大象传媒

I鈥檓 a born Belgian living in Antwerp, but my family is scattered over a good part of the globe. This is a quick run through family history.When I was 15 I met my Canadian grandmother for the first time. She met my Danish grandfather when he docked with the Danish merchant fleet at St John鈥檚 in New Found land, 1919. They fell in love, got married, and had their first child while my granddad continued to sail with the merchant fleet. He got on leave in Antwerp visiting some mates and decided to stay there, cabled my grandma to pack her things and come over, as he said it was good living in this city, and it still is. I鈥檓 talking 1920 here so I鈥檒l make a jump to the liberation of Antwerp. The Canadian armed forces arrived as first in Antwerp so you can imagine that my grandma was a welcome committee on her own, she invited them in to her house, the British as well as the American soldiers. She had 3 daughters so it can鈥檛 be much of a surprise that one of them at least fell for this tall handsome American and became a war bride and left for Massachusetts to make a life. That American is my uncle; he landed on Normandy鈥檚 beaches and fought his way through the Ardennes in the famous battle of the Bulge. I myself am born in 1954 so haven鈥檛 physically lived through the ordeal but I do remember my parents stories of hunger, cold and forced labour for the German occupier, they were 17 when the war started. But one thing will stay with me forever, it鈥檚 1969 and my aunt and American Uncle are visiting us. It is there first time back since they left Antwerp in 1945.. Visits to famous Belgian places such as Bruges were scheduled, as you do, but also a visit to Bastogne. To see my uncle burst in to tears when we stood at the Memorial reading all the names of those who didn鈥檛 make it back left such a big impression on me, the stories that were told about the horror they saw, the pain, the cold, the hunger. It is something I will never ever forget. I鈥檝e revisited Bastogne and the memorial several times, and so have my kids. I鈥檝e taken them to the concentration camp Breendonk in the Antwerp province a camp that was used as a transit for the bigger camps such as Bergen Belsen . I want them to know what blind hatred can do to human kind , it is important to keep the memory alive, people seem to forget so fast.

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