Mom’s Story

Mom’s Story

Christopher P. Hurtubise

The cold dark machine gun barrel was pressed into her slender throat once again. Arrogant, powerful, and soulless, the Nazi questioned one of the four sisters;” Are you carrying papers? “. The sisters were an integral part of the Resistance. Only teenagers, their youthful innocence robbed by the war machine, they played an important role in the lives of Jews and stranded Americans.

The dark red brick home and local pub was situated at an important crossroads in Veltem, Belgium during the Second World War. While the sisters and their parents went about their daily lives, bombs were being sent overhead and into their village. Rumors floated amongst the lips of neighbors that there were resistance fighters right in their own backyards. Most were joyous at the thought, but there lurked others eager to turn in their neighbors for a favor from the occupying force. Word reached the sister’s home that the Nazis would be doing a search, looking for a particular pub described to them by a treacherous informant. The four sisters’ father happened to be a skilled carpenter. He worked throughout the day and into the next morning. The old pub didn’t exist anymore, in it’s place was another pub, but not as the one described. The Nazi search proved fruitless.

Time came for one of the sisters to be ‘questioned’. She spent her endless days without leave in a closet too small to sit in, too dark to see, and too far removed from her innocence. The Nazis learned nothing. The other sisters were more determined. The papers flowed.

Being too crucial to leave alone, the Nazis occupied the sister’s home, forcing the family into a few rooms. While searching for the resistance and occupying the crutch pin of that same resistance, Jews and Americans were ferried right under the stench full noses of the Nazi war machine. It was all too blatant to be recognized. The ruthless destruction of the sister’s home and country went on. Father died. Having been denied medical attention, he suffered and was buried without a headstone in the local church’s grassy backyard.

Liberation. So much damage on so many levels. Multiple continents united in a fight for freedom. Dad meets Mom. Mom’s violated home is now occupied by the determined Americans. Nazi papers are found. They had scheduled the sister’s family for elimination in ten days. Close. Now powerful American antiaircraft machine guns are placed in the basement of the sister’s home.

In the dead of night, piercing lights would be aimed at the drone of the engines from retuning Nazi fighter planes. The house would rattle under the fire of the machine guns. Sisters would shake. Cry. Pray. Night turned into day.

Four years later my parents were in a double wedding ceremony. Two of the sisters were saying vows that wouldn’t be broken. Decades later, my dear sister would perish from cancer, like her mom had just a few years earlier. In the bright family room of a large hospital, I met with my sister’s oncologist. We talked about family. Roots. His father had barely escaped from the Nazi regime. It was through the tireless efforts of a few sisters in a small Belgium village.