Pieter (Piet) Bloot (1924–1982) came to Aalten from the bombed city of Rotterdam in the summer of 1940 as a sixteen-year-old boy. On the initiative of the Calvinist (gereformeerde) minister Th. Delleman—formerly a minister in Aalten and later in Rotterdam-Kralingen—an appeal was published in the Aalten church magazine to offer Rotterdam children from affected families a carefree summer holiday. Piet was one of the fortunate ones.
What began as a holiday turned into a five-year stay. During this period, Bloot worked in the horn industry in Aalten. Because he had a passion for drawing, he returned to Rotterdam after the liberation, where he studied commercial drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts.
However, Piet could no longer settle in Rotterdam and returned to the Achterhoek region at the end of 1947. He went to work for the electrical installation company ERBA Van Lochem in Aalten. In September 1949, he met Johanna Wildenbeest, who was born at the De Kiefte farmhouse in De Heurne. They married in 1952 and had three children.
In the early 1950s, Bloot and his colleague Leendert Rhebergen started their own business at the bottom of the Hogestraat: Rhebergen en Bloot, an electrical installation company with a shop selling electrical appliances.
Piet Bloot passed away on 30 January 1982, aged 57, and was buried at the Berkenhove cemetery.
Publications
In 2016, the Fagus publishing house released Zo ik niet had geloofd, brieven van mijn moeder (Had I Not Believed: Letters from My Mother), based on around 160 letters and postcards his mother had sent him from Rotterdam between 1940 and 1945, supplemented by his own memories. Bloot is also featured in Kunstig Aalten (2021), an overview of artists from Aalten compiled by Leo van der Linde.
Gallery
A selection of works by Piet Bloot:
