The bombardments, flying projectiles and ear-splitting noises have past now; it’s like after a whirlwind very quiet, eerie quiet.
Days and nights of hush, creepy and covert activity around the house have also come to an end.
We’ve come out our hiding, and have a look outside; it’s a shocking sight, houses damaged and rubble everywhere, bricks, shells, tree branches and leaves all over the place if a tornado had struck. Burned vehicles still smouldering and a wrecked tram.
Shown is the tram shelter at the bottom of Oranje Street, facing Utrechtsche Road.
This picture was taken just after we were forced to leave and the city was emptied of its inhabitants (end Sep.1944)
The shelter blocks the view of our shop and residence at number 74, the premises on the corner, used to be our place of residence ten years earlier.

This tram shelter however brought back more happier memories of days gone by. At one time we were drawn into the craze of jotting down car registration numbers. The kid who gathered the first 1000 numberplates on paper was offered a brand new bike from Hagen’s Bazaar at Hommel Street.
Day after day we set inside this tram shelter down Oranje Street facing Utrechtse Road, with pencil and paper, noting all passing vehicles until our necks were sore and hands were dropping off.
The bike was probably already under someone’s smart bottom, while we were still at it with our score sheet of useless figures! Mind you it took us truly days and days to get that magical 1000 number, which says a lot about the volume of traffic that time. The prize might have escaped us, but at least the counting exercise strengthened our arithmetic.