Chapter Three: The Nazi Invasion is Nipping at our Heels

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pril 9, 1940 remains engraved in my memory. The radio was on when I came home

from school at lunch time, and the announcer flatly declared that Germany had taken Norway and that Denmark was going the same way. I couldn’t believe it. Zap, Zap, Norway: gone, then Denmark. Yet no action was taken by the allies . . . no retaliations by the Brits or the French. They were just sitting there doing nothing. Yet tension was mounting, people were on edge and every day the newspapers would repeat the same thing “NOTHING TO DECLARE ON THE WESTERN FRONT”. The French referred to that period as “the funny war”. This period was commonly referred to by the allies as “The phony war”

May 10, 1940 marked the end of the “funny war”. The other shoe had finally dropped. We had expected fireworks but not of the magnitude that followed. The debacle started early in the morning of that soft balmy May day. It promised to be a glorious day even at 5:30 in the morning as it was bright daylight already. My sister and I shared a bedroom, my brother had his own . Both were located on the fourth floor, or top floor of the house, and my parents woke us every morning by ringing a doorbell in our individual room. My father had come up with the idea because he didn’t trust us to respond as rapidly to an alarm clock as we did when they rang that strident miserable door bell. My father controlled the bells from downstairs.

My sister and I had planned to go on the yearly school trip that day, but 5:30 am was way too early to be awakened for the anticipated event. There was urgency in the ringing that we couldn’t ignore.

Furthermore, we could hear little puff-puff sounds outside in the distance. The clarity of the sky negated the prospect that it was thunder, yet each time we heard the puff sound it was accompanied by a puff of white smoke that resembled a tiny cloud. The three of us rushed downstairs and were met by our parents, who were in a serious mood. They told us that Belgium had declared war on Germany as the result of the unprovoked attack. We realized that the puffy sounds and the tiny clouds were anti aircraft guns doing their jobs. We were being bombed and we were now formally at war. My sister and I were terribly disappointed, knowing fully well that the school trip was going to be cancelled.

Something else came to my mind at that instant. The previous evening my sister and I had to finalize a few details about the trip and verify the schedule with the teacher, who lived within walking distance from our house. On the way home we were surprised to hear some merriment coming from one of the teacher’s neighbor’s house. People were drinking champagne and toasting someone or something in front of a huge portrait of Hitler and a display of the Nazi flag with the swastika. Strangely enough, we never saw or heard about those people when we had a chance to check that place a few days later…..

We were now glued to the radio listening to our king who exhorted us to be calm and conduct ourselves as great patriots. When they played our National anthem we rallied and pride swelled our chests. We felt raped by Hitler and the Nazis, Belgium being a small and defenseless country, yet we felt united and showed a great respect for our king who had had the guts to defy the German army and thumb his nose at Hitler. We were now openly on the side of the allies, and we rejoiced at being able to sing without censor all the songs that made fun of the Nazis. Above all we took pride in singing our national anthem, as well as the French “Marseillaise” and the British “God Save the King” in the original version. Even the Government controlled radio station started playing songs that made fun of the “SIEGFRIED LINE”, a line of fortification the Germans had built along their border between Germany and France. We now sang the song openly and with glee, in both French and English: “Nous irons pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried…or even better and sounding now more sophisticated and mordant “We’re gonna hang our wash on the Siegfried Line”. The fortified line on the French side was called the Maginot line and both, the Siegfried line and Maginot Line were thought to be impregnable.

Within a few minutes, the real bombing commenced: heavy bombs started to fall all around us. We had never seen so many planes at once, flying low and letting bombs drop wherever they might hit. The wailing of the sirens terrified me each time they started to blast, and we were directed by the authorities to take shelter in basements or cellars. We ran for cover to our cellar not a bad place to stay, since it had been planned to become a laundry room. It had a window and a door opening into a small courtyard and we made it as comfortable as possible. We would trudge upstairs again after the “all clear “signal was given and resume our activities to the best of our ability. School was closed of course and time hung heavily on our hands.

