Gerdina Huisman-Rabouw
Gerdina Huisman-Rabouw was born on 30 August 1921 in Gouda, in the Netherlands.1WTA Emmen, information from Sis. G. Huisman-Rabouw of 16-02-1958; WTA Emmen, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-03-2002; PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002.
She became acquainted with the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses through Jo Wildschut in 1941. Gerdina took part in the underground activities, even though at that period the Netherlands were under German occupation. She was arrested by the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB) in Gouda on 5 September 1941, in the presence of both of her parents. In the prison Haagsche Veer in Rotterdam, she was subjected to interrogations that lasted for days. The intention was to break the spirit of this 20-year-old woman by interrogating her so that she would give away the names of other Bible Students. Gerdina did not betray any names. She was taken from the prison in Rotterdam to a prison in Düsseldorf. There she was kept in detention for five days before being transferred to prisons in Bremen, Hamburg and Hannover. This lasted for about six weeks, but her religious conviction was not broken. Towards the end of 1941, this young Jehovah’s Witness was finally deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Due to the long days of transport, standing in the icy cold of a railway carriage for cattle, she became ill. In this condition, she had to undergo the ‘disinfection’ along with all the other newly arrived prisoners and was finally taken to the sick bay. After a fever lasting for days, during which she sometimes lost consciousness, Gerdina started recovering thanks to the care of the female political prisoners who worked in the sick bay. After her dismissal from the infirmary barracks, she landed in an overcrowded block where two or three women shared a bed.
It was exceptionally traumatic to have to be present at the numerous executions of prisoners – mostly Polish women – at the parade ground. Weakened as she was and severely shocked by the conditions in the camp, Gerdina became deeply depressed. Even the smallest events could cause fits of weeping. The numbed women, who ‘walked around as if they were zombies’,2PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002. left an indelible impression on her. She was overwhelmed by fear that she too one day should become so indifferent and expressionless. Moreover, her spiritual sisters thought that this markedly frail woman had very little chance of surviving. But she held fast to her convictions – her faith – which gave her the will to survive.
In Ravensbrück women’s camp, Gerdina was first of all put to work in a detail of unloading railway carriages. During this work, ’it was so freezing cold that while unloading, [… ] your hands would stick to the metal’.3PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002. The scanty clothing worsened the living conditions in Ravensbrück. Eventually Gerdina was put to work in the market garden, where she got to know Hildegard Kusserow. Gerdina became good friends with this Jehovah’s Witness, which relationship gave her great moral support. Religious discussions with this Bible Student served to strengthen Gerdina’s religious convictions.
In May 1943 Gerdina was assigned to the ‘labour camp’ at St. Lambrecht. Despite the season, it was just as bitterly cold as her arrival in the Ravensbrück camp had been. It snowed for days on end. Working together with the German Bible Students who had been transferred from Ravensbrück to St. Lambrecht, Gerdina was first put to work in the cold cellars of the monastery stripping cabbages of their rotting leaves. Then she was assigned to the work detail that had to carry out forestry work along with the male prisoners.
The living conditions in the women’s concentration camp at St. Lambrecht were evidently better than in Ravensbrück. The fact that Gerdina had a bed of her own at her disposal, she described as an important factor showing the more humane conditions in the camp. This was luxury indeed, to have a chair of your very own where you could sit and have a moment of repose after work. She also had a drawer of her own in which she could keep her few personal belongings, such as letters or pictures of her loved ones.
Gerdina was put to work as a chambermaid in the guest wing of the ‘SS ‘estate’. In this way she came into contact with the guests, the civilian personnel and also with the male prisoners who had to use the wing as a throughway to the kitchen where they had to collect food. Her being addressed by her first name as ‘Fräulein Gerdi’, contributed to making the circumstances more humane. Owing to this she could at least temporarily extricate herself from the notion of being only a number on the prisoners’ list. That was especially conducive to her psychological stability.
As a chambermaid, Gerdina could eat her meals in the kitchen at the SS estate. This gave her the opportunity for smuggling food to the others. In this way she assisted in strengthening the group in which she had now a place in her own right because of the risks she took. Being no longer accustomed to the relatively high-quality food after the period of starvation in Ravensbrück, she contracted a biliary colic, or an infection of the gall-bladder at St. Lambrecht.
