Bert ten Broeke’s extraordinary wartime experience before new life in New Zealand

Bert ten Broeke with his book. Photo / David Haxton

When his home country was invaded by Germany, Bert ten Broeke had no clue he would spend two years of his life in a work camp.

But unfortunately, Bert turned 18 in the midst of World War II, and that was deemed ‘old enough’ for a German work camp.

But he’s always been a survivor, since day one.

It was October of 1924 when Bert was born in Nieuwe Schans, a village in the most northeastern part of the Netherlands, right on the German border.

His parents, who owned a butchery, were concerned because he wouldn’t drink his mother’s milk, and he was losing weight fast.

“When I had a drink, I spat it out.”

Doctors thought he wouldn’t make it, and it wasn’t until one of his father’s customers gave him a rather unusual suggestion that anything changed.

The customer gave Bert’s father a dozen eggs and two litres of buttermilk, and so for the first six months of his life, that’s what Bert lived on.

The family later moved to Ede, in the Netherlands, and in 1940 the country was invaded by the Germans, and everyone was given identity cards.

Three years later Bert turned 18 and was taken to a forced labour camp in Neiheim-Hüsten, Germany.

His identity card was taken from him, and he was loaded on to a train with about 500 other people, but Bert was always optimistic.

Bert ten Broeke's wartime identity card.

“They were all sad, didn’t know what would happen. But I just thought it’s the first time I had a free train ride.”

While wandering through that train, he found a German who was attempting to sort the identity cards by occupation, but the man didn’t know how to read them.

Bert offered to help sort them, and when he came across his own card, he hid it in his pocket.

That split-second decision may have saved his life.

During his time at the camp, Bert was subject to some horrifying things.

He worked as a cook, and he was fondly nicknamed Cookie.

He recalled the time when he collapsed and was diagnosed with appendicitis.

Bert remembered being chained to the steel table and how they operated without any anesthetic.

“I couldn’t do anything - I was chained to the table - I had to take it.”

During the operation the air raid alarm went off, and while everyone else went down to the bunker, the doctor kept operating.

The windows had been blown out by the air raid, but still the doctor continued the surgery while nurses shielded Bert from the wind.

Bert said the doctor’s decision to continue the operation saved his life.

Bert ten Broeke, 99, at home in Paraparaumu.

He spent almost two years in the camp, before a split-second decision meant he had to escape.

It was when he was drinking vodka with some of the Russians in the work camp, who made their own alcohol, and a German officer walked past and made a comment like “A Dutchman shouldn’t mix with Russian second grade people”.

Bert, who had had a few drinks at that point, punched the officer in the face, and promptly went into hiding because all the Germans were looking for him.

It took him a week to get back to his hometown, and he took great risks to get there.

Bert remembered catching a train to the Dutch border, where German officers took dogs through the train, on top of the train, and underneath the train to check for people illegally trying to get over the border.

But Bert was hiding in the long grass, and once the train started moving, he ran to it and climbed on.

He made it to his aunt and uncle’s house, but he couldn’t get all the way to his hometown without papers (which he didn’t have as he escaped Germany illegally), so he had a police officer friend take him home by pretending to be handcuffed.

“Not many people can say they escaped from Germany during the war.

“There was only one fine, and it was a bullet.”

In the Netherlands, there was an offer of coupons for suits, underwear, socks, and more for people who had been in Germany.

But since he had escaped illegally Bert didn’t have papers, and wasn’t elligible.

So he decided he wanted to get as far away as possible, and originally thought that was Australia, before looking at a map and seeing that New Zealand was further.

Seven years later he came to New Zealand by plane (a KLM DC-4), with only £7 to his name.

Bert ten Broeke departs for a new life in New Zealand.

He landed in Auckland and got a job straight away in a butchery, but after four weeks he moved to Hamilton where he worked in another butchery.

Eventually he got offered a job in Whanganui, which was where he met his wife, Patricia.

Patricia worked in a dairy, which was where they originally met, and the two met again the next day at a dance hall.

Bert chose to dance with Patricia, and she said he was “the best dancer I’ve ever danced with”.

Twelve months later they married.

In 1955 the pair moved to Wellington, and Bert bought three butcheries over the next couple of years.

Bert and Patricia at a dance. It was the second time they'd met.

Five years later, in 1960, he bought an acre of land in Porirua and built a factory called Brook’s Smallgoods, which was very successful.

But it got to a point where he decided to sell up and pursue another dream of his – farming.

So, in 1980 he sold Brook’s Smallgoods, and bought a dairy farm in Bulls, so he and Patricia could be closer to her family in Whanganui.

After selling that farm, and two others he had bought, he and Patricia spent time in Ōtaki, before finding their way to Paraparaumu for their retirement.

During more than 50 years together, the couple raised two children, Sue and Robbie, who was the youngest All White at 16.

At 86 he wrote his autobiography, Can’t is not in my vocabulary, which tells the story of his life.

Today he said he “doesn’t feel a day over 60″ and cycles for half an hour every day on his cycling machine and walks three times a day.

“I’m never idle, I’m always doing something.

“I don’t feel 99.”

One of Bert’s last dreams is to sell the remaining 200 copies of his book which are available for $30 on Trade Me.