1. “Aangekleed”
door Kim Marquardt
“He didn’t talk much about the war. Still, he regularly woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat because of a nightmare. Whenever his friends came over, they would talk about the past. I would listen very quietly to catch a few snippets of what my father had been through during the war. He had been part of the resistance of Staphorst, the village where I grew up. After a German officer got murdered in 1944, the Germans arrested twenty random men from our village. They were then taken to Germany and, from there, deported to a concentration camp. One of those men was his father, my grandfather. None of those other men survived. Although my father spoke little about it, he must have carried a lot of grief. I think that’s why he was very strict with me and didn’t show much affection. I was sixty years old when he kissed me for the first time. As a young adult, I had a hard time with that. I was very distant and found it challenging to connect with other students. However, I have always had a strong desire to build close and intimate relations with people. Eventually, I managed to break through that pattern. It started by oversharing a lot about myself and who I was. Later on, I learned to sense when and with who to do so. I’m still happy with that breakthrough. It’s the deep friendships and connections that make life so sweet.”
door Debra Barraud