The order for all men aged 17 to 40 to report for work was distributed by pamphlet in Rotterdam and Schiedam in November 1944. This was followed by the largest raid that the Netherlands has seen during the occupation. The then 17-year-old Piet Laban remembers the breathtaking silence in the Feyenoord stadium, where the men are brought together for transport. Koos Bienefelt, then 18 years old, must also immediately go with a German soldier. The father of then 5-year-old Henk Gaertman is also taken away. In 1945, his mother sent Henk to the dock every day to see if his father had returned, but that did not happen.
