William LeMaire's title " World War II in Antwerp, Belgium. Experiences of a Young Boy " came in at number 15 in the Best Indie Books Title of 2018.
buylink: https://www.amazon.com/World-War-Antwerp-Belgium-Experiences-ebook/dp/B074WB3CN4/
Synopsis: War is, of course, terrible. Any war. All the suffering, all the death, all the wounded, the destruction, homelessness, cruelty, hunger, fear, and panic. It may also bring out the best in some people: heroism, patriotism, compassion, and altruism. But one would never think that war might be seen as an adventure; in some ways for me it was.
In this short book I write about my memories of this period of time from the invasion of Belgium, through the German occupation, and to the immediate post war era. For most Belgians this was a hard and sad time full of suffering. While I experienced some of that suffering and the fear as well, many of my memories are about exciting events and experiences (to a young boy), to the point that I remember this time as an “adventure.”
I will justifiably be faulted for talking so lightly about this dark period in Belgium’s and the world’s history and for seemingly having somewhat enjoyed it all , while people were indiscriminately killed, tortured, and exterminated by the Nazis and while there was much suffering, destruction, maiming, and death. Remember though that I was a little boy growing up and mostly unaware of the atrocities occurring away from my immediate environment. Also, my parents did their best to shelter me from the many horrors.
If a reader is offended by this, I do apologize and want to reassure the reader that now at age 85, I am of course fully aware of the darkness of the years between 1940 and 1945. Seen in this light I do hope that this will be an interesting and enjoyable read for contemporaries and others.
And an excerpt from Chapter 3:
One day I was doing my math homework late in the afternoon. I was sitting in my room on the third floor facing the back garden. I had my window open because it was a nice, sunny afternoon. I heard what sounded like gunshots in the back of the house. So naturally I went to see what was going on and looked through the window right down on our German neighbor’s yard. There I saw a few of the soldiers target shooting against the back wall. I was fascinated as I had never seen real shooting and kept watching until one of the soldiers noticed me and signaled me to come down: “Kommen sie hier!! Kommen sie hier.” Of course as an eight year old boy I was excited and ran down the stairs, out the door, and into the next house. The German soldiers were friendly to me, took me into the back yard, sat me down on my haunches and put one of their guns against my shoulder. They showed me how to aim and while one of them steadied me, they let me to pull the trigger. “Bang!” what an ear-deafening excitement for a young[…]”“They showed me how to aim and while one of them steadied me, they let me to pull the trigger. “Bang!” what an ear-deafening excitement for a young boy. I did not even notice the ache in my shoulder from the recoil and was betting that none of my school friends had even come close to a gun. I never told my parents about that experience. To this day I can still smell the gunpowder when I think about this experience, but I never discharged another real gun in my entire life, other than a BB gun. Should I have felt guilty about shooting a German gun? Was this an act of collaboration? I would ask myself much later. But at the time I felt excited and proud and even boasted about it at school.”