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If we were having coffee, I would tell you that today I celebrate my two years’ blogging anniversary and that I was given this beautiful badge.

anniversary-2x

Two years’ anniversary

 

Blogs I would recommend

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I have come across a fellow blogger Ian with interests so similar to mine. I can’t say exactly how I met him, but I am glad I did. The subjects we have in common are children, family history, how to understand traumas and WWII.

Ian says in a comment to me:

I’m interested in how childhood trauma can affect the next generation, as I believe my mom’s experiences she had in WWII, which I write about in ResearchingMyself, carried through to me and my sister.

Ian’s mother was Dutch and was a child during the WWII. The events from that time made a lasting imprint on the rest of her life. Like Holland Denmark was occupied by the Germans too and both my parents were very affected by the war too. I am looking forward also to find out about her moving from the Nederlands to the United States of America.

If you like to see how I have some posts on the period and their youth. My mother Ruth was engaged to a British soldier Bill who she met in Copenhagen in the liberation days. My father was traumatised by an arrest in September 1944 where our Danish police were taken by the Germans at a false air-raid warning. He was set free again as he was a fireguard. At the liberation, he saw crazy things as people were injured due to lack of driving ability and shootings in the streets.

My aunt Ermegaard, my mother’s sister helped a starving Dutch girl at the liberation. By a miracle, she came to Denmark even though she was too old to be allowed to be taken to Denmark.

I want to mention another of my other blogger friends writes about his Dutch uncle who disappeared in KZ camps. His blog research is ready to become a book. The blog is called Mogromo. Like Ian, he is searching his background in family tragedies during wartime.

I too have worked with the effects of my parents’ lives during the war on my life. I know I still have to practice on speaking up and to dare let my points of view come out with a clear voice and not in fear or anger. So much was suppressed in my childhood as my father couldn’t cope with noise or conflict.

I will end with a recommendation to read another blogger lbeth1950 with her blog Nutsrok who also writes about her family stories humorously and movingly. She indeed a good writer as so many of you who write in your own language.

After I finished this post, I found that there is a weekly theme on this title at the “Daily Posts” a help to find inspiration for blogging.

Categories: Ancestry history, Biography

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

23 Comments »

  2. That’s so interesting and fascinating. I too have an interest in WW2 but for different reasons. I think my main reason is my age. I was born in 1947 so grew up with hearing various stories from older relatives. I used to listen in awe at them telling tales of the bombing raids on Manchester and Liverpool and how the sky would light up with the resulting fires. Then the “best” story was how a Luftwaffe bomber crash-landed nearby to my grandmother’s home.
    The other memories I have of that period is of my paternal grandfather who served in the British Royal Navy during two World Wars and was on HMS Prince of Wales when it was sunk by the Japanese off Singapore in 1943. He survived.
    That story I intend to write about in a book. But, as you know Maria, I am rather committed with my writing so I don’t know when I will get around to that. If there is anyone out there who reads that and would like to help me do some research, then please get in touch.
    Keep up the good work Maria! I do enjoy your posts 🙂

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  7. Researching and writing your past is so rewarding. But it takes over your life and leaves time for little else. My World War II childhood came from the safe distance of the U..S. The results in the Pacific affected my family more and are described in my coming book.. Still I too am driven to learn more about it, along with the earlier period, early 20th century of finding my parents which you and Henry have helped me with so much. Mogromo’s stories are gripping.

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  10. Thanks, Maria, for sharing this. Of course in the US, we did not directly experience the impact of war (except through the deaths and experiences of returning soldiers), but as a clinical social worker who has worked with domestic violence and child abuse, I do know a lot about trauma. There is actually a lot of research on secondary traumatization, the passing on of trauma. Often that looks at therapists who work with trauma survivors, or 911 or other first responders in traumatic instances, and of course with soldiers. The research shows that hearing stories of trauma is in itself traumatizing. Also, there is research on the transmission of parental fears, anxiety, and trauma to their children even in non-verbal ways. An interesting article for non-therapists: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-me-in-we/201205/how-trauma-is-carried-across-generations if you want to copy and paste the link. All of you working on this will certainly come to know your families better through the research you are doing, and I wish you the best. Jo

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