My parents were born just after the Second World War, the devastation and the occupation by Nasi Germany had a major adverse effect on the Dutch population. Specially in Rotterdam, where most of the city was bombed flat with hundreds of dead, Barendrecht is a village with a fruit and vegetable auction next to the world port and city of Rotterdam, my father was born as the last child in a family with 6 children, girls and three boys. the much too small house where she lived was right next to the auction and a busy railway line day and night, many trains rumbled past, my grandfather after whom I was named Athonie de Klerk was ill and the whole family helped to keep their heads above water my grandfather gave his children to learn a trade because, according to him, there would be a shortage of trained professionals. had borrowed H drove past his school where he learned to become a machine fitter and drove on to the largest port in the world at the time, Rotterdam, and sat at the entrance dreaming of distant destinations from distant lands and saw the great ships coming in and how the goods were traded on the qua