Annie Clark’s childhood home in Zweeloo, Netherlands, had a crawl space just big enough for two men to huddle together in. It was covered by a rug, and an organ sat on top of it.In the early 1940s, when Clark was about 10, her family practiced moving the organ, the rug and opening the trap door before closing and covering it. Then they’d do it again, faster.Eventually, that trap door would hide Jews, young Dutch men refusing to join the Nazis and American pilots who had been downed.“Imagine doing something that could cost you your life, for strangers. Even as a child she was part of that,” said her daughter, Robin Cunningham.In her West Salem home on Dec. 9, Cunningham laid out photographs of her mother’s life which, after World War II, was lived in Iowa, California and finally West Salem’s WindSong memory care facility.Clark lived in Salem for 21 years before her death on Nov. 17 at age 92. Before her health issues became overwhelming, she was an active member of the West Hills Community Church and was known for picking up litter on her frequent neighborhood walks.As her mother battled memory issues, Clark’s daughter spent her final years asking questions and documenting what she could about her mother’s life during the war. “I just think it’s a fascinating story,” Cunningham said. “I suppose it’s also just not wanting people to forget.”Some of the documentation is in Clark’s own words, transcribed by Cunningham. In 2014, she read a speech in front of her granddaughter’s World War II history class at West Salem High School, despite being nervous she’d mess up or forget details.“I don’t know how the occupation began in other parts of my country, but where we lived, in Zweeloo, it arrived on bicycles on May 5, 1940. Yes, the Germans rode into our town on bicycles,” Clark said.Zweeloo is in the northeastern corner of the Netherlands, near the border with Germany. Historical records say Germany first invaded the Netherlands on May 10. Cunningham made some corrections to her mother’s speech with a pen, like mentions of a brother who had yet to be born.Clark’s stepfather, Cornelis Wiersma, was the chief of police for the town. The family’s home was in the same building as the jail and the police station.Clark’s family had a whirligig of a police officer in the yard, whose arms spun around in circles on windy days. Cunningham has a photo of it from the time. As the Germans arrived on bicycles in rows of two, it was a windless day. One of the toy arms was stuck in a similar position to a Nazi salute.“So all these German boys on bicycles weren’t sure what to do,” Cunningham said. Some saluted the yard toy back. The whirligig of a police officer in the yard of Clark’s childhood home in the Netherlands. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) By all outside appearances, Clark’s stepfather was keeping his head down and collaborating with the Germans occupying their town.“But in secret, he wasn’t,” Cunningham said, pointing to a Dutch article about him printed a few years ago.Wiersma was part of the Dutch Underground, a resistance movement which worked to block German plans, gain intelligence and hid over 300,000 people who were persecuted by Nazi occupiers and at risk of being killed or sent to concentration camps.  Clark recalled Jewish neighbors disappearing. German planes often flew overhead. Clark’s family had enough to eat from their gardens and animals, but they ran out of staples like flour and soap. Hygiene became a challenge, she wrote, and she lost all her teeth as a young adult due to the war’s impact. The family’s sugar bowl was empty for a long time.“I think some German soldiers were kind and chose not to notice our stealing,” Clark said in her speech. “My greatest acquisition was a bag of sugar being unloaded from a ship onto a truck. Crowds had gathered to watch. I stood trembling right beside that truck, with that five-pound bag of sugar in my sights. It was heaped among other items waiting to be loaded in. I snatched it up and ran like hell, expecting to be grabbed at any moment, or shot.”It’s a story that sticks out for Cunningham.“We’ve had it so easy. And desperation makes you do courageous things,” she said of her mother’s childhood actions.Clark’s family kept their suitcases packed at all times as they helped people in and out of the crawlspace. The Gestapo visited often, doing thorough searches. They were suspicious of the police chief.  “They were asking him to do things that he would refuse to do, and I suppose that contributed to their suspicion of him,” Cunningham said. In 1942, they were found out. The family got dressed to leave in the middle of the night. Annie Clark’s stepfather, Cornelis Wiersma, in a Dutch article about the Zweeloo resistance effort. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) “My father’s involvement in the Dutch Underground had been leaked to the Nazis. It was our turn to go into hiding. If we didn’t, when they came for him, my father would be shot or sent to a German concentration camp,” Clark said in her speech.The family split up. Clark’s parents fled to Amsterdam and remained active members of the resistance movement, and the children were passed from home to home in the Netherlands. Some were tense placements, like a woman who reacted with wrath when Clark stole a spoonful of sugar from a bowl, but also gave the girl a pair of her dead husband’s pants to wear. They were Clark’s first new clothes in ages.