Thread by @JohnnyBG19

"They say that in like a year or two there won’t be any survivors left. So we’re trying to get all their stories … before they pass away." .
My mother passed away almost 12 years ago, age 86.
She, nor my father, ever told about the war. Just a handfull events. (1)

In the sixties, the war was still vivid in their memories, and that is when they recalled how my father had gone to a catholic hospital, because my mother was about to five birth to my eldest sister.
The nun told him to return with my mother the following day. (2)

That following day the nun overheard my parents talking to each other in Dutch
My father had at that moment already been a sailor in Germany for 6 years, And the town he grew up was close to the border,his German must have been without a noticable accent.
(Come to think of it (3)

I do not remember having heard my mother speak German, but she, from more or less the same region, must have been able too).

But hearing my parents speak Dutch, realising they weren' t german (my father's parents were Frysian, Arien people too, according to the nazi's, (4)

he was blond hair, blue eyes, and reasonably tall for his generation, having lived as a farmers hand from 12 to 15, thus no lack of nurishment in those crucial years).
My mother, brunette, eyes brown, with grey and green specks ...
The nun overhearing them replied (5)

" Fur Auslander gibt es nichts" = No room for foreigners ...
So my mother gave birth in a bombed-out hospital, having to run for the trenches because of an air-raid.

There were a few more stories, how a mayor of town hung from a tree, murdered, when she went shopping (6)

Murdered because he didn' t want to destroy the town as Hitler had ordered, but wanted to hand it over intact to the Allied.

Or the story, with a smurk, how my aunt (a sister from my father),got back her bike,when the nazi' s had ordered that all bikes had to be turned in. (7)

Very likely the old negative from my father's photo films I digitized a few years ago, was made at that event ( and funny thing, like my father I always want to make a picture of special events/moments); my aunt with a big smile posing in front of a bike, where, judging the (8)

shadow the shining sun threw on the ground of the photographer, it was my father who made the picture.

But I happen to now more. Not only about the war, but also by " accident" of the things my mother never told. (9)

A few years back, I got acqainted on a social media site with a woman, that had the same sirname as one of my mothers grandmother ( I have been a bit busy with genealogy). While I researched that data again to refresh my memory, that lady told me (10)

she had a jewish sign as a tatoo on her right upper arm, out of respect for her grandfather that had died in the war.
At that moment I asked, " Was that family with that sirname then jewish ???". The answer was affirmative (11)

That is how I realised my mother, or at least my grandmother, was jewish.
Following ancestry lines, most cultures follow the male line. The jewish culture follows the female line, and I still can not comprehend fully, I must be jewish too (12)

And no, I am not religious. So, in that sense, I am not " truely" jewish: I have jewish ancestors.
But certain events in my past, in relating with my mother, now got another meaning. (13)

How, when I was 9, she told my father " Maybe you ' ld better get my pictures out of the family album, before the children start asking questions" .
And, when in 2005, a year before she died, I accidently found those pictures, I talked them through with her. (14)

Being blinded by diabetis, I described the pictures, and she replied telling what the event was.
There was for instance a big picture (A4) of a very beautiful woman.
"That is my niece from Amsterdam" .
" Gosh ma ? Didn' t you keep in contact ?" (15)

With a picture, that great size, that niece must have been important, I figured.
" No, after the war I never heard from her again", my mother replied.
O, ok. I didn't think anything of that, then. people can get out of contact.
(16)

Another day I found a picture of a woman, with at each hand a child.
It looked like my aunt (the one that reclaimed her bike ;)), but I wasn' t sure. And my aunt never had any children, so I was puzzled.
" O, that is your aunt, with the children of my niece" (17)

" Your NIECE ??? What would my aunt have to do with the children of your niece ?".
" Uh .. Uh, children of a friend".

A few years afterwards, my memory played a "trick" on me.
After laughingly telling my girlfriend at the time how stubborn I was at twelve (18)

when I had wanted to take home a fole to our city garden from the farmer my had been working for we then had visited, the night thereafter in my dreams I relived the situation.
At the moment I, and my younger brother and sister, approched the fole in the barn, then unnoticed,(19)

but registered in my memory nonetheless, the farmer spoke to my father " My ! What does he look a lot like that boy you brought here !" .
My father: " Have you learned to know what became of them ? " .
The farmer " No. I handed them over, and never heard anything afterwards" (20)

When I was 16, at school holidays we went to stay with my grandparents.
My mother' s parents had both died, but after my parents divorced, we kept in touch with his parents.
In the train, my mother started a conversation with the lady that was sitting opposite her.
(21)

