Kruisjesdal

My great-uncle, Jan Scherpenzeel, was shot by Nazi soldiers on April 12, 1945, just weeks before the end of world war II. Uncle Jan was part of the resistance in Apeldoorn. In those last weeks, while Canadian tanks were already entering the outskirts of town, he and his friends thought they could come out of hiding. They were caught, betrayed by Dutch nazi collaborators. When the Germans started fleeing east, away from the Allied Forces, they shot the prisoners. There's a monument at Kruisjesdal in Apeldoorn.

Today I talked to an old friend, Alef Arendsen, and I asked him if the Alef Arendsen who's name is also on the monument, is his great-grandfather. He told me that both his great-grandfather and his uncle, Barend and Alef Arendsen, were indeed among the people shot at Kruisjesdal. It's a small world. Sometimes, it's a sad world.