He secretly carried her picture, 2017-now*
It is in the early days of 1943 when Dutchman Adriaan Cornelis Augusteijn (b.1915, Rilland-Bath) is recruited by the Regional Employment Bureau in Amsterdam to carry out forced labour in Germany. Due to the battle of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union, many German young men are called upon and sent to the Ostfront. There is a desperate shortage of workmen.
After a train journey that leads him along Kaldenkirchen, Gladbach and Hagen, he arrives on June 24, 1943 in Langschede in the Ruhr river area. He is set to work as a benchman and welder at Mannesmann Stahlblechbau, a steel company that plays a pivotal role in the German war industry. The company makes cases for ammunition and bombs and is known for its notorious anti-Semitism. He is forced to leave his wife and two children behind in Amsterdam.
The conditions are tough. Long working hours, bad food, cold and boredom. In the sparse hours left he writes letters to his wife.
In the winter of 1943 he manages to escape and a difficult journey back home begins. Back to Amsterdam, on foot.
*Ongoing project / Work in progress
