New Manitoba book has Rivers connection

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Published on Monday, July 24, 2017

By Sheila Runions

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Last March, a book launch was held in Winnipeg, the city of writer Lenore Eidse. It is also home to 88-year-old Anje van Tongeren, the subject of her book, The House of Blood and Tears. It is a biography of Anje’s work with the Dutch underground during the Second World War. Anje and her family (husband Dick and daughters Joanne and Freda) lived in Rivers for 25 years. A few weeks ago, a friend of the family who still lives in Rivers, suggested this newspaper inform readers of this important true story. And we agree!

In the book is a 2011 clipping from Jewish Tribune in which Anje is quoted, “I’m thankful for being alive and able to tell of the Holocaust. It makes me mad when people say it didn’t happen. I was there, I know it did!”

The book relates it took her 51 years before she could finally talk about the war without crying so it was then (a decade ago), she began speaking in churches, schools and on CBC TV to share her story. Sharing her testimony at a women’s conference in 2008 really impacted her friend Lenore. According to the book’s preface, “I asked if she had ever thought of putting her story into print and she said, ‘Yes, but I have no one to write it.’ ‘I’ll write it!’ I said boldly. And with this verbal agreement we began, on Dec. 28, 2008.” It took eight years of conversation, research, drafts and edits to complete the 446-page soft cover which is now available at Chapters/Indigo, McNally Robinson and on Amazon. 

A press release explains it is a “gripping tale of a young girl’s survival… the incredible true story of a family caught up in Hitler’s Holland. Overnight, the stark realization of a Nazi occupation caused a dramatic change in lifestyle for this family of three. Hillie [Anje’s mother] became a double agent, 12-year-old Anje a courier and document forger for the Dutch underground, and Jan [Anje’s father] decided to collaborate. Secrets, lies, the concealment of Jews and Allied pilots, these actions would imprison them in the notorious House of Blood and Tears.”

The House of Blood and Tears was originally known as Scholten Haus (house) in Grote Markt (Grand Place), the centre of her home city, Groningen. It was a beautiful, three-storey building with 28 rooms, 15-foot ceilings and eight-foot arched windows, built in the late 1800s. When Hitler’s men captured the city, they used these rooms to interrogate and torture people, including Anje and her mother — after Anje’s embezzling father tipped off the enemy. Anje spent hours practising various signatures to forge paperwork, admitting to signing each name at least 1,000 times before she considered it perfection. Following five years (ages 12-16) of underground work, she ultimately spent time in a concentration camp; the book tells she was in a six- by six-foot cell with four other girls and only three mattresses.

Though ever suspicious even after the war, she found love in Holland and married Dirk (anglicized to Dick when they immigrated to Canada) von Tongeren on Nov. 22, 1952. After an eight-day sea voyage, they landed in Halifax on Oct. 31, 1953; they were concerned about the crazy country. Halloween was not celebrated in Holland so all the costumed people worried them, but they continued their journey with a two-day train ride to Winnipeg. Once there, the immigration office offered him a job in Birtle; Dick was a mechanic so readily accepted. By 1956 they moved to Rivers, where they remained until the early 1980s. They lived above the old bank on the southeast corner of Main Street and Second Avenue, then above Rex Theatre, at “Grants farm” and their own farm at  NE 30-12-20. 

Daughter Freda says, “I was born out in the boonies, before there was a hospital in town; we lived there until 1975 when we moved into town on Dominion Street, across from the high school.”

Dick owned and operated Dick’s White Rose in Wheatland and Mac Van Motors in Rivers, with Bob McLaren. He also owned and operated Rivers Automotive Sound and Service, which he used to announce Highland games, parades, community events or even simply to promote upcoming events such as pancake breakfasts. During years of the air base, he drove school bus and in June 1962 he became projectionist at Rex Theatre. In July 1982, even though he now lived in Winnipeg, he loaned a sound system to Tarbolton Church, which was celebrating its anniversary. As early as 1946 when he still lived in Holland, Dick travelled to various towns and homes with his cousin, working as a movie projectionist/sound system man; it and mechanics were obviously passions he brought to his new home.

The House of Blood and Tears relates Anje was “the thinker” or “the listener,” a quiet and reserved girl who played the accordion. Yet while in Rivers, she worked at The Beanery restaurant in the train station, did accounting and sold admissions for the Rex Theatre and worked for Rivers Housing Authority, renting homes. The family also had a concession stand at Lake Wahtopanah for a number of years and they were active members of Zion Pentecostal Church and Rivers Legion.

Lenore’s writing career began in the newspaper business where her feature stories won first prize in Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association’s competition. She is the sister of  Sandra Birdsell, herself a renowned author. “I feel very privileged that Anje trusted me enough to tell her story,” says Lenore. And that story is so profound that two months after the book launch, Global TV interviewed her. 

This reporter considers the book an excellent read which has shocking facts that bring tears to your eyes, yet moments of laughter and overwhelming feelings of gratitude. A deep sense of pride was felt reading Chapter 44, The Canadians; it is Anje’s account of how our soldiers helped liberate her country and gain freedom for them on April 16, 1945. Though curfew was lifted and they could once again walk freely without having to show papers, the country was still starving and as our soldiers offered her food, she would vomit, until her stomach was once again conditioned to the variety and nutrients. Please, go buy this book!