Through her association with Margarete Messnarz-Günter and the cook, Anna, the civilian kitchen staff, Gerdina experienced fellow-feeling by their little acts of support. That strengthened her trust and motivation enabling her to endure the tribulations of being a camp prisoner.
Against all odds, when Gerdina broke her arm, she was not sent back to the main camp. However, the Polish doctor-prisoner did not treat the complicated splintered fracture competently, resulting in the arm not healing well. The permanently deformed forearm is the external evidence of the physical damage caused by imprisonment in St. Lambrecht. The leather splint made by the camp cobbler for Gerdina, helped to reduce the pain.
When it became known that Gerdina had been corresponding with a Spanish prisoner, she asked of her own volition for a transfer. This meant an end to her being employed as a chambermaid at the SS estate. Schöller, the camp commander, agreed with her proposal to carry out work outside the camp and in this way to avoid contact with the Spaniards. Gerdina was assigned to garden detail and Schöller therefore addressed her as ‘my vegetable girl’.4PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002. In this manner she achieved that the Spanish prisoner who had written the letter to her was not sent back to the main camp at Mauthausen – the most severe punishment at St. Lambrecht concentration camp.
Gerdina experienced the homogeneous camp community as a beneficent entity. Yet even among those of the same religion, the differences between persons from five separate countries were clearly perceptible. The sisters in faith tried to learn each other’s language. They learned, for instance, how to greet one another in their respective languages and prayed and discussed the Bible together in various languages. This is a good example of respect for what is alien or different, and at the same time, showing dedication to their own national group.
Gerdina attributed her liberation from the Nazi concentration camp to her God, Jehovah. Under a tree in front of the monastery, the Witnesses sang a religious song of praise. Although she had come to love the beauty of the surrounding countryside, Gerdina decided to return to the Netherlands. She must have been strongly fascinated by the mountainous landscape, because she visited St. Lambrecht several times in later years. Two other possible reasons for revisiting this historically laden place, were the wish to confront herself with the area where she had been held prisoner for two years, and the attempt she made to see things in perspective.
During the journey back home from the concentration camp after liberation, while traversing Italy, Gerdina was taken ill and was advised to remain there. Without having had medical treatment, she carried on towards home. She accompanied Froukje Volp as far as Gouda and from there on travelled alone. When she arrived in Waddinxveen, she had lost her voice due to having had no medical treatment. She got her voice back later, but the pitch was altered.
On top of the traumatic experiences of the concentration camp and the stressful journey home, Gerdina had to deal with the terrible ordeal of the sudden death of her fiancé. During her reintegration period into Dutch society, she suffered strong paranoid feelings. While being among large crowds, she felt aggressive feelings arise, which she tried to suppress. The young woman was very much aware of this inward stressfulness. She wondered what could be causing this. She came to the conclusion that her experience in the concentration camps was the cause, and that she was different from other persons who had not gone through such an ordeal. Gerdina described herself in this context as a very tightly wound up spring, a definition that makes it clear that this woman was extremely fearful of a sudden release of tension resulting in loss of control. ‘After liberation I was always so tense. If people walked behind me, I got the feeling I had to turn around and attack them.’5PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002.
What she wished for most of all was a safe place where she could count on feeling secure. The sudden death of her fiancé marked yet again an extremely drastic event in her life. Eventually Gerdina married a man who looked very much like her deceased fiancé. He was, however, not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
First and foremost, she endeavoured to inculcate her faith into her children. It was only years later that she told her children, who were very interested in her past and all their mother had gone through, about what she had experienced in the concentration camps. She did not want to shock them or burden them with her stories. Because of all she had been through in the concentration camps, Gerdina felt that she was not a good mother, and she wondered whether she should have had children at all. ‘I think then that if I had never had children, they would have been better off. That they had never been there at all.’6PA, interview Huisman, Gerdina, 15-10-2002.
These words indicate a strong identification with the aggressors. At the same time, this defense mechanism prevents her from coping with her identity as a victim of the concentration camps. She relates her camp experiences to her religious conviction. She finds in her faith, which led to her imprisonment, the explanation for all she has suffered as well as for having been able to endure it.
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