There are not a lot of facts known about the 9-day boattrip from Rotterdam in Holland to Hoboken, New Jersey. We know Lee wrote a lot, the things he wrote on the stationery from Holland-America Line survived throught time. Next to that we learned a lot from things Marina said to the Warren Commission, to the House Select Committee on Assassinations and to some authors like Priscilla Johnson McMillan. We can only hope the things she said are the truth, not always Marina Oswald was a good witness. Best example in this context is her lie about flying from Amsterdam to New York, after having spent three days in the capital of Holland. We all know now she never went to see Amsterdam, and she didn’t fly to the United States.

One of the things she did mention was a man on board of the SS Maasdam. A half Russian/half Dutch young man, working as a waiter on board of the ship. His name, she remembered, was Pieter Didenko. She first mentioned this person to Priscilla Johnson McMillan, who used it in her book Marina and Lee. It’s odd that she never said a word about him to the Warren Commission, who asked her if she had met people on board. No, was her answer, cause she was in her cabin with June all the time. Appearantly Lee was a bit ashamed of her appearance, she was dressed poorly. But later she suddenly talks about this young waiter, who she had an encounter with several times.

McMillan’s book was published in 1977, one year before a deposition of Marina before the Select Committee on Assassinations. On August 9, 1978, Marina mentioned Pieter briefly before this committee. It went like this, questions asked by counsel James Wolf, answers by Marina:

Q. On the boat over to New York do you recall if Lee was friendly with anybody in particular?
A. No.
Q. Do you recall meeting anybody in particular?
A. The only person that I recall was the steward at the diningtable. We were assigned to a certain dining table and only onegentleman that I talked to.
Q. Did you discuss anything in particular with him?
A. The gentleman spoke a few Russian words to me like help and justhow are you and things like that and I asked through Lee how come hespoke Russian and he said that his father was Russian and mother isfrom Holland and from childhood he remembered a few phrases and that isall.

Well, according to Marina & Lee there is more Marina remembered. For example his name: her biological father, who died before she was born, was named Didenko as well. Pieter and Marina did have things in common, both being young and posessed with Russian blood. She must have felt lonely on the Maasdam, her man acting like a jerk and she going to places she had never been before, for the first time doubting her marriage and the decision of moving to the United States. Pieter Didenko was a person she could talk with.

More about what happened on board follows soon, just as what fellow-researchers already did – and what I’m trying now – to locate this man, who will be in his sixties now if still alive. Like other aspects of this project, finding him is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay.

Down here some collegues of Pieter Didenko: waiters that worked on the Maasdam those years. Pictures are clickable for bigger versions.

Some extracts from Marina & Lee, by Priscilla Johnson McMillan:

"They had a charming waiter, a handsome young man whose name was Pieter. Half Russian and half Dutch, he knew a few words of Russian and wanted to know all about Marina. But Lee was suspicious of him. ‘Don’t tell him anything you don’t have to,’ he warned Marina, ‘It’s no accident that they gave us a Russian-speaking waiter.’ Marina ignored his warning. To the extent their languages would allow, she chatted openly with Pieter, and she dicovered that his last name was ‘Didenko,’ or something close to it."

"On wednesday, June 13, 1962, the Maasdam slid into its pier in Hoboken, New Jersery. The Oswalds were packed and waiting below. Tense and nervouw throughout the voyage, Lee literally jumped when they heard a knock at the door of their cabin. He stepped back, whiled around, and stood confronting the door. It was their waiter, Pieter. He had come to say goodbye. Shyly, he showed Marina a photograph of the French girl he was meeting in New York. When he left and the door had closed behind him, Marina sensed the tension seeping out of her husband’s body. He had been expecting the police."