My father found this story on the internet. It's about my grandfather Wilhelmus Kamer. During the war the first wife of my grandfather died. After the war he married Margretha Vogt and was my father born.

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October, 27th, 1944

In the book 'Uitzinnige vreugde in een stad vol zorgen', on page 65, is written that a grenade fell in the Molenstraat, nearby the Rosmolenplein.

The story is as follows:

I lived around that time in the house I was born, Molenstraat 101, Tilburg.
My mother came home around lunch, saying the butcher Van Esch (corner of Molenstraat and Kardinaal van Rossumstraat) sold sandwich filling without paying for it with a coupon.
I was send because every customer could get only 100 grams, mother already got 100 grams.
In front of the store of the butcher there was a queue of 25 people. When the door of the shop opened, four people went outside and four were allowed to enter.

For a period of time this went well. Then there were people at the back of the queue that began to push, forcing more people into the shop. I was one of them that were pushed inside, alltough I didn't liked to be pushed. Just when I was inside, a grenade fell in front of the shop in the Molenstraat.
I heard shouting and saw smoke. But, remarkable, I didn't hear a bang.
Everyone escaped into the large sellar of the shop, saying the rosary.

At a certain point the cellar door was opend by mister Kamer, who lived across Van Esch, to get one of his children. He said 'my wife is dead'. Mrs Kamer was hit by the grenade, while she was on her way, with her daughter of three, to the cellar. The child was unharmed.

Mister Kamer was a branch manager of 'Het Anker' in the Kruisstraat in Tilburg. Het Anker was a chain of grocery shops of the Handelskamer from Rotterdam. Both mister and mrs Kamer came from Hilversum.

The butcher was complete upset. He said it was all his fault. Naturally everyone else said it wasn't.

The unpleasant pushing in the queue saved my life. There were more deaths that day. One man was called A. Reukers, 36 years old. He had the laundry right across the end of the Kardinaal van Rossumstraat. Other victims were Henricus Overmars, 24 years old and, assumed, also Albert Hoefnagel, 39 years of age.
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Vught, January the first, 2005, by Piet van Noort