The Heineken Kidnapping

1983

IT WAS THE BREAKING NEWS OF THE DAY: FREDDY HEINEKEN AND HIS driver, Ab Doderer, had been kidnapped. Heineken, the man around whom my father’s life revolved. For more than twenty-five years he’d worked for the Heineken company, and night after night I’d heard him talking about his plans for “the Brewery,” how he wanted to contribute to it in his own crazy manner. I’d always felt ashamed of his bizarre devotion to the company, but I could sympathize with his respect for Mr. Heineken. And now the man had been taken right off the street, in front of the Heineken headquarters in Amsterdam.

A few evenings later, Wim came over for dinner at Cor and my sister’s, and I was there, too. The television was showing the latest news on the kidnapping.

“What d’ya say about that?” Wim asked.

“It’s extremely stupid,” I replied. “Who would kidnap Heineken? The man has more power than the queen. Whoever did it will never get away with it. They’ll be hunted the rest of their lives.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“I am pretty damn sure of it.”

“How can you be so sure?” he asked.

“Wim, this man has billions, he is almost sovereign, he knows world leaders, he’s the queen’s best friend. Trust me, whoever did this really put themselves out there. They’ll have the whole world on their case.”

“Smart-ass,” he snapped.

As always, my opinion annoyed him—nothing new there. He changed the subject. “Get me a typewriter ribbon. You know where to get it, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I need it tomorrow. Here’s the money. You always forget about everything, but you can’t forget this—it’s really important.”

Wim was right, I was forgetful. But I understood from his voice and eyes that he meant business.

“Leave it at Mom’s.”

“Okay,” I said.

The next day I cycled to the bookstore after school, bought the ribbon, and cycled back to my mother’s home, where Wim was already waiting for me.

“Here you go,” I said, and gave him the box with the ribbon, not knowing what he was going to use it for.

“Good job, Assie.” He left right away.

  

That night, I slept at Sonja’s again. Francis slept in the cot in the nursery. I lay with Sonja in the master bedroom.

Suddenly I was awoken by rapid, loud footsteps coming closer. I opened my eyes to see where the noise was coming from and saw six big men standing around the bed, their faces covered by ski masks. They all had large rifles pointed at us. Sonja and I had nowhere to go.

We held on to each other and screamed in terror. All I could think was, I’m going to die. The next moment, there was even more noise and a second bunch came barging in screaming loudly, pulling open all the doors and closets.

What was going on? Why would they want to kill us? I was pulled away from Sonja, dragged off the bed, and thrown to the floor.

“Get down! On your belly! Down!” they screamed. “Hands behind your head!”

I lay flat on my belly, hands behind my head. I tried to see what was going on behind me, and from the corner of my eye I could see one of the men standing over me with his gun pointed at my head. In front of me was Francis’s room. I heard her cry and saw a large guy with a weapon go into the nursery.

I heard Sonja shriek, “My baby! My baby!”

She tried to get away from the large guy who was holding her down. Out of sheer desperation, I tried to crawl across the floor toward the nursery to get her, protect her, do anything, but the man who stood over me yelled, “Stay down!” and pulled me back by the legs. He put his foot on my neck and pushed my head down, grinding my cheek into the carpet.

I’d probably just made matters worse. I tried catching his eye, to see what he’d do. I saw the gun and was sure he was going to shoot and kill me. I couldn’t get away from him, so I kept my eyes shut and just waited for the shot.

At the same second, I heard more screaming. Men in regular clothing barged in and shouted, “Police! Police!”

Police? I thought. Yes, it’s the police! They’re not robbers or murderers. It’s the police, surely they won’t shoot us, we’ll survive this! I was still lying on the floor with the cop’s shoe on my neck and could hear them searching the entire house. They were yelling at Sonja.

