‘The war stopped just at the frontier of Baarn’, Westerdijk wrote in 1946 to one of her many foreign contacts in the world of phytopathology. ‘One day longer, and the whole village would have disappeared.’ It is said that Westerdijk spent the entire evening playing the piano, completely alone, with the distant thunder of approaching bombing in the background. The Villa suffered no damage.

The College of Agriculture was less fortunate. ‘Many of the Wageningen institutes were severely attacked’, she wrote to another fellow-phytopathologist. ‘And the worst is, that all the instruments have been stolen by the Germans, not even brought to Germany, but sometimes thrown into ditches etc.’

Who survived? How are they? And what state is science in, and phytopathology in particular? After five years of bitter isolation, the letters poured in. Former PhD student Alexander Liernur wrote from Goirle: ‘We did not do too badly; were made to leave our home for three months and in February a V-1 landed about 100 yards away, destroying almost all the windows, the roof and the interior dividing walls. I also got a shower of glass in my face, which gave me an eye infection that lasted a month, but I’m happy to say that it's gone now.’ Otto Appel, from Berlin: ‘In these past long years I have often thought of you and your splendid institute. … As a family, however, we came through these difficult years very well. In any case we are all still alive, and that is the main thing.’

In answer to requests for information about various people, Westerdijk wrote back ‘I can tell you that Dr Jordan died when he [was hiding from] the Germans, from heart disease. His wife is living. …. Honing is [well]; he married again and has two small children, but his house at Wageningen was destroyed and his institute was badly damaged. … Miss Spierenburg is now over 65 and has left the phytopathological service [Plant Protection Service], but she is quite well, though her house at Wageningen has been totally destroyed by bombs. Dr Duifjes [was] murdered in a camp on Java, but I think his wife is living. Perhaps you remember Dr Diddens [of my staff].