Il Silenzio

[BigGuy]

Quote from springbok53 on VRCC Forum

About six miles from Maastricht in the Netherlands lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate Holland in the fall and winter of 1944-45. Every one of the men buried in the cemetery as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind the grave, decorate, and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted. It is even the custom to keep a portrait of "their" American soldier in a place of honor in their home. Annually on "Liberation Day" Memorial Services are held for "the men who died to liberate Holland." The day concludes with a concert. The final piece is always "Il Silenzio", a memorial piece commissioned by the Dutch and first played in 1965 on the 20th anniversary of Holland's liberation. It has been the concluding piece of the memorial concert ever since.
This year the soloist was a 13 year old Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by Andrieu and his orchestra (the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands). This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.
Watch at this site, and go full screen. Beautiful and moving.

[youtube][/youtube]

[rbwhatever1]

That was amazing, thanks for posting.

[BigGuy]

I've shared this post on a couple of other boards. One of the guys on the MOOT board had a related story that I'll share here:

Quote from lragan on MOOT

I was in Holland (Nederland to natives) in the spring of 1970, with some precision location gear I had designed to locate pipe laying boats and barges operated in the North Sea by Brown and Root. I had a Sunday to relax in Amsterdam. It was a beautiful day, with lots of happy, festive people on the streets, and I was enjoying the sights. Most school children spoke fluent English, so I could find stuff by asking them. There was a sidewalk trailer/cart vending ice cream, and I stood to wait my turn. I noticed several folks edging in front of me, and finally asked one of the children "Is there a line here somewhere?" The whole crowd looked around at me in embarrassed horror, stepped aside and waved me to the front of the line. One of them explained "We are so sorry! We thought you were German." I don't know who paid for my ice cream, but they would not take my money. I learned that the festivities I had been witnessing were the 25th anniversary of Nederland's liberation. All Americans were heroes that day! I shall never forget it, and I doubt they did either.

[Itnkrman]

That was a very inspirational performance. Thanks for sharing your stories!

[ELB]

This is a nice post, thanks for putting it up.

About six miles from Maastricht in the Netherlands lie buried 8,301 American soldiers .

That would be the Netherlands American Cemetary at Margraten. I visited it when I was stationed nearby at NATO Airbase Geilenkirchen, Germany, just on the German side of the Dutch/German border. Wasn't aware of the local Dutch adopting the soldiers buried there, that's a very touching custom.

The whole crowd looked around at me in embarrassed horror, stepped aside and waved me to the front of the line. One of them explained "We are so sorry! We thought you were German."

Long memories passed through generations. I was stationed in that area in the late 80s/early 90s. The Dutch along the border still didn't like the Germans, even the young grandkids of the war's survivors. Although the waiters and waitresses in the local restaurants understood German perfectly well (Dutch, English, and German were mandatory in grade schools) if a patron spoke in German the wait staff would often reply only in English or Dutch. At one place I used to frequent I tried getting the staff to teach me Dutch. They made me stop when they said I was speaking Dutch with a German accent! (I had learned German first).