BROTHERS CMM

The community of Medan shortly after the liberation in 1945.
certificate and volunteered with the Brothers Alex
van Aalst, Amator van Hugten, Theodatus van Oers
and Rodulf Ouddeken to work in the sickbay. They
kept doing this even when life threatening dysentery
epidemics broke out. They laid out and buried many
hundreds of deceased. The brothers participated in
the education of the boys for junior and senior high
school diplomas to the best of their abilities. They were
part of the variety shows, sport activities, Easter and
Christmas celebrations, and Saint Nicholas parties
until starvation and disease undermined interest in
these things.
Dignity
How do you remain human in such dehumanizing
circumstances? It is a fact that the brothers maintained
their dignity and kept their solidarity as a community
of brothers. They spent a lot of attention on the
silver jubilee feast of Brother Cyprianus Op de Beek.
There was a decorated party hall, a high Mass was
celebrated, there were festive, handwritten party
booklets and commemorative pictures drawn by the
brothers. Even the meal, thanks to the vegetable
garden, had a festive character. But the highlight of
the feast was when the brothers were sitting together
and were presented with a Dutch cigar by the superior.
That keeps you human! When the centennial feast of
the Congregation was celebrated on August 25, 1944,
the superior had yet another cigar for every brother.
While all the camp detainees were sitting on boxes,
wooden blocks, and tree trunks the brothers had four
rattan chairs. That keeps you human! The camp in
which the brothers of Medan were kept prisoner was
relocated several more times. First to Rantau Parapat
and afterwards to Si Rengo-Rengo. They were forced
to walk many kilometres over barely passable roads.
How difficult it might have been, they never abandoned
their chairs. In the evenings they wanted to sit as
human beings on a real chair.
‘You are not my daddy’
At the start of December 1944, the starving camp was
suddenly burdened with hundreds of boys between
the ages of ten and sixteen. Some of them joined their
dads who were also in this camp. This could lead to
problems on a few occasions for they had not seen
their fathers for a long time and in the haggard camp
conditions did not even recognize them. “You are not
my daddy. He was much fatter and had no beard”, one
of the boys said when he rushed up to him. Most of
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