We smuggled books behind the Iron Curtain. Into countries where clergymen were forbidden to work.
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Jan Kraaijeveld was born on 25 August 1954 in Sliedrecht, south of Rotterdam, into a very devout and large Protestant family. Prayers, hymns, psalms, frequent visits to church were their daily bread. He went to study theology in Utrecht, where he met Hebe Charlotte Kohlbrugge, who was organizing aid in the Eastern Bloc countries. He himself became involved in this aid, first as a student and later as a pastor. He and his colleague Henri Veldhuis travelled to Romania, Czechoslovakia and the GDR, first in a car, then in a specially adapted caravan. In Vienna or Nuremberg, they loaded the books they handed over behind the Iron Curtain, and brought back manuscripts, photographs and microfilms for a change. In Miroslav they met personally with the Kalus and Ryšavý families, the Brodský family, and in Prague with Miloš Rejchrt, Jakub Trojan, Ladislav Hejdánek and Martin Palouš. However, they also had to keep quiet about their dangerous activities behind the Iron Curtain even in Holland. After 1989, Jan Kraaijeveld organized courses for evangelical ministers in the Czech Republic, this time officially, without secrecy. However, he still felt ashamed to talk openly about some things and to describe specifically how the smuggling of books took place. He was so used to it from the Iron Curtain days.
