[Ed.] Thank you for Freedom
Published: May 7, 2005
What’s it to you?
The end of World War II is 60 years behind us. I was born 23 years after the fact. Consequently, when I talk about it with deep emotion people in my new home land, Canada, tend to ask me; “What is it to you anyway? You didn’t live any of it…”.
It’s everywhere
The Occupation. That’s how you grew up as a child of parents who had lived through World War II. It wasn’t The War but The Occupation. Everything is bundled up in that reference: the theft of Freedom, the rape of Dignity, the horror of Injustice unchecked. The reversal of everything that had become natural and right.
I grew up with The Occupation; as did my sister, as did my brother. As did anyone born of parents who had made it through The Occupation.
The Occupation was never far away - is never far away. It’s why my mother has a stockpile of clothes and linnen for all seasons. She’s not an unreasonable person, my mother, but why risk again having to walk on shoes which toe is cut off to make place for your growing child feet?
It is my father’s recollection of The Liberation of Enschede, his city of birth, when The Traitors were rounded up. “But I didn’t do anything!!”, panicked one of them. To which my grandfather replied; “That’s precisely it - you never did anything.”
It’s me playing outside, hearing a propeller plane and checking if it would try to have the sun in its back: that’s how they used to attack.
It’s learning how during the Hunger Winter you would walk hundreds of miles to trade something, anything, for a piece of bread, a piece of meat - only to have it confiscated and thrown in the water or trampled by The Soldiers upon return into the city.
It’s your mother being a little girl wanting to wave her father goodbye to work and a soldier pointing a gun at you to move away from the window.
… a child thinking she should sleep on her back; your belly is so soft if a grenade shard would rip through it…
… a mother’s warning to look left and right for the tanks and army trucks before crossing the street ….
… three simple wooden crosses, always with flowers, marking the place where three were shot for their resistance, only days before The Liberation …
… it’s all the Yiddish words specific to Amsterdam and the almost-absence of their originators…
… it’s always having oil, candles, clothes, food in the house - and buying more with every rumor of War: Bosnia, The Gulf….
… it’s your uncle with live grenades under his bed as a boy ….
… it’s your aunt and her husband in The Resistance …
It’s so many things. And it’s all persuasive. Everywhere. In one way or another.
Freedom
Maybe it’s less these days? Maybe its modern to “move along folks, nothing to see here”? In my childhood days it wasn’t, that’s for sure. History lessons taught you a lot about The Occupation. About how 5 years of intolerance interupted the history of a tolerant nation. You were always Aware or Made Aware of the sharp contrast between The Occupation and the modern free press. The Occupation and politcial freedom. The Occupation and religious freedom.
Freedom. Sweet freedom.
I understand it is thanks to my parents. I have it thanks to Our Liberators.
So when I cannot be there to see The Veterans make an honor parade in Amsterdam I salute them from afar, inexplicable tears behind my eyes.
Thank you for Freedom.
Thank you for understanding.
To read
· Survival and Resistance: The Netherlands Under Nazi Occupation
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