|
Scouts
|
|
Postal Service
|
The
official Emergency postal service, performed by Scouts, mei 1945 in Rotterdam.
The Scouting Postal Service was a part of the Jeugdhulp (Youth Aid) Rotterdam. In October
1944 the decision was made by a number of leaders from the N.P.V. region Rotterdam to prepare for
a “Scouting aid Service”. This service should start as soon as the possibility
arose to act on allied side. It wasn’t already determined which activities this
service would do. Off course certain issues could be determined like message
service, aid to wounded people, aid to
food distribution etc. In April 1945 above mentioned vague ideas were discussed
with the “Central Meeting”, an organisation, in which all Rotterdam youth organisations were
represented (later called Youth community). It was decided that the Scouting
aid services would be the basis for such a service for all youth organisations,
by which aid on larger scale could be possible.
The
Scouting Postal Service was a part of Jeugdhulp, which had her central post in
the building on Hofdijk no. 11. Regarding the work on the headquarters of the
Youth Aid, it was almost solely done by scouts. This section of the aid
campaign started on May 10th
1945. The first days this services wasn’t fully operational, but several
hundreds of letters were already received.
Youth aid providing a postal service was not foreseen. When desired to take
over al large part of the Postal Service mr. D.P. Heyink was assigned as
Postmaster at the request of the Headquarters of Scouting Aid.
On May 14th this service was organised, so
that incoming mail was stamped with different stamps in green and violet. The
postal service was, regarding to city deliveries, helped by five district
bureaus of Jeugdhulp, amongst others “Jeugdhulp Blijdorp” and “Jeugdhulp Spangen.
Mail addressed to the rest of Holland
was sorted on province and, when time made it possible, even on the larger
towns in the provinces. Since there was no direct connection with the south of
the Netherlands yet , all
mail for that part of the country went to Utrecht,
Nijmegen en
’s-Hertogenbosch, where postal services functioned normally. Gratefully they used the offer of 1st Lieutenant Kavelaars, who had transported
mail for Brabant en Zeeland with the
"Comm. Affairs Troops". Even former scout Van der Poort, who was
stationed in Vught temporary, was kind enough to take mail with him.
A lot
of mail travelled with chauffeurs who came to the west from Brabant
with food. The scouts of the scout aid services from Groenlo and Barneveld, who
arrived in met Rotterdam.
with parcels of food, also took large amounts of mail with them. The first days there was only few mail, later it
accumulated to large numbers. May 10th there were 900 peaces of
mail, while on May 16th 5800
pieces were counted. The record was 9265 pieces of mail on May 18th.
City mail in Rotterdam
was shut down on May 17th,
while the postal services started delivering mail once a day. There remained enough
work to be done for the Scouting Postal Service regarding regional and
international mail. Especially the Red Cross delivered a load of work in 25
word forms. A very important part was parcel-mail. Several campaigns like
“South helps North” delivered truckloads of parcels.
Almost
from the beginning of the postal service until May 17th all mail was stamped, prepaid or not. These stamps
were linocuts, designed and cut by mr. A.
van Eijnsbergen. On May 17th
the deputy chief of the traffic department of the postal services requested to
stop stamping over the stamps.
The Scouting Postal Service was ended on May 25th
1945, as the postal services functioned properly by then.
Parcels and letters came and went from and to Holland. A record delivery Groningen must be mentioned in this context.
In 48 hours a letter was sent and returned answered in Rotterdam. Transport of mail was done with the help of the Red Cross,
Military Authority, trucks from campaigns like “South helps North” etc.
Received
international mail must be noticed: Greece, South Africa, Trinidad (British
West Indies), Canada, Belgium, Curacao, Spain, Portugal, Switserland,
Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, West Africa, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Russia, France, Egypt, Brasil and Italy. Mail from England
and the USA
was in large quantities. The first days mail was received from France, while there was mail sent to Switserland, England
and the USA.
Other cities worked almost similar and special stamps were also used, like in The Hague, Delft Schiedam, Gouda,
Amsterdam, Utrecht
and Amersfoort.
The
museum is always interested in "old" Dutch scouting stuff.
Are you considering removing your old stuff, please contact us.
The
Scouting Postal Service was a part of Jeugdhulp, which had her central post in
the building on Hofdijk no. 11. Regarding the work on the headquarters of the
Youth Aid, it was almost solely done by scouts. This section of the aid
campaign started on May 10th
1945. The first days this services wasn’t fully operational, but several
hundreds of letters were already received.
A lot
of mail travelled with chauffeurs who came to the west from 
Almost
from the beginning of the postal service until May 17th all mail was stamped, prepaid or not. These stamps
were linocuts, designed and cut by mr. A.
van Eijnsbergen. On May 17th
the deputy chief of the traffic department of the postal services requested to
stop stamping over the stamps.
Received
international mail must be noticed: Greece, South Africa, Trinidad (British
West Indies), Canada, Belgium, Curacao, Spain, Portugal, Switserland,
Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, West Africa, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Russia, France, Egypt, Brasil and Italy. Mail from