For whom?

In the whole of Europe, in fact the whole world, the great ideologies of the 20th century clashed. Socialism, Liberalism, National Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, Pacifism. What shall I call it -ism.

All points of view, bad, good, mostly strongly opposed or cheered at. In this environment people make choices.

Clashes where of course the one against nazism. And one tragic escalation in the corner of our continent, Spain. Where all -isms clashed. So well described by Geert Mak in his book "In Europa".
The wounds from that time are still not healed, though the Spanish nowadays take great effort, with the help of the recent Ley de la Memoria Histórica., a law stating all victims, be it fascists, communists, anarchists alike: They all suffered.

That's my point. This is not exclusively Dutch. Or Spanish. Similar disturbed relations happenend in the politically divided Italy, in communist Hungary, in Belgium. Every story similar, and yet unique, like the one of my family.

But ideological differences of the past often make it impossible for people to reach out to the other and state: you suffered too. In my Postma family this happened, brothers hating each others guts. But its not exclusive for the Postma's . It's not exclusive for Dutchmen. It's not exclusive for those who won in a great conflict.
In fact, we all lost, and must try to gain back humanity. That's a job of a lifetime.

I started writing this site in English, though it's not my mothertongue,  mainly because I wanted to lift it up from the exclusively Dutch situation, to get away from Dutch hurt feelings and frustrations of more than 60 years ago. The easiest way to do that was to take the lingua franca, the Latin, of our days, the English.

I reach out to all of you, people of good will.

And try and prevent stuff like this from now on. If this story just does a tiny tiny bit, I'd be delighted. The story in itself is fascinating enough, so just read it.

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