The Lives
Copyright© 2013 by Old Man with a Pen
Prologue
I was born, lived and died. Great story, huh? Just what you were looking for...
I was born... 52 Skoalikkers, Augustinusga, Friesland, Netherlands on May, Eighth, 1942. I don't remember it.
My father, Cheerelz Augustyn, was a representative of the law. Notice I said 'Representative.' Before the Germans, he was a well respected lawyer, versed in Dutch civil law which had Napoleonic origins. The German occupation changed that. A defeated Holland, a subjugated Holland, a Holland ruled by the SS and Gestapo.
The next-door neighbors, I supposedly played with the daughter when I was one, were, one day, discussing and cussing, eating bread and cheese at our kitchen table, and the next day, their door was beaten off the hinges and they were gone ... Juden ... my mother was disconsolate.
Not that I Knew ... no. Not at all ... the bangs and explosions were for the CITIES not for our little Augustinusga, the village named in celebration of the birth of a minor princeling of a minor prince ... and my ancestor.
All in all, ours was a 'civilized' occupation. Oh, we had our fair share of Quislings, but for the most part, we stayed on our part and they patrolled the streets ... or so I had been told.
My father was tall, dark and handsome, well connected and a devastator of Hymen. Well known throughout the town as the father of innumerable bastards, he expected perfect decorum from the rest of us.
Father met Mother while he was studying Law at The Hague. Mother was from The City, Dordrecht. Amsterdam may be larger, The Hague may be the seat of government ... for as long as Holland was Royal, the Stadtholder, the Prince of Orange, resided in Dordrecht. Mother was a faint relative of the Stadtholder. He was Orange ... mother was the princess of diaphanous yellow.