My paternal grandfather was a truck driver in the Belgian army at the time of Germany's invasion in 1940. He was captured and was a prisoner of war for a month or seven. Then the Germans released him and he could return home.
He spent the war doing thousand-and-one different jobs to survive...
At the end of the war he hid (sp?) two American soldiers (parachuteers??) who seemed to have been dropped a bit off-site (they were supposed to fight in Arnhem). Not really that heroic as at that moment the Germans were already practically gone
In 1940, when my grandfather was driving trucks and fleeing in face of the Germans, my grandmother got kicked out of her house by Germans. She tried to escape to France with her mother, her 6-month old baby and her younger sister, but all of you who know their history know that fleeing to France in 1940 was not really a good idea. They didn't make it and returned to their home town after two months. They were lucky to find their homes "unpillaged".
My other grandfather was too young when the war broke out (he didn't fight as a soldier as he was only 17 in 1940). The Germans ordered him to work in the port of Antwerp at the end of the war. When the Germans retreated he was considered as a "collaborator" and put in jail. A few weeks later he was ordered to clean up the dead bodies of Canadians and Germans who fought in a battle near my home town (Germans trying to stop the allied "reconquest").
He usually doesn't talk that much about this period; he is very bitter about what happened. I don't really know what I should think about it. It is very possible that he picked the "wrong" side
None of my grand-parents are really keen on Germans. Still. A sentiment that is not shared by me![]()
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