On May 11^th, . there was a commotion in our street. A young man on a motorcycle had stopped in the middle of the street, and his yelling and unruly demeanor attracted the neighbors who listened to what he was saying. He was telling people that he had just come from the Front and had witnessed the power of the German army; he was urging us to get the hell out of the city. My father, who was shaving at the time, jumped to the window, raised the sash and started blasting at the poor guy accusing him of being a defeatist, an agent provocateur probably paid by the Germans to create a panic. But the young man wouldn’t desist. After a few invectives directed at my father he left our street in a puff of black smoke. However his comments gave food for thought to the young men of the neighborhood. A dozen of them assembled at the Town Hall, on their bicycles, but since it was too late to find an army recruiting center, and they were all below the recruiting age anyway, they decided to leave Belgium and regroup in France to continue the good fight from the other side of the border. They left Brussels riding their bicycles loaded with possessions packed in saddlebags. Of course my brother was eyeing them with envy, but my father deemed it unreasonable for my brother to follow his friends to an uncertain future. So my brother stayed home for the time being.

My father liked to think of himself as being a cunning businessman. His independent nature forbade him to work for anybody but himself; therefore he had developed ways to accomplish maximum entrepreneurship with a minimum of hard work. He made sure that every house we lived in had an apartment that he could rent out and would therefore help pay property taxes on the house. The apartment, at 257 avenue de mai, was furnished and papa made sure that the tenants were people of high caliber. It was rented at that time to an Austrian physicist, Joseph Ehrlich, his wife, Anna and their 13 year old daughter Elizabeth. The family had escaped Austria and taken refuge in Brussels right after Krystal Nacht which was the starting point of the Nazi regime of terror and the starting point of the famous “Final Solution”. I want to remind my reader that on the night of November 9, 1938, Jews, were terrorized under the pretext of the murder of a German dignitary in Paris by a Jew. Within a few hours 1000 Synagogues were burned, Jewish stores were looted and vandalized Jewish cemeteries desecrated in Germany and Austria. Thereafter, Mr. Ehrlich, a Jew, who had been blacklisted by the Nazis had been forced to leave the family’s native Austria. Now that the Nazis had invaded Belgium they were once again in jeopardy and had to try to escape to a more secure country. They left us on May 13, with incredible luck they took the last boat leaving Ostend, Belgium, for Dover, England. We found out later that they had made it just in time and we were glad to know they had escaped to England. I wish we had done the same.

On May 15, we awoke to rumbling noises again but this time they didn’t come from the sky. Part of a British convoy had elected to park their trucks in front of our house and had decided to camp there for a few days. We were delighted to finally meet real Brits, in uniform, no less, and talk to our allies. We welcomed them with open arms and made sure that their wishes became our commands. We opened our home to them as we had opened our hearts. I finally had the opportunity to try my high school English on them and wonder of wonder they understood what I was saying. They became the main attraction of our neighborhood, and I was elected translator emeritus. Of course, everybody was eager to communicate with our defenders which had been nicknamed “Tommies” during the First World War* and when one of the Tommies asked one of my friends if he knew English, he replied with honesty ;”No, but I can speak French with a British accent.”

We, children, would follow the Tommies everywhere they went and try to anticipate their wishes. Their demeanor inspired trust, they were our hope, and their presence gave us a sense of security. My father let them use the downstairs lavatory and kitchen and left the front door open in order to accommodate their needs. During the day they patrolled their trucks, walking back and forth with rifles on their shoulder and at the same time walking their mascot, a Jack Russell terrier, on a leash. It was a sight to behold. We cherished these moments and I asked them to sign my diary before they left us. We knew they were going to battle and we felt terribly sad when a few days later they actually left us.

After giving many thoughts and weighing all the imponderables my father decided that he couldn’t face another German occupation. Once had been enough and he convinced my mother that the only thing to do was for us to take refuge in France. I hated the idea of leaving my home and all my teenager’s dreams came to an abrupt end. Papa directed the packing of the car and took his inspiration from other people who were leaving the neighborhood in droves. He tied a mattress on the roof of the car and that idea came in very handy as we discovered a few days later. He also tied my brother’s bicycle to the front of the car which once again proved to be a life saving idea.

