JOURNAL

Stories of the Piller brothers

December 2, 2019

Stories of the Piller brothers

Ronald Poelstra enjoys sharing stories about his experiences in the Centrale Markthal, a vibrant place in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, filled with many remarkable characters. In the previous story, Poelstra introduced us to the Jewish Piller brothers. Below, he continues to tell us about these extraordinary market people.

“Windig AGF was located on the western side of the hall in the 1960s, near the potato market (see photo). Next to us in the hall were the Piller brothers, with whom we had a lot of laughs. Especially Levi Piller, the older of the two, had a distinct Amsterdam sense of humor (see also the first story).

“Here’s an example involving the Coffee House in the Centrale Markthal,. Well, calling it a coffee house is a stretch; it was basically just a space with two telephones. But every morning, someone from Marcanti would bring two pots of hot coffee to be sold there. The seller was Willem Hanepen, another person who was well-known in the market. After a few years of selling coffee for Marcanti, Willem started working for himself. From that moment on, the coffee house was called ‘t Praathuis, an important social gathering place for wholesalers. Willem sold coffee there, but if you asked for it, you could also get other things under the counter, like the Limburgish strong liquor ‘Elskens.’ No, of course, none of that was officially allowed…”

But let’s get back to Levi Piller. Like us, Piller was a regular customer at Hanepen’s. One day, a truck wasn’t paying attention and backed into Hanepen’s entire coffee house, causing a big mess, with glass and coffee everywhere. Soon, a group of merchants gathered to look at the chaos. And then Levi Piller walked up, in his unique way, with his hands in the pockets of his long black coat. He glanced sideways from under his hat at the mess on the floor and dryly said in a thick Amsterdam accent, ‘Just once, I have my own glass…’ That’s the kind of humor that can’t be adequately conveyed in words; only he could say it like that. Someone demolishes the entire coffee house, and he complains about his glass.”

On the other side of the hall was Baer Jansen. Baer dealt with fruit from Limburg and had a spot beneath the NMB bank. He always wore his pants pulled up to his waist, with wide suspenders above. And he was a pigeon fancier: he kept his pigeons at the top of the hall, which might be the reason why there are still so many pigeons in the market hall today.

“There’s an amusing story involving Baer Jansen and the Pillers. Every so often, Baer would go to Catholic Limburg to do his shopping, and Barend Piller, the boxer, would accompany him. They would share a motel room and sleep in one bed to save money. The story goes that one night, Baer wakes up and gets a fright because there’s a guy standing behind the bed! He taps Barend awake, and without hesitation, Barend jumps up and delivers a powerful blow, knocking a life-sized crucifix with Jesus Christ clean off the wall.”

“The following Monday in the Centrale Markthal, stories like that would naturally be told in great detail among the wholesalers. And you know what? Ultimately, you’re never really sure if it actually happened, but that doesn’t matter. If it’s not true, it’s still a great story; we talked about it for years.”

With thanks to Ronald Poelstra
Photo: Amsterdam City Archives, market hall in 1973
Text: Job Wijnen