July holiday 2024

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Booked Harry
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res nr: 13715998
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nr: 13716649

Agricamping

We arrived at Camperplaats amore del Vino. A lovely place, which is recommended. You are on the old football field and therefore enough space!
https://www.inonshuys.nl/nl/locations/italie/
Tonight we have a reservation in the restaurant of the village: el Fuego Nico. It is a special evening: eating in the wine cellar and with every 6-course a wine from the cellar! More than around fortunately we walk home. Fortunately mostly downhill

Berkel en Rodenrijs was home to a director of a retirement home who, during a Bible Week in the Czech Republic in the late 1970s, met the widow of a minister and the organist of the Kloster Kirche in Kloster Neuendorf.

Kloster Neuendorf was then still GDR, they started corresponding and wrote at the beginning of 1980 that the organ in their church was in very poor condition and could no longer be restored.
It was possible to take over an organ from a church in Oebisfelde, but there was no money for that. They asked the director if she could help.

That was the right person to say something like that to. In that period the organ of the Putseplein church had just been finished in the Ark in Berkel en Rodenrijs.

She came up with the idea of organizing a benefit concert in the Ark under the motto 'from an organ, comes an organ'.
Together with the late Wim vd Panne I gave that concert, which raised a wonderful amount for the church in Kloster Neuendorf.

The director also arranged for used clothing, especially children's clothing, to be sent to the village in the GDR on a regular basis, hidden among vegetables and other materials that were sent from the Netherlands to the GDR.

There came a time when the director and a friend traveled to Kloster Neuendorf, with cash in soap boxes, hidden in shoes etc., Western money fetched double the price, and more, on the black market in the GDR.

At some point there was almost enough money and the organ could be bought in Oebisfelde. In 1988 the organ was ready and Joke and I were invited to come to Kloster Neuendorf to put the organ into use, to play it in.

It was exciting but we went to church together in Kloster Neuendorf in August 1988.

We stayed with a host family with whom we had been corresponding for several months, because the government was keeping a close eye on everything.

The concert was to take place on Sunday afternoon. It was mentioned in all kinds of newspapers, and when we walked to the church, Trabants (GDR car) drove up, we didn't know what hit us.
Just someone from the West who came to play there.

I was a permanent accompanist for the IJEKoor Overschie, and I also got them enthusiastic about travelling to the GDR and giving a few concerts there.
That was in 1989, just in the weekend when the unrest started that caused the wall to 'fall', we knew nothing about it, it was kept quiet by the government. The IJE choir raised the last money for the organ.



Due to the government structure, it was said that the organ had been saved up by selling (children's) clothing.
Only after the wall fell was the real story told to the inhabitants.

They still appreciate it.

Together with other musicians I later raised money for the restoration, reconstruction of the church roof, and not to forget the tower clock (timepiece) and the bell.
In the meantime, it has become an annual concert tour for Joke and me, and other musicians, and people still come from far and wide.
In the meantime the concerts have been expanded to surrounding places, it is always a pleasure to give concerts there for a week.

https://www.janteeuw.nl/index.php/reizen/duitsland/kloster-neuendorf