Chapter Four: We take to the Road

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ur private D-Day came on May 16. When we pulled out of the driveway, we locked the door behind us not giving a thought about the memories we were leaving behind. We were that determined to escape the Nazis that we were willing to give up our worldly possessions for the sacred sake of freedom. We dropped our cat at my grandparents’ house and after effusive and emotional goodbyes, we were on our way. We piled into papa’s car (not the most current model) but my father was certain that it would take us to our final destination without trouble, wherever that may be. France was the only allied country that was adjacent to Belgium on the South side (more or less) and we were certain at that point that France was to remain free and out of harm’s way. Our faith was blind and so was or final destination. My mother’s aunt had married a Frenchman and had settled in the southern part of France a few years back and their name was going to be given as reference at the border in case we were in need of a sponsor. To tell the truth my father didn’t get along with the uncle and hated the idea of going there but at least it was reassuring that we had family in France and that we were not totally homeless. I felt secure knowing that we had a point of destination and not going haphazardly in an unknown country. I felt as though I was floating in midair. Everything seemed intangible, decisions were being made for me and I let the events push me toward a questionable future. At some point I even felt catatonic and unable to speak.

We left Brussels after an early dinner, I believe at around 5 o’clock and just a few miles from our house we encountered bumper-to- bumper traffic. We were barely moving and we guessed that almost all of Brussels had the same idea : to get the heck out of Belgium. As we inched our way through the outskirts of Brussels hoping the line of cars would thin out, our hopes were quickly dashed. The line of cars ahead of us was exactly the same as it was in town. We moved a few feet at a time then stopped and started again. It was tedious going and our car was a bit recalcitrant. Furthermore night was upon us, we needed gas and papa decided to spend the night on the gas station parking lot after having filled the car with gasoline. We shared that parking lot with several other escapees who like us had decided not to drive at night. We felt secure and rather cozy in the confines of our car as we dozed off to sleep. We were awakened after a few minutes by piercing screams and blood curdling sounds coming from a nearby car. The screams couldn’t be pacified. The time of night, the lack of a friendly moon and the darkness gave an eerie feeling to the scene. The blasting siren of an ambulance reinforced the panicky feeling I was experiencing and searching lights revolving above the ambulance cab added to my discomfort. After a short time and slamming of several car doors, silence reigned again. Someone told my father that a passenger in a neighboring car had gone mad and had to be taken away. This was our first contact with problems we had never faced before, and it made a lasting impression on our unsophisticated psyche. We had been brought up by parents who protected us from knowing the cruel facts of life.

Now everything came to a stop. It was impossible to drive in the dark. We were not allowed to use the headlights and all the street lights had been turned off. This was our initiation to the war blackout. We had no choice but stay in the car and make the best of it. We, the kids, were too exhausted to fight and fell asleep till morning. At first light, papa decided to sneak back into the line of cars, which seemed to move a little faster, that is to say we could drive at least five miles without interruption. my father had set his sights on Tournai, a Belgian town, close to the French border. It had taken us about six hours to travel fifty miles. We were famished by then and papa stopped at a delicatessen where we bought cold cuts to put on crusty French bread. Little did we know that this would be the last French bread we were going to eat for the next five years. We rinsed it all down with a glass of our famous Belgian beer, also one of the last invigorating beers we would drink for five long years.

Papa seemed enthusiastic and upbeat, he loved to be in charge and at that time he seemed to me to be ten feet tall. He gave the impression of being the epitome of self confidence. I don’t think my mother shared my elevating sentiments toward my father. She loved him but not unconditionally and she was very often heard muttering “mais enfin, Maurice…”in an exhausted whisper.

We climbed back into the car after a brief inquiry as to the traffic conditions. There were at least five different main roads to the nearest French Frontier post, but we found out that several posts had already been closed due to the influx of refugees. That limited our choice to three and my father decided to take the second one closest to where we were. As soon as we were out of the town limits we re-encountered the darn line of cars, as well as hundreds of young men on bicycles and even people walking to freedom. I must admit that there was still a lot of optimism in that array of people, and the Belgians were escaping the Nazis in style. There were no horse drawn carts as we had seen in Poland, no. We were “driving” out of the country. But, let’s not push it, people were driving away in all sorts of vehicles: funeral hearses had been equipped to drive the living now, even garbage trucks had been refurbished and cleaned in order to accommodate the escapees. Of course there were also brand new cars and the not-so brand new, and the sick ones who demanded a quick fix. They all shared one thing: they were crammed to the gills with peoples’ precious array of odd possessions. The old cars that demanded more extensive repair were abandoned on the side of the road.

