I've been learning a bit about our family history. Mom was born in the Netherlands during World War Two. She left when she was five, so she doesn't remember much.

I've often wondered about my family's war stories. Very little is said about it. No one fought during the war, which is a good thing since the Netherlands was one of the first countries to fall to the Nazis and we would have fought for Germany.

Rather than join the Nazis, my grandfather hid. Mom said he spent his time in the attic, knitting or spinning wool. One time, one of my uncles fell into a dike and was drowning. My grandfather ran from the attic and rescued him. It was one of the few times he came out from hiding.

Nazi sympathizers frequently ran into bad luck. Their barns or homes would catch on fire and no one would be around to help.

After the war many sympathizers were quietly forgiven. For example, a neighboring family, had half a dozen sons all old enough to fight. This family couldn't possibly hide all their children from the Nazis since the alternative was to starve to death. Of course some of them had to fight. That family was forgiven since their burdon was larger. Such is Dutch practicality.

Two of my uncles managed to kill a pig without making the pig squeal. They butchered the pig and salted the meat then hid the meat under the potatoes. My uncles both would have been under twelve years old.

One of my uncles was too underweight. For a period the Germans sent him to a children's camp in Denmark where the food was better.