They pressed me for Cor’s whereabouts. But I didn’t know where he was. Cor would never tell Sonja or me where he was going. I was pulled up and brought into the living room. I asked them what was going on, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. Sonja was being kept in another room. We weren’t allowed to talk to each other. A detective walked me to the bedroom so I could get dressed.

Then the phone rang.

Sonja and I looked at each other and thought the same thing. It was Cor.

Sonja wouldn’t answer, but the detective forced her to.

“Hey,” she said, and she could hear Cor’s voice. Before she could say a thing, the detective took over.

“This is Piet,” he said.

Cor knew what this meant: a stranger in his house, taking over the phone. We were still clueless about what was going on.

After we’d both gotten dressed, we were taken to the police station in different cars. Francis went with Sonja.

At the police station, we were put in a room together.

“What do you think it’s about?” Sonja asked, again.

“I don’t have the faintest idea,” I said. “You think Cor did something bad?”

“I don’t know,” Sonja said. “I can’t think of anything, but it’s a sure thing they’re after Cor.”

That much was clear. While Sonja and I were theorizing about why the police had taken us, the door opened and I was taken to a cell with a concrete bed and a toilet right next to it. The air was cold, and the walls were scratched with all kinds of texts.

Before long, I’d finished reading the walls. Hours went by. It was getting light outside, time for school. That morning I was supposed to take a German test from Mrs. Jansen, the strictest teacher of all. There was no way I could miss this test. I pressed the intercom button.

“Yes,” said a stiff voice.

“Ma’am, I’ve got a German test to take. I’d like to leave.” Silence.

I pressed the button again. “Yes.”

“Ma’am, could you please let me out? I’ve got to be at school.”

“No.”

After that, I could press the button until I was blue in the face, but there was no reaction. I wouldn’t make it for the test. How could I explain this to my teacher? Tell her I’d been in a police cell? She wouldn’t believe it. I had always been serious and prudent, not a troublemaker. Why would I be in a police cell? I’d fail the test.

For hours my thoughts went in circles. Cor must have done something really bad, but I couldn’t think what. He’d always been nice to me, and good to his mom, his sister, his half brother, everyone. He was funny and good company. What kind of crime would he be capable of? What was going to happen now? How long would I have to stay in here, and for what reason? If Cor was guilty of something, then why was it me they were after?

I thought about Sonja and Francis. Whether they were still together, or if Francis had been taken by Child Protective Services, something the police had threatened when we were still at Sonja’s house. I wondered if Wim might be involved in all this. After all, he and Cor did spend all their time together…

A couple of hours later, the door swung open and a large guy came barging in. “Sign!” he yelled, holding up a document.

“Sign?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, sign!” he yelled again, and I read the document. It said I’d been arrested in connection with the Heineken kidnapping.

Heineken kidnapping? What was this? The movie I’d seen the day before flashed through my mind, about the Franz Kafka trial. I’d wound up in a Kafkaesque story myself. I refused to sign, afraid that if I did, I’d never be released.

The large man didn’t accept my refusal, though. He bellowed from within an inch of my face, “Sign it! You’re signing right now!” I put my signature down with no idea what I was signing. Then I was taken to a room where I had to put out my hands and my nails were clipped. I was afraid. Knowing they were police was no longer reassuring to me. What else were they going to do to me? Why were they clipping my fingernails?

Twenty-five years later, I was given access to the file and found out. They were looking for traces of the chemicals that had been sprayed onto the ransom money by the Heineken company. The police wanted to find out if I’d touched any of that money.

After the clipping, they took me to another room. I was a minor, seventeen years old, and hadn’t seen a lawyer yet. Back then I did not even know I had the right to one. Yet the police questioned me. They showed me pictures of Rob Grifhorst, Frans Meijer, Jan Boellaard, Cor, and his half brother Martin Erkamps. I have no recollection whatsoever of what I told them, but it can’t have been much, as I didn’t know anything.

