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LETTER: Lest we forget, my great-grandfather

Editor’s note: The letter writer is the husband of The Chief’s editor, Michaela Garstin. He read this to his students during their Remembrance Day ceremony. My grandma, Anna Bruchesi, is 97 years old.

Editor’s note: The letter writer is the husband of The Chief’s editor, Michaela Garstin. He read this to his students during their Remembrance Day ceremony.

My grandma, Anna Bruchesi, is 97 years old. It’s only been during the last few years that she was finally ready to speak of her traumatic experience living during WWII. Seventy-five years later, it’s still difficult to talk about. My grandma lived in the heart of Amsterdam throughout her early childhood, to her early 20s, and immigrated to Canada in 1945. 

  Her last five years in Amsterdam were among the worst. In 1940, as Germany pushed through the Netherlands, my grandma, a young 19-year-old, tried to carry on with her life as usual. Over the next few years, as the Germans intensified their occupation through Amsterdam, the sounds of bombs, sights of rubble and casualties became the norm. 

  My grandma was a nanny. She lived with her dad and step-mom. After the Netherlands was under complete control by the Germans in 1941, they implemented a policy of conformity. Basically, any organization or belief that didn’t follow the Nazi regime, was outlawed.

  Many of her friends and family friends were forced to work in German factories.  Most died in these factories, either by pneumonia, starvation or were killed in the most horrific ways. The fear and hysteria grew as food became scarce, deaths were growing daily, and those who refused to work, fled for their safety and lives. 

In 1943, my grandma’s parents took in two of the thousands that fled. They kept them safe, fed and warm in the backroom of their second-floor apartment. One day, while my grandma was at work, Nazi soldiers knocked on her parents’ door and asked for her dad. Her step-mom explained he was at work.

  The Nazi soldiers waited outside of the apartment until her dad came home. Based on a threat, her neighbours were forced to confess that they knew he was hiding two people. They took my grandma’s dad away and he was brought to a concentration camp in south east Germany, Dachau.

  My grandma never saw her dad again; never had a chance to say goodbye.  She was 22 years old without a father. This concentration camp had close to 200,000 political prisoners, Jews, Catholic priests and many more groups the Nazi regime saw as undesirables. Of the 200,000, over 30,000 lost their lives. My grandma’s dad would lose his life on Dec. 4, 1944.

  It took her over 75 years to tell her story. The memories and impact still remain prevalent today for Anna. I always take Remembrance Day as a day where I appreciate the sacrifice Anna’s dad made to keep two innocent lives safe, and the work of thousands of past and present soldiers and guards to keep our country one that is free and accepting.

Thank you.

 

Jeff Bruchesi

Valleycliffe

 

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