And then my dear papa found a new avocation. He became the Savior-of-the-motorist-in-need. As we proceeded in the interminable line of cars, papa would spot the unfortunate responsible for the delay of the moment. He would investigate on foot and try to solve the problem no matter how small or complicated. He would leave us high and dry and since my mother did not drive it meant that we were being bypassed by the cars behind us. Papa would come back to us brimming with sad tales and telling us how he was able to save some poor schlepper from remaining in Belgium. I believe it was good for his ego. At one point, we spotted him going in the opposite direction standing on the running board of a luxury car giving instruction to the driver. My mother was the one who saw him and couldn’t believe her eyes. He came back to us a few minutes later explaining that the Countess v…had been dropped by her chauffeur who had seen the writing on the wall and had decided right there and then that his skin and his family were as precious as Mme la contesse’s and had therefore abandoned her in order to save his own flesh and blood. Papa who had witnessed the abandonment and the treachery of the chauffeur, had come to the rescue and had been showing the countess how to operate her car : he was merely giving her driving instructions . As we proceeded due South, my father spotted a huge salami that someone had dropped on the road “This is a good omen,” said my father as he picked it up and added to our provisions.

The road we finally decided to take took us to Mouscron, a small town on the French-Belgian Border. We went through Belgian Customs and showed them the identification they requested. The second post was controlled by the French. This post was separated from the Belgian post by a short road bordered on both sides by barbed wires, something similar to the wires atop a prison wall. That short road was called “No-Man’s-Land”.

While we passed through the Belgian checkpoint quickly and without difficulty, we slowed to a crawl, caught behind a snaking line of other cars and people eager to find refuge in France. And so, in the middle of No- Man’s- Land, we inched forward a few feet at a time. The dreaded line of cars was once again facing us. We could move only a few feet at a time. The French let just a few cars go through at a time and when 5 o’clock rolled along, the frontier post closed. It was really pathetic and yet refreshing to realize the French were still behaving as though they were at peace and still sticking to their prewar schedule : the precious 9 to 5 schedule that had been the object of reform by Leon Blum and his “Front Populaire” socialist policy during the early thirties There was nothing to do but wait in line until the next day when the post would reopen. Since we were tired and hungry my father decided to return to the little town of Mouscron and try the border again the next day early in the morning. We found room at an inn that smelled of stale beer but was otherwise rather clean. There was only one room available for the 5 of us, but my father being once again his famous resourceful self untied the mattress that we had fastened on the roof of our car and put it on the floor for the three of us to sleep on.

We spent the rest of the day making friends with Dutch people from Amsterdam, exchanging addresses and promising to see each other again after the allied victory. My father was scouring the town to gather things we might need while waiting for the French to open the gates the following day, he was looking mainly for bread, cold cuts, butter and hard boiled eggs.

We hit the road early the next morning to be once again detained at the French post. There were many cars ahead of us but we were hopeful although most of the time we didn’t move at all. Those who waited as we did to enter France seemed to be from varied backgrounds. We were brought up by parents who cherished good manners and despised bad language. The people in the truck in front of us did not pass my parents’ stringent standards, to tell the truth those people were rather vulgar and rude. There was three boys age seven, eight, and nine I believe, and they relieved themselves right smack in front of us. They had lowered the back gate of the truck and lining up they peed in unison. I was mortified, and that episode added to my depressed state of mind. I hated to mingle with strangers, and being very class conscious it made a negative impression on me.

The French were getting panicky at the onslaught of refugees trying to get into their country. They let fewer people enter, but my father was optimistic. We were traveling on a narrow country road where passing was neither permitted nor possible. British convoys were going the opposite direction to fight the war and I know that we hampered their progress. Yet someone was always trying to break the rule and sneak ahead of the line which rightly infuriated other drivers. It grew ugly when people tried that little trick. My father was very understanding and helped some motorist slide ahead of us providing the case they presented was viable. However to make it sound reasonable to the cars around us papa would raise his voice , brandish the salami we had picked up from the road all the while whispering under his breath, to the sneaker to “go ahead” and not tell the others that he was letting him go. I remember him telling a very nice gentleman that if he dared pass in front of us he would slash his tires and make neckties out of them all the while motioning him to go ahead. His screams and threats pacified the motorists around us who sided with my father while the culprit raced down the road as fast as he could get away. Papa even let another car sneak between us and the famous truck with its load of vulgar kids...Was he really that altruistic? I believe he did that in order to block our view from the truck and its vulgar human content.

