Free time during wartime at Amsterdamseweg 459
The Meijer family lived at Amsterdamseweg 459 in Nieuwer-Amstel. They were a family with five children. Daughter Lous was the eldest, followed by Dik, Nico, Gerrit and Freddy. Dik had to end his studies in ‘Road and Hydraulic Engineering’ in Delft in May 1943 because he had refused to sign the Declaration of Loyalty and therefore had to go into hiding. His two younger brothers Nico and Gerrit also had to end their studies and had to go into hiding due to their age. The three brothers were removed from the population register by municipal official Jan de Pater, a friend of Nico. They were also lucky that there were hiding places in their house and they did not have to move from one address to another all the time.
Nico said that during the war, many people came and went at their home. There was a great sense of community. They played chess, bridge and music with neighbours and friends. Joop Exmann (neighbor of number 455) organized music evenings, where neighbors and friends played the piano. And some drawings (mainly portraits) were made under the direction of Dora van der Klei – van der Veen, who lived with her family at number 461A. Dora was an artist and the sister of Gerrit van der Veen, leader of an Amsterdam resistance group and involved in attacks in 1943 on the Amsterdam population register and the Regional Employment Office in Amsterdam. Van der Veen set up the Identity Card Center, where approximately 80,000 false identity cards were made. It is known that all kinds of resistance activities took place at number 461A with the Van der Klei – van der Veen family.
Dora's older brother, called Meijer uncle Gob by the children, was in hiding with them and occasionally played a game of chess with them.
Dik Meijer has always kept quiet about what had happened at the Van der Klei family home. It is almost inevitable that someone must have noticed something. The neighbours could visit each other unnoticed on the row from 453 to 461, even during curfew.
When Nico once walked into the Van der Klei family home when Gerrit van der Veen was visiting, he noticed that the conversation immediately fell silent.
He later said that at the time he had no idea that Gerrit played such an important role in the resistance. Gerrit van der Veen was executed in 1944 and the Euterpestraat in Amsterdam was later named Gerrit van der Veenstraat after him.