#woii

From "A Fuller Life" (2013).

A documentary about Sam Fuller. Friends and (former) co-workers are reading his story.

Today we mourn.

Today we remember the countless lives lost in a terrible war almost a lifetime ago.

Today we mourn all the Jews, all the Indonesians, all the ethnic minorities, all the queers that were murdered simply for existing. For being the way they were.

Today we mourn the soldiers and resistance members who laid down their lives in trying to save others.

Today we mourn those who deserted, who sabotaged, who stood up against government, family or friends when they refused to contribute to the cruelty any longer, and who paid for it with their lives.

Today we mourn those who died for no other reason than because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Those who died because of the hunger and illness the war brought. Those who were killed simply because they were vaguely associated with another.

Today we also remember those who died forced to fight for a cause they didn’t support. Those who were brainwashed into believing they did the right thing when they died fighting for someone else’s twisted cause.

We also mourn the victims of other wars, both then and now, close and far away. The fallen soldiers and civilians in the wars in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Bosnia, in all places where war is or has been.

We remember those who survived, but a part of whom died in the war. Those who will never be free of it, who carry a physical or mental scar that can never fully heal.

Tomorrow we celebrate freedom. Today we mourn those who shouldn’t have died for the reasons they did.

“De tyrannie verdrijven, die mij mijn hart doorwondt.” — Wilhelmus, vers 6

I’m so grateful to all of the allies that fough against the horros of Nazi Germany.  Back then when the war broke out, a lot of young Dutch men had to report and work for the nazis (my grandfather included). However, he refused and so he was forced to go into hiding. My grandmother’s father was a police officer, and all officers were also forced to work for the Nazis, he and his entire family also needed to go into hiding.

It sounds so gliche but that’s how my grandparents met eachother and basically fell in love. Sadly, my grandfather was betrayed and taken away to Germany. He was brought to Camp Schwarzer Weg - Wilhelmshaven. There, hunger was all that he had on his mind, and heavy labor. He saw young men so desperate from hunger, that they decided to eat grass, in less than three days they died because of that. 

 Canadian soldiers liberated the camp, and so too my grandfather. I remember him telling me he had to walk all the way back to his home village, but not until a Canadian took a cycle from a German soldier and offered it to my grandfather.