The Netherlands was under German occupation for five year's.


 Between 1940 and 1945 the nation suffered fear, hunger and loss. Families were torn apart from one another through forced labor. Over 100000 Jewish lives were lost silently. Each street had to bear the agony of betrayal and grief.


By winter of 1944 survival had turned to desperation. Blockade starved entire cities. Citizens froze in their apartments burning furniture just to make it through another night. Bread was a rumor. Death swept through neighborhoods like it owned the place. Tens of thousand's vanished before the thaw ever came.


Then in May 1945 the world transformed utterly. Freedom wasn't easy. It was dirty and liberating. When the Allied troops came it seemed like a dream. The first shipments of medicine and food came to the dock's and individual's ran towards them with tears and trembling hands. Kids rode on train's waving as if the war had been a terrible nightmare that was at last at an end. Crowd's screamed, laughed; and collapsed into one another.Relief was overwhelming. But no one forgot. Liberation did not remove the blood from memory. It only branded the violent beginning of living with it.

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