Through the Day, through the Night by Jan Vansina

Author:Jan Vansina [Vansina, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

5

Ominous Horizons

July 1943 to September 1944

* * *

As the tide of the war first wavered and then turned decisively against Germany, every ripple of its fortunes seemed to impact almost instantly on the hitherto usual practices of the occupation, and every change in those practices pulled Belgian civilians deeper and deeper into the vortex of war—forcing them into positions where they either had to collaborate with their occupiers or else throw in their lot with the Resistance. From late 1942 onward, every passing month slowly but inexorably dragged everybody, civilian or military, further and further toward a final resolution. Try as one might, no one escaped this undertow of history, not even in our family.

July 1943 arrived and with it the summer holidays in Gooreind. Although in my eyes life in Izegem was rather enjoyable, it seemed to me that Wiezelo was bound to be better because it was home, and one could never be as much at ease elsewhere as one was at home. In retrospect it strikes me now that after the last harrowing trip by train I should have been quite apprehensive about the return journey, but I was not. I knew that the air war was intensifying and the frequency, if not the scale, of bombing in Belgium was steadily escalating. Yet somehow I did not connect that fact with the potential danger to travelers. The same impulsivity and lack of foresight my teachers rightly kept deploring apparently also had some advantages. In the midst of all this turmoil Gooreind seemed to be an insignificant and hence a safe place, and the prospect of spending an eternity playing and roaming through wood and bush with my siblings, almost wholly unsupervised by adults, overwhelmed everything else—including the fact that this “eternity” was to last only six weeks or so.

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