At five o’clock the French closed the gates again. But this time we stayed put and we were determined to spend the night in our car. Nobody moved. The crowd was silent. And we followed suit. Before leaving home my father had the brilliant idea of tying my brother’s bike to the front of the car, a decision that proved so valuable as to be near genius. My restless brother rode his bike up and down the line of cars and started the countdown. He found out there were 364 cars ahead of us. My father thought it was a good number and once again was optimistic but to me the number appeared astronomical. I envied my father’s optimism as I retreated more into myself regretting the loss of my home which all of a sudden became heaven.

The next day was sunny and warm and we thanked God for weather so favorable. Right before dusk some people decided to spend the night in the fields away from their parked car and we saw them filing out carrying their blankets and being prepared to sleep “ a la belle etoile” under the clear star studded sky. It was still day- light ,and they behaved as though they were going camping in the best of times. Some of them had rolled sleeping bags and were making friends with fellow travelers they had just met. The mood of that throng of people was jovial and they were certainly making the whole thing enviable to us kids. We approached papa with the idea that we too could do the same and at least to let us kids “have some fun” and stretch and sleep the sleep of the just. Papa killed that prospect on the spot invoking fundamentals of good manners, etiquette, and devotion to parents and respect to same. “No”, and that was that. A little later we heard a purring sound right above our heads. It was not loud but it was steady, then the purring noise increased and made us look in all directions. Suddenly, we spotted a German fighter plane diving over us and we heard the “tac-tac-tac” noise of a machine gun exploding right over us hitting not only the line of refugees but also the poor people who had chosen to sleep in the fields.. Panic seized the crowd as people ran helter skelter screaming, howling, in every direction . The fighter plane turned around and once again like a crouching tiger flew over us again, letting its bullets hit the innocent refugees. That plane was so close we could have almost touched it. And then after having done its dirty deed it flew away leaving us to fend for ourselves. The little community we had created remained transfixed with fear. And in the fields just a few feet away from us the moaning of the wounded made us fearful and sick. Nobody dared walk out to help the wounded. Yet some courageous men who had elected to stay in their car, as we had done, went to the rescue of the wounded. We were shaking with fear but our fright was so intense that we couldn’t even cry. We were transfixed. My parents did their best to hide the horrible spectacle from us. My brother at once was dispatched to a nearby farm to ask for help. He climbed on his bike and sped down the road hoping to find a farm and a phone and call for an ambulance. It was Divine Providence again that made us stay inside the car, but papa rectified our thinking and told us in no uncertain terms that we had been protected by remaining in our car under the mattress that was tied to its roof. Now we heard the screeching of the sirens in the distance, and an ambulance came to the aid of the victims. We were more full of hate than scared, our pent up rage surged with such intensity at what the Nazis had done that it made us want to scream and deny the existence of a higher Power. Yet we remained silent feeling that deep hatred made us speechless. What the Nazis had done was proof of their lack of consideration for humanity and this last foray reinforced the hatred that we bestowed upon our enemy.

We slept all five of us, crunched up as well as we could. European cars of the day were not plush and certainly not as wide as their American counterparts. Nevertheless we decided to stay put and the next day my brother went to the farm again but this time to get milk and water. And of course gather some information about the previous night’s events. Since my brother was “mobile” he became the pet of the people in line. The refugees asked him to bring them stuff the farmers could spare and he was proud to oblige. The farmers on the other hand quickly realized the value of the law of supply and demand; their water became liquid gold, their bread ingots and they started to gouge the poor people. My father watched but said nothing. He simply took my brother’s bike and rode to the nearby farm and very nicely asked the farmer to state how much he charged for a bottle of water and a loaf of bread. The farmer named an exorbitant price. Papa shook a box of matches vigorously while eyeing a stack of very flammable hay and asking the farmer once more to state his prices. Our matches were made of wood and encased in a nice little box, and when shaken the matches would sound like tiny castanets. There were no threats on the part of my father, just the noise of the rattling matches in the little box and the firm tone of his voice made the trembling farmer reduce his prices drastically. I bet he could visualize the fireworks his haystacks could produce.

