Aalten, 24 February 1945
On Saturday , February 24, 1945, bombs fell on and around the intersection of Kruisstraat (now Prinsenstraat) and Bredevoortsestraatweg, in the center of Aalten. The consequences of the bombing were disastrous: eight people died, including three children, some were injured and the devastation was enormous.
Addie Steenbergen, daughter of baker Steenbergen, lived almost on the corner of Kruisstraat and Prinsenstraat. A couple had just left the store when the air raid siren went off. The couple did not want to go into the shelter, but continued to take shelter in the porch. Addie had to go to the other side of the street from her mother to pick up her sister Netty, who was playing there. Mother Helmink was still outside and shouted that Netty was already in the shelter at her home. Addie went back home into the bomb shelter. Mother, grandma Meijnen and sister Bea, were already there.
Father and Toon Lammers, the servant, were still outside at the entrance to the shelter when the bomb hit. The bomb landed on the Steenbergen bakery. When they see a huge blowtorch, Addie’s mother tells them to sit close to her: “If we burn, at least they will see that we were sitting together.”
There was a huge cloud of dust and then a total silence…
Victims and havoc
When Addie, her mother and sister came out again, there was nothing left of the house, only rubble. Toon Lammers, the 18-year-old baker’s assistant, got a ladder on his neck and died instantly. Father Steenbergen had fallen headfirst into the cellar of the bakery due to the air pressure displacement. He had a skull base fracture and was in a coma. The couple (van den Berg-Jacobs) who took shelter in the porch also died. Netty died in the shelter of the Helmink family, as did Hansje Houwers and a daughter of Helmink, her playmates. These three children died due to overpressure on the lungs. Two Germans were also killed. Addie later found a piece of leg from one of them among the rubble.
Gerrit and Bernard Buesink were busy outside that Saturday afternoon, just after noon. They lived on the corner of the intersection Prinsenstraat/Kruisstraat. Father Beusink had a forge there. The house received a direct hit, but miraculously they survived.
Eyewitness report
Eyewitness account of Cindy Weeber’s father about the tragedy on February 24, 1945, written down in 2006:
“My brother had to get bread from the Wikkerink bakery, on Bredevoortsestraat, and I wanted to get a toll from the Cooperative. We went with my father’s bicycle, my brother Henk cycled and I sat on the back of the ‘pakkiesdrager’, and so we went to Aalten. First we went to get bread from Albert Wikkerink and then we cycled on to the Cooperative to get a toll for me.
Suddenly the siren sounded, a warning for air raid sirens. My brother Henk threw the bicycle with bread against the façade of the Buesink forge and hid from the bombs there and I went to shelter at bakery Steenbergen. What followed was a deafening noise of bombs whizzing down. All this took about 10 minutes. After about fifteen minutes I dared to get up. My hands, arms and head were full of wounds but I had nothing else. Afterwards I realized that I could have been dead, but when you lie there like that, you don’t think about it. When I got up and went outside, everything was one big mess and I was full of dust from top to bottom.
As I was scurrying over the rubble, I heard my brother shouting, “Jan, Jan, here I am.” I recognized his voice and shouted, “Where are you?” “Here”, it sounded and I saw a gray figure coming towards me. It was my brother Henk who was also covered in small wounds, but otherwise he was fine. The bike and the bag of bread were totally crushed.
My brother said to me , “Go home quickly, and tell them that everything is all right,” and I ran home and told father and mother what had happened. They both panicked and thought the worst, but I said that Henk was also fine. Father then went with me to pick up the bicycle and the bread, but everything was covered in rubble.
Later I heard that there were seven deaths. We did have a guardian angel then because we were both practically unharmed.
What I have noticed now, after all these years, is that my brother never talked to me about this incident again. This is becoming more and more apparent in me. I don’t know why, but every now and then I wake up at night, wet with sweat, and I see the weather in front of me. Maybe it can be explained as you get older, but it comes back more and more often.
Unfortunately, my brother passed away. How I would have liked to have talked to him about it, but alas. After a good 60 years, there comes a time when you start thinking about why we were spared and those seven others were not.”
