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Show &Havefoti Seen My Twins ? I Y Poetic Appeal of Jan de Groot, Whose J I rW-' Children Were Taken from Belgium KW. I j KiUClly AmeTiCan Past0T' Whose Name l Y lES and Now de Groot Is I the States in I By Nina Marbourg JAN DE GROOT has come to America to follow the rainbow to its end, there to retrieve a thing dearer than the storied pot of gold. He is here on the quest of his heart's desire, twin boys Belgian babies brought to America by a kindly American pastor. It was a dull rainy day when I sat waiting for Jan de Groot in the rooms of America's Allies i Co-operative Association in New York. The out line of his tragic story had been told to me; knowing know-ing it in skeleton form I tried to picture the man. After three years' fighting in the Belgian army, a year spent working in the coal mines of a German Ger-man prison amp, and then months spent on a f provision boat, engaged as a common sailor, what would he be like? Would a broken shadow of a man come in at the door? Presently the door opened and Jan de Groot entered. The man who stepped into the room might have come out of past ages. A type radiating strength, erect, brilliant in his physique, his marvellous mar-vellous neck was exposed by a loose turned-down collar, De Groot's throat would burst the confines of our conventional neckwear, and on this neck sits a head that it would delight painters to de- ilineate. De Groot has blue eyes; in rare moments mo-ments they can laugh, but, generally, from under bushy, blond brows, they look out at you straight and keen. Those eyes can flash fire or melt to tears. The trenches, the blood and horror of battle, the bestial life in a German prison camp, the slavery of a coal mine, have not robbed Jan de Groot of a courtly manner. He is still, in spirit, a Belgian soldier, and seeing him one realizes that the" types painted by the old Flemish masters were real. "Ah, Madame," said Jan de Groot to me as he took a chair on the opposite side of a flat-topped desk, "mine is not a pretty story. Mine is not a story for women to hear and jet my whole object ob-ject in life at the present time concerns things dear to women the finding of my twin sons now 6 years old. "The last tune I saw my boys they were 10 1 months old and lay asleep in their little beds and ' their mother was sitting by them singing and sewing. Now their mother is dead and my boys where arc they? It is to find them that I am here and that is why I am starting on a long journey across your country to California. I shall work my way from New York to California and once in that state shall leave no city or town Iunvisited until I find my babies The only clew 1 have is that they were taken from Appcldoorn, Holland, after the death of their mother and brought to America by a clergyman living in California. Cali-fornia. I have no picture of them and if 1 had it would be of little use now, for when I last saw them they were but 10 months old. But I start my journey with a heart made strong by hope." The Coming of War Jan de Groot tossed back his head and shook his blond mane. There were tears in his eyes and he clenched his fists, saying between his teeth: "War the war that is what it has done to me. That is what it has done to thousands like me. The war has had its vast harvest of death shattered homes and broken hearts. "Before the war I had settled down in Antwerp. Ant-werp. I bought a little home and engaged in the motorcycle business. Things prospered and I married. There my twin boys were born. Business Busi-ness was good and I had my little wife and two beautiful boys, Jan and Jan Simon. My life was full of happiness, my heart sang from morning until night. "One evening I had to go to Liege to sec the head of the concern for whom I was handling the motorcycles. I kissed my wife and babies good-by. I promised my wife to bring them all back something pretty and so I left happy and gay. That is the last time I saw my family. "I was detained at Liege longer than I had planned and one morning I awoke to a great babble in the streets. I asked the maid of the hotel what was the matter. She stared at mo a moment and then ran screaming from the room. Suddenly it flashed into my mind that the Germans were coming. I got up instantly and went down into the street. The place was swarming with frantic people. Immediately I asked a policeman where the commandant could be found. He directed me and 20 minutes after "V I had got word with the commandant I had my military cap all the uniform there was just then and my rifle. 'l obtained leave to go to a telegraph office doggc every ma giving eve l l " P I of "his strength for it. Your one gospel seemed Jf - Ml K Li IMMlUie, IMUl nitric injr " JCWMMMMpPM V fewer to kill your men and women tomorrow.' ' Every time I think of $fyfc$jjr it my soul 13 sick .l.