Another night came and, once again we were obliged to spend it in line to the French Post. We had made friends with people around us and were exchanging bits of news we had heard on the radio. It didn’t sound good. The Germans were bombing towns around us and there were even talks of Nazi advances and gaining territory. The amateur strategists were in their element remembering what had happened during WWI: how the allies had hoodwinked the Kaiser made them certain that it was just a little setback for the allies. When night came I watched the darkening sky fade from a bright glorious blue to a flaming, bloody red. Yet the red was not static, it seemed to be shivering on the horizon. We were rather intrigued by the eerie spectacle, and wondered what was making the sky so red. We soon found out through the grapevine that the shivering red at the horizon were the flames that were consuming the city of Abbeville which was being bombed unmercifully; and the dancing flames that consumed that city could be seen from were we were..

At dusk there was a slight commotion , two men were going from car to car asking everyone to remain silent for a while. They explained that some one had died in the line and a few minutes later we perceived two strapping men who had been elected pall bearers carrying a body stretched on a ladder . They carried the ladder over their heads as they passed silently by us. The whole scenario is still vivid in my mind . The whole spectacle was highlighted by the red flames of the burning city in the background. It was eerie and upsetting. We didn’t want to look at that makeshift funeral cortege out of respect for the dead person but I sneaked a peek and my sadness was renewed. It was an elderly man who had died abruptly we assumed. He had died from natural cause and for reasons unrelated to the war but it reinforced the concept that life was going on at least from my fifteen year old perspective. Our brief stay in No- Man’s- Land was striking to me for many reasons, not least of which was the absolute lack of privacy. On a public road there are no bathrooms, no showers, no sinks, there are no toilets. I felt trapped inside the car and I afraid to leave it for fear that the column of cars would forge ahead and that my parents would forget me. Of course the whole commotion upset my system and I started having my period at that inconvenient time and place. I felt diminished and the fact that we had chosen to be uprooted dawned on me for the very first time. That thought must have been overpowering to me because I can’t to this day remember having hunger pains during the “trip”. I don’t remember what our conversations were about or what my brother and sister were thinking. I was wrapped in my own sorry state of affairs and ignored everyone around me. I don’t even remember if we quarreled.

The next day the French closed their borders for ever. Our choices were few, we could either turn back and go home or hope against all odds that the French would reconsider and let us in. They didn’t change their minds. This was it.

We still tried to enter France at several frontier posts to no avail, and yet the roads were still encumbered by hundreds of cars still hoping to escape the Nazis. My father was always close at hand to help an unfortunate motorist. Remember that EVERYBODY was leaving in every kind of vehicle; some were in good conditions, others were not. After leaving the last post my father spotted a poor soul having trouble starting his engine. This was THE opportunity my father was seeking to further his higher calling and follow the “Good Samaritan” streak he had discovered a few days earlier...Most cars at that time didn’t have an electric starter and required a crank to start the motor. Apparently there was something wrong with the car battery and the poor fellow had trouble managing the steering of the car as well as keeping the car from rolling away from him. My father figured that two people were better than one and at once introduced himself offering to help the stranded motorist. We could see that papa was taking charge of the situation by the way he took the crank from the hands of his new victim and giving orders to our new Mr. Milktoast. When my father was in the process of helping someone he would be bounding slightly and his gait would acquire a certain springy uplifting bounce that made him resemble a bantam rooster. He was in his element. After inquiring as to where he could put the crank (after they had used it unsuccessfully), the poor motorist told my father to put it on the floor behind the driver’s seat with “Bomma”. My dad took a look inside the car, which was packed to the gills. Amid a sea of pots and pans, a cage with a canary, blankets, even a small table my father discovered a little old lady squeezed between the window and the array of stuff. When papa had finished using a tool and inquiring as where he was to put it, he was told to “put in the rear with Bomma”. You really couldn’t squeeze another thing in the rear “With Bomma” but that didn’t deter the motorist. When looking for a piece of equipment, the answer was the same: “You’ll find it in the back seat with Bomma.” The poor old lady was being incredibly crowded out and couldn’t even sit up straight, yet everything ended up practically on her lap or at her feet.. My father was sure that he smelled “revenge” and that Bomma was not exactly a VIP in that ménage. Some kind of “Noblesse Oblige”. Madame -the-Wife was sitting comfortably in the front seat but was semi catatonic. We fell sorry for “Bomma” which is a Brusselese language contraction of “bonne maman” or grand mother. After several unfruitful tries with the crank, papa decided as the last resort to push the car down the road hoping to make the motor start by itself. Both he and the motorist put their forces together pushing the car down the incline when suddenly the recalcitrant motor started as by magic, our new friend jumped into his moving vehicle slammed the door, waved “goodbye” to my father and disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

