This is Gerrit-Jan de Bruyn. I met him during a trip organized by my mother’s work, and I’m glad that I did. It was amazing talking to him. He was born in 1932, lived through the war and experienced a lot from it. He had family on either side of the conflict during WWII, experienced insane situations and remembered it all. He said that it keeps him busy to this day. The thing he told me was this: “My life is made of two things: war and nature”. He studied ecology, made great efforts to maintain the dunes of the Netherlands and was granted knighthood in the order of Oranje-Nassau for this.

It was amazing talking to him, I cannot say this enough, people like him make you think about your own childhood and your own life. What I thought about mostly is the fact that I had never heard these stories in real life before, and hearing them was an eye-opening experience. And he is a great man.

Thank you for reading,

Robin

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