Remembrance Day

On my walks through town and country, I do come across some monuments that are reminders of World War II. There may be fewer and fewer people who actually remember the actual war (my Dad for example was born a month after the war had ended), but it should still be remembered. 

The photo at the top may not look like much, but those pylons were not there on June 22nd, 1944 when a Lancaster Bomber from the 50th squadron of the RAF came down right where those pylons are now. It was the middle of the night and the bomber had just returned from a night raid on Scholven-Buer, near Essen in Germany, when it got shot at by a German night fighter (likely to have been a Heinkel) at 2.20 am. 

Two of the air crew were killed in the crash (JF Lane, the air gunner and FH Shorter, the mid upper gunner), the other six made it out alive by using their parachutes. One member (KHC Ingram, the flight engineer) was captured and shot in October with 6 members of a resistance group. Three more men were also captured and ended up in POW camps in Poland (TB Cole, the pilot; AG Beresford, the bomb aimer and PFJ Hayes, the rear gunner). The remaining two members made it back to England (J Craven, the navigator and EJ Blakemore, the wireless operator). 

An ordinary house with an ordinary couple living there.
It just so happened that couple was Jewish.

On another day I walked through town. I had missed the turn I should have done and had I not retraced my steps, I would have missed the two sets of stumbling stones (Stolpersteine in German) in the pavement. Those stones are used in a fair few countries in Europe and show you where a Jewish family lived and were taken from to be sent East. To destruction. 

I did see those two sets of stones, not neighbouring, but in the same area. They would have known each other most likely, even if only from seeing each other in the synagogue as they were different generations. But both couples were taken from their homes and ended up far away from home. 

Dora and Bram 

Abraham (a draper) and his wife Theodora Hekscher-Bachrach were ordinary people. Abraham and Theodora were captured on November 18th, 1942 at a quarter past midnight. Later that same day they are transported to Westerbork, the transition camp in the Netherlands. From there they are put on transport to Auschwitz almost immediately and killed on arrival. He was 76, she was 59. Their three children spent the war in hiding and survived.

Menno (a sales supervisor) and his wife Annie Troostwijk-Hijmans lived in the ordinary house in the photo. On March 2nd, 1943 at 2 in the morning he and his wife are captured. Two days later they are transported to Westerbork. Less than a week after that Menno was sent to Sobibor. He was not killed on arrival, but was one of the forced labourers tasked with sorting clothing, jewellery etc. Around the middle of April he and 69 others were killed on 'suspicion' of trying to escape. He was 35. 

Menno and Annie

Annie was sent to Sobibor together with her husband. On arrival there, Menno stayed and she was sent on to Lublin where she had to sort clothing that arrived from Sobibor and Belzec. From October 1943 she worked in a jam factory. A month later she is sent to Trawniki with several other Dutch female prisoners. Between November 1943 and June 1944 she died of TBC. She was 26.

We mustn't forget the sacrifices made for us by all those airmen, soldiers and sailors who fought to save Europe. Nor must we forget the sacrifices made by all those Jewish, Sinti, Roma, Jehova's Witnesses, Homosexuals, Polish, Russian and others who were killed only because they weren't 'normal'. Whatever normal is!

Information and photos of Dora, Bram, Menno and Annie were found on joodsmonument.nl

Remember

Every year on May 4th it's Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. All dead from the Second World War are remembered and of every war after that (we were neutral during World War I). But the Netherlands wasn't only involved with Germany, because one of our colonies at the time was Dutch India (Indonesia now) and another was Dutch Papua Guinea. Of course when the Japanese declared war on all countries in the area, the Dutch in the area were in for a couple of years of real hardship, being put in camps and all. After the Americans dropped a few bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, WWII ended.

The war officially ended August 15th in the East and today there were several remembrances in the country. I had to pick up a small army music group and take them to one of the remembrance where they had to play during the ceremony. But first they had to have some dinner, so most of them went to the Chinese. After that, they had to get changed and the only place to do that, was my coach. So everyone driving past got a nice eyeful of half naked men and women. It was quite funny.

The ceremony itself was interesting. I had never been to a Remembrance Ceremony before, only ever seen it on television, so it was really new. A few speeches, one of which was a real-life account from one of the survivors. Then the national hymn and after that there were lots of people who laid wreaths and bunches of flowers. And then the ceremony was over and the musicians came back to the coach.

I've never been involved in a war and hope I never will be. I tried to get into the army, but was not fit enough (and will never be), so was not allowed in. I've become a busdriver instead. A bit less war...

Anyway, that was my day...