Below a pic from a memorial museum in the middle of the country.

My cousin Marius and I discussed the lives of our dads last Monday. His dad and mine were always together. Brother Jan (John) the oldest (1918), and my dad 2 yrs younger (1920). After 1935 their lives changed - ultimately dramatically. Jan had become a master carpenter but was unable to find work, so he switched: he went into the army to become a professional soldier: the MP with the idea of becoming a police officer after 5 yrs. My dad was still at school (college) and was a marine engineering apprentice in the late '30s and was drafted into the military when Hitler started rattling the chains of war.

Fast forward to 1940: my dad had an awful motorcycle accident a week before the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France. He was in the military hospital in Leiden (between Amsterdam and The Hague). His war-experiences were limited to seeing and hearing wounded being brought into the hospital after May 10th.

Brother Jan was assigned to a regiment that was defending a hill (Grebbeberg) about 20kms west of Arnhem; where the forests stop and the low-countries start. The hill in the flat landscape was the perfect spot to attack the western part with artillery etc. The Germans started the invasion with the idea of a '24hr walk-over', but that went differently. 3 days of intense fighting followed and only after the Nazis bombed civilians in Rotterdam, the Dutch army surrendered. The Germans did not reach/take the Holland's western part before the capitulation.

The fight for the hill was insanely intense. After seeing the memorial/museum, and this pic on the museum wall I was thinking of various locations in Ukraine these days. Wave after wave of German soldiers slowly but surely advanced. And on May 14th the Staff of the Dutch army ordered troops to surrender.



On the pic are a handful of men. One, the tall blonde guy (third from the left) with his jacket open, is my uncle, 22 y/o. The same age as one of my boys. He, as a professional soldier, was taken as POW. All conscripts were free to go home(!) The situation was surrealistic according to my uncle when he told a few things later-on in life. The German SS troops were absolutely polite. One SS officer asked a Dutch captain where his troops were. The Dutch captain answered that he would tell and expected to be shot. The SS officer replied in a way: "You're a professional and a true leader; I also wouldn't tell it in your place!" Wounded Dutch soldiers were treated by German doctors like they were German troops.

The POWs were marched off to Arnheim and then to Germany. Most were put to work on farmland, others in factories. My uncle wasn't so lucky. He was put to work in an area that later would become Eastern Germany. And he never wanted to talk about that period again. We don't have any idea what happened there. Later in life, my dad said: "He came back a different man!"

For me, this pic is part of my family's history. What strikes me is the parallel with modern days (you know what I'm talking about). Knowing now (a little) what happened to him, gives me the shivers when I think of all those now in Eastern Europe!