“It was a great, jubilant day in 1945 when the American tanks at last rolled into Zweeloo. Happy soldiers threw candy and gum to us. I hadn’t had chocolate in four years!” Clark said in her speech.A 12-year-old Clark also watched as local girls who had dated German soldiers were rounded up and had their heads shaved. “My sister Ida should, by all rights, have endured this humiliation, but since our father was the chief of police, no one dared,” she said. Ida was 17, and was entirely on her own when the family was separated, Clark wrote. Cunningham has photos from the spontaneous parade held in the town.“People just put on any kind of bizarre costume they could makeshift, to make it a festive event. But it still looks kind of dreary to me,” Cunningham said. Annie Clark’s photos from the 1945 parade in Zweeloo, Netherlands, celebrating the end of World War II. Her childhood bedroom window can be seen in the top right photo. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) After the war, Clark was among the first graduating class of social workers in Amsterdam, Cunningham said. A classmate told her about a job in Humboldt, Iowa, caring for a Dutch woman with polio.Unable to afford a passenger ship, Clark made the journey to the United States on a small freighter which dropped her off in New York. Despite not speaking any English, she was able to navigate to Iowa on her own using buses and trains.There, she met and married Roger Cunningham, and had three children. The family moved to Des Moines in 1956, where Clark’s skills as a seamstress meant everyone was dressed fashionably despite having limited funds. Anyone was welcome at their home regardless of race, Cunningham said, in accordance with her mother’s values.Clark learned how to drive and eventually became a regional director at Herbergers Fabrics.  Then, when Cunningham was a young adult, her father left the family and her parents divorced.Cunningham described it as one of many devastating losses in her mother’s life, the first being the death of her biological father to a brain tumor when she was three. A beloved sister in Denmark was murdered by her husband.“Just the loss, over and over again. The loss of her father when she was three. The loss of her siblings over the years. Lost her doll. She had one doll and the German family that lived in their home while they were hiding, that little girl kept her doll,” Cunningham said.  A fear of loss followed Clark throughout her life. She moved to San Diego during a second, short-lived marriage that drained her savings. She developed an alcohol issue.Clark’s third marriage was violent, Cunningham said. She didn’t believe her mother’s explanations for each new bruise.Clark was able to get sober in the 1970s, and remained so for the last 50 years of her life. She moved to Salem in the early 2000s to be near her daughter. They lived together for five years, and then Clark moved into Pioneer Village. Cunningham worked as her mother’s caregiver before she moved into a memory care facility.“I think she really needed someone to take care of her. She never got the care she needed as a child,” she said.While in Salem, Clark enjoyed car rides through the countryside and was enamored by the Willamette Valley. She and Cunningham visited gardens all over the region. On daily walks at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., Clark picked up trash.Clark, in a written speech to her church a decade ago, called her time in Salem “the best and happiest years of my life.”Cunningham wants to remember, and share, what her mother endured during World War II. She’s been thinking about it more in light of world events.  “People forget what it’s like to experience war,” Cunningham said. “We made a lot of mistakes, as humans, and I feel like we’re making them all over again.”The war made Clark a strong person at a very young age, but also created lifelong challenges. “These are the experiences that shape who we become,” Clark wrote in 2014. “Somehow, one must make it through the fear, the uncertainty, the tragedies, the loneliness, the suffering. Those who survive have no choice but to become stronger. But I would not wish this strength on anyone.” A family photo of Annie Clark after moving to the United States. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) A family photo of Annie Clark, the youngest on the bike, with friends or neighbors in 1934. Robin Cunningham asked her mother to label the photo album in her own words. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) Annie Clark was among the first graduating class of social workers in Amsterdam, according to her daughter Robin Cunningham. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) A family photo of Annie Clark on a North Sea beach before she immigrated to the United States. (Abbey McDonald/ Salem Reporter) Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post A longtime Salem resident’s role in the Dutch resistance appeared first on Salem Reporter.