John Kars

I had taken my three little brothers with me to the dam, which was only a few minutes away from our home on the corner of the Oude Hoogstraat en Kloveniersburgwal. At the time there was a small park in front of the Krasnapolsky hotel surrounded by a wire fence and on two corners on the Dam side there was a kiosk. I had managed to climb up on to the roof of the kiosk to be able to see over the huge crowd that massed the Dam square.
opdekiosk copy
With horror I watched the massacre and saw people die in front of me. My three brothers had disappeared in the crowd. The shooting had stopped and I had to look through the ravage for my brothers, I found them hiding in the SS building on the Dam. When we walked home through the Damstraat  a transport with dead bodies on the way to the Zuiderkerk in the Zandstraat, left a trail of blood on the road. All this is part of the garbage I carried in my mind all those years. I remember it well.

John L.M. Kars
Australie

1 Comment

  1. Johannes l.m.Kars

    Amazing, good detective work. Even though I am 83 years of age, I remember it like yesterday.

    Reply

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