Living History

[dark_puck]

Okay, so this is really cool -- I just had lunch with one of Oma's friends, a woman named Bep.

She's Dutch.

Turns out her oldest brother made the Nazi's most-wanted list for their town.

I'm sure he did a lot more than what Bep told us about, but among the things he did:

• Getting pictures of the German bunkers
• Taking their trucks
• Getting German weapons to the Dutch resistance.

It was very fascinating, listening to her tell about how the Germans would station officers in each of their houses -- smooth, suave, charismatic men; in their case they had Herr Schaffer.

She described how Herr Schaffer would ask her mother where her son was, saying that he would do his best to see him safe and so on.  Of course, the answer was always "I don't know, Herr Schaffer."  And also of course, a  lot of the time she didn't.

It was a really informative lunch, and I'm glad I went.