The same daughter that went to TAU?
Sure, the Dutchman in question was discovering his Jewish roots. Interesting story: When Germany invaded The Netherlands in 1940 the records of his grandmother (or great-grandmother) on the mother side were all of the sudden "lost" by the Dutch municipal authorities. Once they were recreated, everything was exactly as before - with one small difference: The religion bracket on her identity card was filled in with "Catholic" rather than "Jewish" which I'm sure must have been a clumsy oversight by that oaf of a public officer. Or he was a resistance hero that didn't talk much.
Not a practicing Jew in the first place, what granny was - incidentally, the Germans never came knocking - became lost in the mists of time: It hadn't been relevant before the war, it wasn't relevant after the war. Until some years ago, when the family secret was lifted and my likely future son-in-law found out about it. That's when he decided to take a trip to Israel (the necessary maternal lineage is there for him to be qualified as a Jew), and the rest is history as they say.
When I first met him in Tel Aviv in a street cafe, I introduced myself as
"Hi, I'm Uwe, my grandfather had his army training in The Netherlands in 1941, he always said he liked that period in his life better than the Eastern Front and 5 year Russian captivity that followed, and, yes, we still have a few surplus bikes from him in our cellar, want them back?"
My daughter rolled her eyes
![Sarcastic :rolleyes:](https://bassoutpost.com/Smileys/default/sarcastic.gif)
and moaned "Papa!!!" under her breath, but he cracked up laughing and I think it broke some ice.
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](https://bassoutpost.com/Smileys/default/mrgreen.gif)