Veteran's Day

[omimouse]

My Opa went through WWII in a slave labour camp. He'd refused to answer the call to join the German army, you see. (I want to say the Wehrmacht specifically, but can't recall exactly which branch it was.) Something about the whole 'invaded his country' thing. Possibly also something about the fact that his girlfriend at the time was not just a member of the Dutch resistance from day one, she was running freakin' *guns* for them.

So, they caught up with my Opa, beat him quite literally half to death, and then stuck him in a slave labour camp somewhere in Germany. He was the only non-Russian labourer there. Those of you who know your history know about what that meant for treatment. Those who don't . . . yeah, it was bad. SS were there on a regular basis bad.

When the Allies did their bombing runs over Germany, he and the other prisoners stayed topside. He always made it sound like they had the choice of going into the bomb shelter, but that was where the SS was, and no one wanted to be down there with them. They would wave and cheer the bombers as they went overhead, and did their best to get the general gist of 'bomb *here*' across to them. It was an important factory, you see. They were working on stuff for the Russian front.

It was American troops that liberated the camp my Opa was at. The weren't able to bring folks home themselves, because there was still a lot they needed to be doing. I think they offered to let him stay with them for a while, because there were still pockets of fighting going on. He said no thank you; he wanted to go home. But they fed him, made sure he had clothing instead of the rags from the camp.

All the way back into the Netherlands.

He got stopped at least once a day by American troops. Y'see, the folks that came out of the camps were very distinctive looking. Starvation will do that to a person. They knew *exactly* where he had spent the war. Had he eaten yet today? Did he need more clothing? Here, we don't need this bike, and it'll get you home faster. Still at my parents' house is the pair of field glasses that an American soldier got off of a German officer and handed to my Opa. He gave them to me when I was 12. They are still the best set of binoculars that I have ever used.

They fed him, clothed him, and at least once he hitched a ride where a convoy was headed the same way as him for a while. They looked out for him, all the way home. They didn't have to, but they did.

I think of him and how he got home every Veteran's Day.

Thank you. I don't know if it will ever get back to all the soldiers that helped him and all the others along the way, but thank you for getting my Opa home.

Comments

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

♥

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

What a story! Thanks for sharing it.

[cerval.livejournal.com]

My Great-Grandparents fled to the U.S. when "the powers that be" first started identifying, relocating, and generally rounding-up Eastern European Jews. My Grandma, their daughter, was a WAVE during WWII, and she married an Air Force pilot, my Grandpa. We have so much to be thankful for.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Wow - thank you for sharing this story.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Thank you for remembering.