Apparently, the investigators quickly drew the same conclusion. The following morning, my cell door was opened and I was escorted out onto the street without any explanation. I came home to an empty house. Where was everybody? Then came a knock on the door. It was our upstairs neighbor, holding Francis in her arms. At least I’d found her. That was the main thing—the others could look after themselves. She told me Sonja had asked the police to bring Francis back so the neighbor could take care of her for the time being. I asked her if she knew where the others were.

“The police took Gerard, too. I heard a huge noise in the staircase. The entire building was flooded with cops in combat gear. It was just like a movie. I could see him being driven away in a car from my window. Your mom went to Sonja’s this morning, and she hasn’t come back. I saw on the news she’s at the police station as well.”

“Sonja is there, too,” I filled her in. “She was taken along with me.”

“This is such a misery, isn’t it, love?” my neighbor said.

The warmth in her voice was in such sharp contrast to the harshness I’d experienced just a short while ago that I broke down for a moment.

“What’s happening? What’s going on? I want my mom back, but I don’t know what to do. What can I do?” I cried.

“Easy, easy. Everything will be fine,” she said. “I’ve got a card upstairs from an investigator who asked me a lot of questions about you all. Maybe you should give him a call.”

I was seventeen years old, naïve as can be, and had just experienced what can happen to a person who hasn’t done anything wrong. Calling the police felt like reaching a hand out to the executioner who would then cut it off. The last thing I’d do was call the people who’d treated me so unjustly.

“No, they might come back for me. I’ll just wait. I can look after Francis until Sonja gets back.”

“All right, honey. If you need anything, I’ll be upstairs.” Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. I was still holding Francis as I answered. There was a gentleman standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Child Protective Services. I’m here to get Francis van Hout!”

Take Francis? “That won’t be necessary,” I shouted down, and I ran upstairs to the neighbor, holding Francis in my arms. The man from Child Protective Services ran after me.

“Open up!” I shouted to my neighbor. The creep grabbed my leg and I kicked him off, ran up the last few steps, jumped into my neighbor’s house and slammed the door shut behind me. Just in time.

“Open the door,” the man said.

“No,” I said. “She’s staying right here.”

“Then I’ll get the police,” he said.

“You do that!” I yelled.

“Calm down,” my neighbor whispered, “this won’t work.” She started to talk with the man. He told her I couldn’t look after Francis because I belonged to this criminal family. Had the world gone mad? The neighbor convinced him that she would take care of the child. He agreed to this.

I felt relieved. Sonja would have gone mad with rage if I had given Francis to strangers. I couldn’t get Francis to calm down, but our neighbor was a real motherly type and she knew how to soothe her.

Francis was asleep upstairs and I was sitting downstairs when I heard something at the door. I was paralyzed with fear. Wasn’t it over yet? Were they coming to get me again? I hid behind the couch. Somebody was opening the door. Who was it? I heard them come in, curled up as much as I could, and held my breath.

“Anybody here?” It was Gerard!

I stood up from behind the couch and yelled, “Me!”

Gerard jumped in surprise. “What are you doing, idiot? You scared the shit out of me!”

Just this once, his scornful words were music to my ears. My little brother was back!

“What’s going on, Ger?” I asked, hoping he’d have an answer.

“I don’t know, but it’s pretty serious,” he said in a trembling voice.

He told me that he’d seen armed men going into our apartment and had tried to hide on the balcony. Before long, they’d found him and taken him to their car at gunpoint.

Only in the car had he been told they were police. He’d been terrified, and thought he was being kidnapped.

“So now what?” I asked. “Where is Mom? Where are Sonja, Cor, and Wim?”

“I don’t know, As, I really don’t.” We were both in shock.

That night both of us stayed at home, waiting.

I wanted to see my mom so badly.

The neighbor invited us for dinner. The TV was on, continually covering news about the kidnappers. It was bizarre to hear the names of people I knew: Cor, Wim, and Martin, Cor’s half brother. How could they have done this? It was inconceivable. “What are we gonna do?” I asked, and at that point we heard my mother call out, “Is anybody home?”

