An unforgettable meeting...

On Wednesday I had the honor of meeting Ineke’s grandfather who is 92 years old! Realizing his age it dawned on me that he lived here in Rotterdam during the German occupation of WWII. I love history and prior to now have only spoken with US soldiers who fought during the war here in Europe. So I asked him if he would tell me a little about what it was like living here during those times. He began to describe to me how terrible it was. He told me about his good friend who was a Jew who had all of his rights taken away, then had to go into hiding but was eventually captured and shot to death by the Germans. Tears began to well up as he told me how terrible it was to see the city where he had grown up burn down. He said how he remembers the day the Italians surrendered and he heard it over the radio. He said he remembers jumping up and down screaming and his little girl thought he had gone mad. During WWII and after he worked as a meter reader for the city. He said that he will never forget going into one house and seeing a picture on the wall saying “After life you will spend eternity in one of two places, heaven or hell, where will you be? Coming from America the majority of us really have no clue what living through a war is like. We have only read about it in our history books or watched a war movie or two. This was this man’s reality! He told me about his friends who went off to fight, some of them never to return home. I was reminded by him that freedom isn’t free. It is paid with a great price and we all have forgotten that. Men have bled for freedom, suffered for freedom and we have forgotten. We live out our comfortable lives forgetting that someone had to die so that we could have the comforts that we have today. Let us always be learning from the past and living our lives to preserve the freedom that we so enjoy.