-n .. ( ',) I .. l'.Mrl: :r; li;- : ;, v- f Jan fine, capable hands. HflH JM e Groot, held them before him. B , jfiBfij ' J " muttered. "They have ffiff, 'ffiflB for His bestial war, but these Two Bovs. and all the hands of all the other men did j nut save my wife from dying of a broken heart. V De Groot was breath- ing in a labored manner, man-ner, a sound coming j from his throat resembling asthma. I learned that his respiration became so affected as a result re-sult of being gassed, not once but twice; that also he carries nine wounds as his battle marks. "After we had been fighting for six months," de Groot continued, "hardly a man of my original company was left. I was in the hospital twice, once for two months, another time for three. "Finally I was captured and then began a life to last a year in a German prison camp, there to be starved again and to be worked 20 hours a day in the coa! mines. "At camp there was a young German captain on duty who became very friendly to me. We became very well acquainted. Finally one evening even-ing he came to me and said: " 'Jan, what is it that a man thinks more about than anything else when he is in prison?' " 'Getting out,' I answered instantly. " 'It is so w ith every one of you,' he continued, 'though I fancy not one of you has the courage to try it. Besides, it would be impossible to escape and live, for as you know the barbed wire about the camp is all poisoned and a scratch from it would mean a dreadful death 1 1 "I felt that there was something behind all this, for this captain's manner had become peculiar pe-culiar of late. So I decided to wait patiently and see what would happen. Planning to Escape "Sure enough some days later the captain came to me again and asked me if I knew the way to the frontier and could I get over the border which was protected with barbed wire electrically charged? He began to talk over the matter, stating a hypothetical case to me. We were quite alone, separated from the other workers work-ers at that time, and I said to him: " 'You are the one, no friend, but you, who wants to get over the border. Is it not so?' " " 'Yes,' " he said, " 'I am the man. I can't stand it any longer. I had rather be a prisoner in Holland. Two of my friends who are hero want to go, too. Will you guide us? It means freedom for you, for us internment in Holland.' "Freedom was there such a thing in this world ? And here it was, offered me by a man of Germany. I told him that if he had two going with NVttxnnnrr Ifiituro Si-riiir. 1010. him, I had two friends who must go with me, a Belgian and a Frenchman He agreed to this and told me to wait patiently for the chance. "The captain came to me a few days later and said that I must play sick. He also asked me to tell him the names of my two friends who were to go. I did and he told me to tell them that soon they would be taken out on a road job and that then would be the time. The captain cap-tain said I must spend at least two days in the hospital and o get sick immediately. This I did, and spent two days in a so-called 'hospital ' Before I got out the captain had selected two men for the 'road work.' Then he picked me out, saying to get out of the mines would do me good and mike me better for harder work after a couple of days of road work. That day wc went to work on the roads with the captain to guard us. His two friends were on a detail of work at other places, but a meeting point had been arranged. "That night, after the others came up with us, we traveled all night, but kept close to cover The Germans had changed their clothes for worn garments that they had procured someway and they buried their uniforms. We hid by day in ditches, in ruined buildings, we had only what prison bread the Germans had been able to get ut with them, but we lived on hope-hope hope-hope to reach the frontier, hope of freedom-hope freedom-hope of finding our loved ones. Arrival at the Dutch Border "After a week of slow traveling by night and hiding by day. with many narrow escapes from being detected, we arrived at the Dutch frontier which was heavily guarded. We spent days hiding and nights crawling about finding the best place to break through. At last we found it. Then how to get through that electrically charged wire fence? "The day before we had been about a deserted de-serted farm house and had drunk some water from the barrel such as stands under the eaves of every farm house in Belgium. The water was all' we had had in our stomachs for two days, our prison bread having given out, and we did not dare to approach any one for food. "Well, the rain barrel solved the problem. Two