moment on, the skeletons of the ruined houses and the psychological destruction are clear to see. It is then that the absence of the myriad beloved companions who never returned from the ruins, the extermination camps or the battlefields makes itself cruelly felt. Then it is time for vengeance to present its reckoning – even to those close to us! Hatred and vengeance reigned; the normal rules of society fell apart and justified anything at all.

For collaboration or alleged collaboration with the enemy, a great many citizens were arrested and untold numbers of accused were sentenced to severe punishments, whether they were guilty or not. Hundreds died, were even shot dead in public executions. Unbelievably inhuman scenes unfolded, sometimes even in the guise of popular celebrations. Is this the peace everyone longed for? And what about the psychological consequences for the children of my generation? To preach love, then, in the name of vengeance, to shoot dead one’s neighbours. Never, not even more than sixty years after the war, has our government declared a general amnesty. Even today, the several hundred of those found guilty and still living are deprived of their civic rights, and many of them live in extreme poverty. Is this peace? And what of the young men of that time who, recruited by the Church, joined the army of the Eastern Front to fight against the so-called Red Devil of communism? If they survived the fighting and managed to get home, they were wounded psychologically to find that everyone shunned them, as though they had the black plague, because they had fought on the side of the enemy! Yes, many people deserved serious punishment, but vengeance does not serve justice. For its part, the Church said nothing in any language about its own guilt.II

During this period, the Roman-Catholic religion’s power was immense. In Flanders it reigned supreme. The two village potentates were the priest and the mayor. The latter was often the notary or some aristocrat from the village. The priests dictated how to live, what to believe, what to read or not to read, which newspapers and books were not allowed because they were on the Index. The atheistic Freemasons were the great curse, while the devil, i.e. the communists, dwelled in the East. Hey, young man! You’re not married, so don’t give your fiancée a French kiss, because that is a grave sin. Hey, you married couple! Remember that sex is only for procreation, otherwise it is a very grave sin! Did you just have a baby? Then first confess your sin, then, as penance, give your child to the Virgin!

During the run-up to the election of 1950, which occurred while Suenes was the Catholic archbishop, bishop Lamiroy of Bruges had a letter read out from the pulpit in every church during mass to inform the faithful that "Whoever does not vote for the Christian political party will be guilty of a mortal sin. Lamiroy was the 23rd bishop of the diocese of Bruges. He was one of the so-called princes of the Church, who guide the priesthood and the faithful with a strong hand. In national and local elections, he did not hesitate to point out to the faithful that their grave duty of conscience was to vote only for the list approved by the ecclesiastical authorities".

The archbishop Lamiroy was the 23rd bishop of Bruges. He was one of the socalled princes of the Church

According to the stereotype of the pious Flemish family, the eldest son became a Roman-Catholic priest or missionary and the eldest daughter became a nun. In most cases, the school system and the parents believed it was their sacred duty to force these children to follow their vocation. On the whole, was this systemic pressure not indoctrination? Following the Second Vatican Council in 1961, many young priests and even nuns of the time resigned in disappointment and chose to live as lay persons. They had hoped for a grand reform including, among other things, the abolition of mandatory celibacy. We still say, jokingly, that someone about to marry has defrocked him/herself in a flash.

* * *

Barely 34 years old, dad died of TB in a Swiss sanatorium in August 1945, six years and four months after his illness was diagnosed. Mum and my siblings, who remained in Belgium, lived through the war with great difficulty. This brave woman never saw her husband again after she visited him in 1940 and returned home pregnant just two days before the war exploded into Belgium.

Before the Second World War ended, mum was living in a dangerous little town near Antwerp. She fled with her children from there to a very quiet village in East Flanders. In 1947, she remarried with the intention of giving her children a new father and financial stability. Unfortunately, the very opposite occurred. André, our new stepfather, came home drunk most days and seldom brought home any money. The result was foreseeable: poverty, debt, quarrels between our parents, recriminations, and threats. Every trifling transgression became justification for disproportionate punishment or severe beatings. This not only wounded the body, but even more so the soul. The beatings at least had the advantage of making us forget our hunger. Add to that the material privation and you will perhaps understand the world and the grim atmosphere in which we grew up. Thanks to a strange, mental block, I refused to see the real causes of our situation. I never consciously grasped the facts as they truly were. I buried all my feelings, because I was convinced that it was my fault, because I was the biggest sinner in the world, because God punishes sins, so the priest taught us during our religious classes. How often I went to sleep in my brother Joske’s arms, crying without tears, tears that had dried up long ago. We had no need of words, because our reciprocal brotherly support and understanding were our biggest consolation during those dark years.

My mother’s marriage to André Latré, the 1st of May, 1946

We, six children and two adults, lived here from 1945 to 1948. My youngest brother Marinus was born here. The cottage was torn down towards the end of the 1900s.

On the left is the front of the cottage with its huge garden that I was made to look after. On the right is the back of the cottage.