We, children, had gone board, and had gone sit further away.
When I returned to my mother, she told me to stay with my brother and sister, because she wa sin converstaion.
At the train station we had to transfer, I returned to my mother (22)

and overheard that lady asking my mother for our address, to send her a " presentation issue".
My mother declined, but gave the address of my grandparents.
The next year, my grandmother handed my mother a book that she had received, a romance novel. (23)

That lady, it turned out now, has been a writer of romance novels, all situated in the region my parents were born and raised.
Because of my inclination/addiction to read, and there was nothing to do in that village, I read that novel.
And, what I now remember of it, I can (24)

relate to the few remarks my mother " slipped" through the years.
My mother took that book home, only to take it out of the cupboard she had stored it in to my youngest sister, when she came to tell she wa sgetting married.
" This contains my life' s story. Guard it well" (25)

What I know now about my ancestory mother' s side, I know from what I remember from that book.
And in that book the former was described to, the phot of the niece and off her children.
My aunt had brought those children underground (26)

with help of the Resistance, of which that farmer was a part.
The book also describes, how my mother, HSP, "felt" that her niece had died in a concentrationcamp.
The photo's had been made, so the novel, to assure the mother her children (27)

were (brought) in safety. And the picture of the mother, so the children had a way to remember and recognise their mother ...

In that stack of pictures of my mother, there also is a picture of a group of 30-40 in which (28)

one out of five wears a paper, officially looking, with a number.
My mother: " O, that is the sports club," , another moment " The cooking lessons" .
From that novel, I know/assume it was he jewish cultural clubs/unions/associations (29)

That picture then was made, just prior the first transportations to the concentration camps.
Another picture in a " sports situation" , was my mother with 5-6 other women.
Apparently the ones that survived .....

That first picture of all, according to the novel, was made just to remember all, and in the hope of all being reunited.

And to end this in a positive way, two short stories, on me being jewish and not jewish (ancestory , yes; religion, no).
A ten years ago I studied Information law, and met the former vice-president of the dutch government (yes, jewish and jewish ancestors). (32)

During a brake, he asked me " Sorry, may I ask you something ? Strange question perhaps, but are you jewish ? ".
I laughed and denied. Told that from fathers side we were frysian, old low nobility (well to do farmers in fact, 16th century, I presume), and from mothers side (33)

unknown, " but hey, "who knows, perhaps ?"
Well, I now know better, it so happens that the region my mother wa sborn, in fact, after Amsterdam was the second region with the biggest jewish population. (34)

So, .... my features are apparently "jewish" .
Okay, I can agree on my hair and eyes, but my physique is definetly my father' s ;)

My mother, I know, has always been struggling with the fact of witholding that ancestory. (35)

She saw it as a fresh start after the war.
The civil servants, part of the resistance, had falsified the incitizens administration; I still have her passport from 1943, that states she had dark-blond hair, and blue eyes ... (36)

How that passport picture has been made, and the passport falsified, is also described in that novel.
But I have her features, recognisable for everyone. Everyone else, but myself. I am just me ;)
And also recognisiable for .. Dolly Parton.

From 1987-1992 I worked as a corporate lawyer for a life insurance firm in the center of my home town.
One day I stepped out in lunchtime, as I always did, but that day I was met on the stairs by a dark haired petite woman, that posed me a question (38)

" What is a good investment ? " .
I replied, that was not my expertise, but, taking into account two newspaper reports I had read, that on Hawaii the soil was so fertile, everything would grow, (39)

and that onthe world market macadamia nuts had gained a high price, I ' ld say to grow macadamia in Hawaii ...

A few years later, the coach of my sports club, after a holiday in the USA came with the story that Dolly had thus invested (40).

And, it so happens, that we here also can watch CNN, and Jay Leno's Tonight show ....
A few years back, I found the clip on YouTube (please if you find it .. ).
Dolly was his guest (Trio album) and prior to the show, just in the announcement (41)

" Here is a lady from the audience, that wants to pose a question" , and there she stood, the lady I had met on the stairs of the building I had been working.
From Jay' s announcement, and all I read, it was clear that that was Dolly, without the " show appliances" (42)

In the show, in the interview prior to the performance, Jay referred to her being a good businesswoman too.
Then she told " One day I was performing abroad, and asked where the economic centre was. I went here, and waited until someone came out, who looked jewish" . (43)

At that moment, I just laughed aloud, remarking the story was accurate, except for the part being jewish.
My mother, in her seat, opened her mouth wide ... and closed it again ...

So much I now understand, and so much I still would love to ask, discuss, understand. (44)

But I know one thing above all:
The fact that she denied herself, her ancestory, was made out of Love, to give her children the best opportunities; clean, not " loaded" by history.
And that Love is still a miracle to me, I can not comprehend.

From the hate of the holocaust, to the love of a (jewish) mother for her son (and back).