At 11 Hamelakkerlaan, Samuel (Moela), Roos Maso-Italianer and their son Ilja live with Roos' mother. Roos is pregnant. Both have only a Jewish father, so they don't have to wear a star. But Moela is not allowed to continue his studies. He does so clandestinely anyway. They nevertheless have just decided to go into hiding: Moela is active in the Wageningen (student) resistance - he contributes to the illegal student magazine Cereales vadenses - and he has been summoned to report for the Arbeitseinsatz.

Sunday September 17, 1944 Ilja plays in the playpen in the front yard. When the planes arrive, Roos brings Ilja in just to be safe. Moela goes out to watch the planes with the neighbours. He later writes in his diary:

Suddenly I was in the middle of a hell of fire and dust, I saw a high blast of earth and a burning pain hit my left wrist and it became a red mass. Then it was as if they slapped a hot whip across my back. (...) I dropped behind a pile of sand. With my thumb I closed my artery and with my left arm up I waited. It only lasted a short time. (...) I walked home. Roos came running and called my name in anguish. (...) Our house was badly damaged. From the playpen in the front garden only wood splinters remained ... In the neighbour's garden, where four people had stood, I now saw a bloody mass. (...) I can’t believe I am still alive!*

Life in the cellars
After a short stay in the hospital, Moela goes to Dr. Burger's basement on the Rijksstraatweg, where Roos and Ilja are also hiding. The days are bearable, with the light that shines through the cellar windows, but the evenings are awful. A new attack on Wageningen is expected at the end of September. The Masos go to the safer basements of the university building for plant diseases at the Binnenhaven. They share the bright sitting-dormitory rooms with 60 people. Some of the staff of the Wageningen resistance are also staying there. They send information about German positions to the Allies. On October 1, 1944, the city of Wageningen has to evacuate again. The basement residents may stay but at their own risk. Most people stay, even though there is no electricity nor gas and not always water.

Adrift
On October 9, the Germans confiscate the building. The basement dwellers walk to the seed control building, 100 meters away. Moela, Roos and Ilja eventually move to Voorburg, where Roos gives birth to their second son on November 3. Moela continues his studies. After the Hunger Winter they move to Wieringerwerf. They witness the defensive flooding and have to evacuate again.

In 1993 Moela Maso wrote the book ‘Here reigns the English Disease -
Student Resistance in Wageningen’. He dies in 1999 in Vlaardingen.
Moela Maso at his inauguration party October 1940
The illegal student magazine Cereales, detail
Roos Maso with son lija
Registration for the Employment Service at the cinema, Stationstraat, 
September 16, 1944.
The old hospital Ziekenzorg
Laboratory for Mycology and Potato Research (also called IPO: Institute for 
Plant Pathology Research).
Binnenhaven 4. The large basement windows can be seen
State experimental station for seed control, Binnenhaven 1. To the right of 
the water, the Haagsteeg, view northwest.