of us went back and got it. We knocked out the bottom, for I knew wood was a non-conductor. We worked this barrel underneath the charged wire fence and then crawled through the barrel into Holland. "I went through first, for my companions could not believe it safe. Then the rest came and when we had safely set foot on the other side of those deadly wire;, we dropped down from exhaustion, high nervous tension and re lief. But not yet were we safe, it meant quicK moving then, for the moment a guard discovered that barrel they would certainly fino us. So we walked and walked on into the night a peaceful night with no sound of guns. "When morning came we were a safe distance dis-tance from the border, in a small town. That was the first time I felt free. We went immediately imme-diately to the mayor and told him who we were. The Germans accompanied us and asked for internment in-ternment and that is the last we saw of them. "I then set about to land out where my wife and babies could be if they had reached Holland. I discovered from lists of refugees that they were in Appledoorn, which was not far off. So I set out for this town, after eating the first decent de-cent food I had had in three years. My French and Belgian companions went their own ways. "All that day and far into the night I walked, singing a song of thanksgiving in my heart, knowing that each step took me nearer those I loved. Finally in the morning I came to Appledoorn and going t5 the mayor I learned , where my wife and children had been lodged The Search for Family Begins. "I reached the house of the kindly woman that had sheltered my family and asked for my I wife Th a woman looked strangely at me and jj went out into the little garden, returning with her husband. I did not know what to make of this. A great fear came over me when the man came in. "They are dead," I said, "I shall never see them again?" " 'You will see your children again perhaps jj if you can find them but how I cannot tell I v ou,' the husband said. 'Your wife died three jj months ago. Your children have been taken te the United States by an American pastor.'" I "'Yes, I can find my children,' I said. 'Of what did my wife die?'" " 'The doctors,' said the good woman, 'told u she died of a broken heart, nothing else.' " "What of my boys?" " The day before your wife died she signed a paper giving them to the minister in case of her death. He has taken them. They were well when they left here.'" "That was all she could tell me. "I rested in Appledoorn some days and then started out to return to the army. Before I left the town I secured the address of the kindly I gentleman who took my children to California with him. "I found that I was no longer fit for arnv duty on account of my physical condition, so 1 j got a place on a Dutch boat and made several trips back and forth. "When the armistice was signed I was in America. I felt then that I had finished my job in the war and could begin to hunt for my boys. During one of the trips we had an accident acci-dent and the paper on which was written the ad- dress of the minister who has my baby boys 1 was burned. "I have written twice to Appledoorn for the address of the minister, but have not yet re- i ceived it I have waited lung enough and now ! must start out on my trip to California. I know I shall find my boys. Find them I must, if it takes the rest of my life. I am going to work my way there, for I am an able-bodied man. jl Should I go on the train I might miss them, for there is always the chance of their not being in California now. In every city and town I shall ask the newspapers to help me by saying I am j in the town and looking for Jan and Jan Simon, Belgian twins, for whom my heart is hungering! "Would I take them from their foster father? fath-er? Not if I find them well housed and cared for. That would not be right or fair. No, I I would not take them away. I could get work in the neighborhood and the reverend gentleman would grant me a visit to my boys, I know. I They must know I am their father, but tney must never forget the love and respect they owe to their foster father whoever he may be. "God grant I find them soon. That is my fervent prayer." Jan de Groot is on his way ovsrland to the J Golden West. He is carrying a knapsack and his army blanket. If he conies your way treat him kindly, for he has a deep sorrow in his r heart. If you have heard of his children communicate com-municate with the America's Allies Co-operative Association, No. 299 Fifth avenue, New York city. De Groot has surely not come through the f tires of war to be left to die of a broken heart I as did his wife. The finding of his children would save from such a fate this man of high courage and brave heart. V |