“Mom, we’re up here!”

Finally, my mother! She told us she’d been arrested when she arrived at Sonja’s house, only minutes after we’d been taken away.

The house was filled with SWAT team members, and one of them was guarding the door. My mom saw the door was open and started to go in. One of the SWAT guys pointed a gun at her head.

“Don’t move,” he said.

My mother wasn’t impressed. “Will you back off?” she snapped. She pushed his gun aside and kept walking. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have anything better to do? You should be going after the Heineken kidnappers!” she said in all sincerity, not knowing that was exactly what they were doing.

  

“That piece of shit Cor,” Mom was saying now. “Why did he do it? Has he gone mad? And he’s coming to our place? He’s finished! Sonja can’t see him anymore. What a filthy bum. Why didn’t I see it sooner? That felon!”

“What are you saying, Mom?” I asked.

“Cor kidnapped Heineken!” she cried out.

“Wim was in on it, too, wasn’t he?” I replied.

The moment I said it, she crumbled and sank down on the couch. “Wim?” she asked, perplexed. “Wim is involved as well?”

“Mom, didn’t they tell you at the station?”

“No,” she said. “Tell me what?”

“That Wim was part of it, too.”

“No,” she stammered, and stared in the distance. “No, they didn’t tell me that. They only talked about Cor.”

Her world had just collapsed. She started weeping.

“My boy, my boy—how could a child of mine do such a thing? How horrible, how horrible. Where is he? Is he at the station, too?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

At that moment, the TV news announced that some of the Heineken kidnappers had been caught, but two of them were still on the run.

I watched my mom and saw the pain in her eyes. Her son was a fugitive.

“We may never see him again,” she murmured. “They’re getting away and leaving us with the mess.”

  

Sonja was released the following day. As soon as she got home, she ran straight to Francis and held her tightly. The investigators had threatened to put her in foster care for good if Sonja didn’t tell them everything she knew about the kidnapping.

Sonja didn’t know anything, though, and only when they were fully convinced of this did they let her go. Sonja was a complete mess—mad at Cor, mad at Wim. How could they do this to everyone? We were all angry, but worried, too. Where could they be? What would happen if they were found? Could they be killed during their arrest? From the news, it was clear there was a huge hunt going on for them and that part of the ransom money hadn’t been retrieved yet.

From then on, the police were on our backs, hoping we’d lead them to Cor, Wim, or the missing money. When we bought something in a store, they’d check whether we paid with ransom money.

We were free but not free. We were observed and wiretapped. We had no privacy left whatsoever. We were publicly depicted as a mob family, and everyone turned their backs on us, or made it clear that they would be justified in doing so. The president of my basketball association informed me that the board had decided that I should not be held accountable for my brother’s crime, and that I’d be allowed to keep playing for the association.

Not accountable for my brother’s crime? Allowed to keep playing? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to keep playing?

As it turned out, my basketball association wasn’t the only place where common sense went out the window; it happened everywhere.

Suddenly, just because I was “related to the Heineken kidnappers” I was complicit in what had happened. We’d spent all our lives under my father’s dictatorship, so afraid of his wrath that we wouldn’t have dared to run a red light, and suddenly in the court of public opinion we’d all become criminals—thanks to Wim.

The media eagerly agreed. Denial was futile. We were “evil,” and there was no possibility of redemption. Everywhere we went, we were “relatives of,” not independent individuals.

Our last name was all we had. The name Holleeder defined us.

I didn’t want to lie about it and then have to invent more lies about where I came from. So I always gave my last name and replied in the affirmative when people asked me if I was “related to,” at which point the person looked at me as if I was contaminated with some horrible disease.

This happened to all of us. Our shared experience strengthened our solidarity. Within this solidarity there was safety, so my mom, Sonja, Gerard, and I huddled even closer together.

My family, where I used to be treated as weird, became the only place where I wasn’t the odd one out.