124 - Ilse

*I knew what she did, I did not know she did it to save my life. The debt that I owe my sister is one that I can never fully repay. The best I can do is leave the world a better place for her child and theirs. And make sure it never gets forgotten. – Jan Uittenbroek at his sister’s funeral*

Inside the third box was a white binder with a family standing in front of a house with a carved door. She pointed to each of the people and named all of her siblings.

“After Oom Jan died, we took their ashes back to the Netherlands, a little village just outside of Groningen. While we were there, we also went to Auschwitz and The Hague. There were a few other places, but these are the important ones for now.”

“When the Germans first came, Ilse was ten and Jan was eight. They were overlooked by the Germans, just some annoying kids. It started out with them being asked to deliver messages. Take a cake to the widow down the road. Go get something from the greengrocer. Pick something up from the butcher.”

She opened the white binder and showed them the copy of a note that had been smuggled by either Ilse or one of her siblings.

“Of course, every errand had a secondary purpose. I know you guys can’t read that and it’s pretty faded, the fact that it’s a copy is not helping any at all. In essence what the note says is how many Germans are in the town. This one,” she flipped a few pages towards the back, “is a literal grocery list.”

“Potatoes, carrots, flour, blah, blah, blah. But the numbers are telling what’s going on. Multiple addresses are hidden in the message. I don’t know exactly how they did the code. Oma never did tell anyone how to read the code. Not certain that she knew the full code.”

“As things got worse, they did more. Scouted areas for bombings. Trailed people and learned their routines. Spied on people. Set explosives. Liberated food from the German storehouse.”

“Liberated?” Peanut chuckled. “You mean steal? They stole food.”

Camille looked at him with shocked indignation, “I can’t believe that you would imply that my grandmother would steal food. That, my dear friend, even during war, is a crime. But liberating something that is being held hostage, is not.”

“Splitting hairs there, aren’t you?” Zydeco asked.

“No, I don’t think that she split any hair,” she emptied her water bottle. “Unless they were in the way when she slit a few throats.”

With the room once again left in stunned silence, Camille stood up and headed for the kitchen to refill her LSU Swim & Dive Team water bottle. Sitting back down she flipped to a typed report about halfway through the binder.

“Seriously?” Darkness demanded. “You just mention that your grandmother slit a few throats and then go refill your water as if you were just planning to go on a picnic?”

Camille shrugged, “Hydration is very important.”

Vin looked at his uncle in a mix of shock and amusement, “You married her.”

“I didn’t know about all this when I married her,” he objected with a smirk.

“Would it have made a difference?” Camille asked as she looked at him.

Moving from the chair that he was sitting in, he reached over to tip her face up to him and kissed her lips. “Hell no.”

Smiling against his lips, she gave a small sound at the back of her throat.

“Excuse me,” Mitch reminded them, “there’s children present.”

Camille gave a small laugh and placed a loud smacking kiss on his cheek. His dark skin blushed as he wiped away the kiss with back of his hand.

“Ilse and Jan both had to give statements to the International Court of Justice located in the Hague. The Peace Palace is very beautiful; there’s pictures in box four from when we went. Anyway, these are copies of their actual statements, there are also translated copies of them. This is where your documentation for your paper will come from.”

“So, your mom’s grandmother testified at the Nuremburg trials?” Swamp Thang asked.

“Again, yes, but no,” Camille said and chuckled at the frustration filling the room.

“It sounds pretty definitive that she was part of the Dutch Resistance, and I’m going to say that it looks like she testified,” Gator pointed out.

“At the time that they put her on a ship, she was only fifteen years old,” Camille explained. “Although there was no official age for members of the Dutch resistance, having child soldiers is never a good thing. Plus, there was never an official roster. That would have been a very dangerous thing for anyone affiliated with the resistance. Most people only knew a few people who were involved. The fewer people you knew, the fewer names that could be pulled out of you, the better off everyone was.”

“The Nazi’s were,” Camille shook her head, “they had torture down to an artform. They would torture out names and plans. Very little was known by regular everyday members. But the higher up you moved, the more they knew.”

“So, officially, she was not a member of the Dutch Resistance?” Mitch asked.

“This is where everything gets complicated. There were multiple different groups that were leading their own resistance and opposition actions. I mean there was no official Dutch Resistance Army. But they did what they could, when they could where they could. They worked in conjunction with each other and tried to stay out of each other’s way. “

“So, yes, Oma and her brother, Jan, fought in the resistance. But there was also no one formally organized resistance. Queen Wilhelmina and her family fled to London and the Germans set up a new government. To form an official army against them would be to guarantee your death.”

“Her father and grandfather were forced to help the Germans because they were doctors. They would overhear things and send the kids to take a message to someone. Her other two oldest brothers were conscripted and forced to serve. Bram refused to get in the truck and was shot in front of the house and the rest of the family. If the Germans thought that would make the rest of the family and neighbors fall in line, they were very wrong.”

“One of the neighbors taught them how to shoot, purely for hunting,” she rolled her eyes. “He taught them that they should never aim their gun at another person. Ever. No matter what. And certainly, never, ever, ever aim the rifle two inches to the left of the center of the sternum.”

“That’s a pretty good place not to aim a gun,” Santa chuckled.

“Right,” Camille chuckled. “Now, as far as testifying, she and Jan did affidavits. They did not want any children to testify. Plus, Oma was ready to deliver at any time when they called her for the first time. The second time, Oma’s dad was less than a year old. At that point, she was seventeen, Jan was fifteen, both were still children.”

“Was she pregnant before or after?” Rosie asked.

“Oma took a job for a German officer being a maid. She used her position to spy, get information, numbers, locations, impending executions. She saw Jan’s name on an arrest and execution warrant. The officer gave her an option to save her brother.”

Camille knew what happened, Isle believed that there was no other option for either to survive.

“A few days after the country was liberated, she was discovered she was pregnant. According to her age, she was a child. But she was so far from being innocent at that point.”