square--one

My Opa escaped the nazis and went into hiding when he was 13 years old. His sister made a distraction by cutting her foot on some broken pottery and he jumped out of an upstairs window at the back of the house and legged it. He went out into the countryside and eventually found a farm to take him in. That first night at the farm, to welcome their new guest the farmer killed a pig and served it up for dinner. He had no choice but to eat what he was served...he says it was the best thing he had ever eaten!

I'm just dropping in to say thanks. TFIOS is a great book that hit me right in the personal experience, and I cried real tears. Then I gave it to everyone I know and they all cried and it was kinda a dick move and a public service at the same time.

He lived with his Oma, mum and sister before the war started, his dad had died in a car accident a few years before. They all believed that they would be protected by their faith if they did what they were told and went with the Nazis when they came for them. My Opa didn't have the belief and begged them to escape with him but his Oma was too frail to escape, his mum wouldn't abandon her and his sister wouldn't leave her mum because she was only 7 or something. But they helped him to escape.

He spent the rest of the war in hiding - bleached his dark curly hair blonde, had to decline to sleep with the farmers daughter because he was circumcised and he would get discovered (he had many stories, that one was his favourite!)....at the end of the war he managed to get papers to get to Israel where he started a successful Kibbutz community. Later he moved back to Holland and later still the UK where he became a successful businessman. After what his family went through he became very anti religious (and his favourite food is still roast pork). He also never wanted to celebrate his birthday because it happened at the same time of year as that day when he lost his family. I loved my Opa but he could be a very difficult and stubborn person to deal with. If you fell out with him you did in a very big way. Sadly he died a couple of years ago while he was still working on making an autobiography film - but he had already recorded the dramatic prologue reading. His last act was to scare the shit out of everyone at his own funeral as his voice boomed out over the room one last time :)

I had the same and for me it developed slowly (maybe up to a year) and started messing with my urinary system, so UTIs were the first warning sign. I went to the GP multiple times just having the symptoms treated and finally put my foot down and asked for a proper investigation when I was getting so fatigued I couldn't ride my bike home from class.

Exactly this, probably took a whole lot of camera time before they got enough shots that they were happy about. Which just makes this whole ordeal worse.