"I Left My Country"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 159, 6 July 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

"I Left My Country"

AT this immensely grave moment in the history of mankind black, silent night has settled on yet another corner of this earth.

Over free Holland the lights have gone out, the wheels of industry and the ploughs of the field that worked only for the happiness of a peace-loving people have come to a dead stop or are turned to the grisly \ises of a death-bringing conqueror; the voices of freedom, charity, tolerance and religion have been stilled.

Where only a few weeks ago there was a free nation of men and women brought up in the cherished traditions of Christian civilisation, a nation which itself has been the historical fountain of many values and ideals honoured by all men of goodwill, there are now desolation and the stillness of death, broken only by the bitter weeping of those who have survived the extinction of their relatives and the brutal suppression of their rights and liberties. Only Hope Lives

Only hope still lives among the smok- ' ing ruine, the hope and faith of a Godfearing people which no human power, however evil, can extinguish—faith in the all-conquering might of divine justice, faith nourished by the proud memories of earlier ordeals manfully borne and in the end successfully overcome, faith anchored to the unshakable belief that such injustice as the people of Holland have suffered cannot endure. But while the unhappy people of Holland still have their faith in the ultimate and inevitable deliverance to cling to, it is of all faiths the most difficult to nourish and to keep alive. For theirs must be a silent hope and a silent faith. Not for them the solace of a faith openly professed, not for them the soul-strengthening comfort of a hope shared and proclaimed in open association.

Oppressed, threatened, watched on every side by a Power that would tear out all hope from the soul of man, they can but pray in the silence of their heavy hearts. Their voice, the \oice that through the centuries has helped to spread the gospel of Christianity, of freedom, of tolerance, of enterprise and thought of human dignity, of a!! the things that make man worthy of his sojourn on earth, has been taken away from them.

So it was four centuries ago when the religious freedom was at stake. The world knows how the people of Holland then regained their voice. Thus it will be again. But until the jubilation of the new dawn they are not spared even this last bitterness of having to keep their flame of hope alive in the deadly silence of a night whence no voice, no ray of light shall come.

It is because Holland's voice must not,, nay, may not be allowed to remain strangled in these days of fearful trial 1 for my people that I have taken the supreme decision to transfer the symbol of My Nation as it is embodied in My Person and My Government, where it can continue to function as a living and a vocal force. At this time of universal suffering I will not speak of the racking heart - searchings which the taking of this decision has cost one who, only little more than a year ago, was stirred to her very depths by the generous devotion of a warm-hearted people celebrating the jubilee of a Queen and a woman who for 40 years has tried to serve her nation, as she tried to serve it on ihat day of fateful decisions and will try to . serve it to her last breath.

I will speak only of the reasons that finally moved me to decide as I did. For there were cold and weighty' reasons militating against the natural sentiment that prompted me and my family to stay and suffer what my unhappy people were called upon to suffer.

Plans found on the invader on the first day of hie wanton assault, confirmed by the action of his air borne troops, soon made it clear that his Crst objective was to capture the Royal Family and the Government, thus to paralyse the country by depriving it of all leadership and legally constituted authority.

When, soon afterwards, the likelihood had to be faced that the treacherous methods employed by the enemy would succeed in finally undermining the gallant resistance of the Dutch forces, decision could no longer be postponed.

If authority, obeying impulsive sentiment, were to stay—for indeed those who, like us, have lived such days know that it is not concern for personal life,

or liberty which supplies the driving motive—the voice of Holland, the very symbol of Holland, would have vanished from the earth'.

There would be a memory, perhaps quickly fading in these world-shaking times where yesterday's memory is to-day's oblivion. Unrelieved black silence would have settled on that once happy land whose people would not even have the hope-giving thought of a Queen and a Government fighting for their ultimate resurrection, where fighting was still possible.

"/ Shall Maintain" But there was more. Holland proper may have been lost for the- time being, but when these crucial decisions had to be taken, one province in the south still showed hope of being able to hold out for some time. My Navy, with its proud traditions, remained intact, ready to join battle wherever needed, and, most important of all, an Empire scattered over the surface of the globe and counting 65,000,000 inhabitants, remained free, part and parcel of that nation of free ; men that will not and can not perish . from the earth.

Was &U this to be cast adrift on a wildly turbulent sea without leadership or authority ? Duty, responsibility and far-sighted statesmanship lay elsewhere.

To keep the voice and the symbol of Holland alive, as an inspiration and a rallying point for those of our Army, our Fleet and our countless Empire subjects, nay, for Dutch men and women all over the world who will give their all for the resurrection of the dearly beloved motherland.

To keep the banner aloft, unseen, and yet ever present for those who have lost their voice but not their hope nor their vision.

To speak for Holland to the world, not of the riglitness of its cause, which needs no advocacy in the eyes of honest men, nor of the unspeakable horrors or the infamous tricks inflieted on its gallant army and its innocent population, but of the values, the ideals, the Christian civilisation that Holland at the side of its Allies is helping to defend against the onslaught of barbarism.

To remain true to the motto of the House of Orange, of Holland, of all that immense part of the world that is fighting for what is infinitely more precious than life: je main tiendrai —"I shall ma in tain."