We then considered our choices and decided that, since we were so close to the sea, we ought to go to our summerhouse. The town of Blankenberg was the last garrison of the Belgian army. Belgian soldiers had been called hurriedly to serve the country and were not exactly dressed for battle. They wore their uniforms but several wore wooden shoes, and some of them even had the slippers they were wearing when the call came. The troops were ill-prepared both in armament and outlook, they were fighting tanks and sophisticated weaponry on horseback. The only thing they wanted to do was “to save their skin” as they explained to my father when he accused them of being cowards and not continue fighting. They would pinch the skin of their forearms as they shook them to my father’s face as a way to justify their act of cowardice. It was rather pathetic to have to witness a defeated army folding under the enemy superiority. My father was appalled. The news on the radio was terrible. The throng of refugees on the road to France had impeded the progress of the British army who had trouble reaching the battlefield. Our king, Leopold III, was wavering and lacked the courage to exhort his men to continue fighting for freedom. On the other hand how could an army whose soldiers wore clodhoppers and rode on horseback face the highly polished and refined war machine of the Nazis. We were asked by the local authorities not to step on the beach and to stay home. The sirens were blasting constantly and we were being bombed unmercifully.

Then on May 28, our king surrendered and chose to stay in Belgium and share the plight of his soldiers. As far as I was concerned this was treason. I could not accept this. I felt as though my world was crumbling around me. Once again I became very depressed and really hated Leopold for his cowardice. His cabinet chose to go to England and continue the fight and stick to the allied cause. Our country was represented in the free world by what everyone considered cheap politicians. What a blow to the memory of King Albert I the courageous man who stood up to the Kaiser no less...And what were we left with? A king who kowtowed to a corporal, a mere house painter: Adolphe Hitler. My father raged about, bluntly declaring “At chess a king never surrenders”. However this was not chess, baby, this was real war, and we all hoped that our king would follow his cabinet and choose freedom in England.

People in the streets could not understand the king’s decision and news from the capital started to filter down. Brussels had fallen to the hand of the Germans even though the Belgian army had blown up the bridges straddling a canal and a mere rivulet that divides Brussels in two unequal parts. These measures had been used during the First World War in order to slow the progress of the Kaiser’s army but they proved inadequate against a German military machine so potent that it was redefining warfare. The king had betrayed us, and for my family this was time to make a decision to return to Brussels. We repacked the car and headed down to Brussels 100 kilometers down the road. The Flanders are lovely, flat but green, that liquid green of countries that receive their fair share of rain, like Ireland... You can smell grass, and dew, and even the sun that filters through the Northern light has a smell . It now reminds me of the flat lands of Cape May County, New Jersey. The roads were bordered by poplars, tall and thin and really standing at attention and evenly spaced , inspired in reverse by Van Gogh.

Yet in the midst of all this beauty was a carnage so great that I wanted to vomit. Our soldiers had surrendered their weapons and piles of rifles lined the road. The horses they had ridden (against the Panzer Divizionen ) were lying dead their bellies distended by gas, their legs sticking up in the air.

Some soldiers were gathered in vacant lots waiting to be transported to prison in Germany while others were walking in small groups stone-faced, feeling dejected and ashamed. We hadn’t seen a German soldier as yet and we were about 25 miles, (75 kms.)from Brussels. No need to tell you that we were not in a hurry to meet the dreaded enemy. And then...we saw them.