07 MAY 1999 - Breda and Brabant
Once again I set off to bed with the goal of getting an early start on the day. And once again my body decides to recover from the work side of the trip. I finally get the motor turned over around 10:00, and pack my bags and check out of the flophouse. I had thought of staying there for tonight as well, then move to the Mercur for Saturday night to get a good rest and early start to catch my Sunday flight in Brusells. I'd wind up at the Mercur. Long story. Here it is...

My first stop this Friday morning is the VVV. I'm hoping to find out about any memorials in the area and get some maps and put together an itinerary. They were very helpful about getting me hooked up with maps, and even called the car rental agency to see if they had a car available. But they didn't seem to know too much about anything outside Breda. It would turn out that there are a few things they didn't know about in Breda as well. That's later in our story. The VVV pointed me towards the Hertz and I started walking (still being in the cheap part of the trip). Oh, I also stopped at and ATM so I could buy people drinks, and hopefully get some lunch for myself (preferably solid food!).
So I get to the Hertz and they have one car left, a little Fiat compact number. But before they would rent me a car they wanted to see my passport. I tried everything in my book to convince them that they either didn't need to see it or had seen it before. No go. No passport. No car.

You see the problem is the flophouse wanted to hold my passport as security on the room. Well, I needed to rent the car, so back to the flophouse I went. The rental place did piss me off a little. They wouldn't give me a lift back to the flophouse to get my passport. Bastards. They said they were really busy, but I asked how busy they were with only one car left to rent! The didn't seem to appreciate my logic.

So back to the flophouse I went. I was getting my exercise. I get back to the flophouse, and there isn't anybody around. I figure maybe they went out for some lunch, or to get some groceries or some beer. Hell, it's Holland, maybe they went to get some pot. Who knows. To make a long story short, by the time somebody showed up TWO HOURS later I was a little on the pissed off side. I'd spent four hours NOT seeing the places I wanted to see. I decided to screw the flophouse and move into the Mercur. So I got my passport back and went on to the rental agency. I picked up the car, and drove back to the Mercur and made a reservation for the next two nights.

Getting pointed in the right direction at the VVV office
Stephanie finds me the right map at the VVV
And then it's off to the countryside. It just took me a little time to find my way out of town. Once I got on the right highway stuff really just fell into place. I started by driving on the highway north to Moerdijk. I just followed the signs and after a short drive past farms and horses I was in the village of Moerdijk.

Moerdijk was the final stop in Holland for my grandfather. His division, the U.S. 104th Infantry, was assigned to support the 1st Polish Armored division in securing this town. It was the last major bridge to Rotterdam, and the last major loaction south of the Maas river to be taken.

Today it is a little place, with some light industry. The Maas river is still deep here, and there is a small scattering of barges and small ships. I try to picture the ground pocked with shell craters. I try to smell the cordite, to hear explosions and bullets snapping across the river. I can't yet. I hope that very quickly I'll be able to.

Next to the dike just outside the village I find a small memorial to the 1st Polish Armored, the liberators of Moerdijk. There is a small gathering of wreaths from a few days ago. Holland celebrates their liberation on the 5th of May.

I decide to keep moving on. Time is short and there are a lot of place I want to go to. I start to drive out of Moerdijk and come to a junction. The sign points to Klundert, which is another town on my list. This is how I'll wind up finding places. Drive to one town, find a sign pointing to another, and drive to that town.
Moerdijk, Holland
The Maas River in Moerdijk
War memorial in Moerdijk
Klundert was the perfect size for a small town. A great little canal running through the center of the village, trees, a few winding streets. This is the kind of place I sometimes think about retiring to. It's also the kind of place that makes me hungry. Or maybe that was just the fact that I hadn't had anything to eat for about 27 hours.

I make a swing around town, and head back to a small bar I passed on my way in. I sat down and ordered a beer and some lunch. The two other people in the bar, Karl and Astrid, and I start chatting about my trip. They suggest I visit the cemetary, that there is a memorial to the liberators. Karls father had also been in the underground.

Tom, the owner of the bar, comes in and joins the conversation. He says he has a book that I might be interested in. He slips out through the kitchen and comes back a few moments later with the book. "Brabant Bevrijd," a very detailed account of the liberation of this small little region of Holland. Absolutely amazing. I tell him about the book I have on grandfathers division, and we make a trade.

An Afrikaaner, like many Tom has left South Africa. He runs this little place, Pension Tolhuys, with his wife. Above the bars are some rooms, sort of a bed and breakfast arrangement. He caters to the business travelers who visit the light industry in the region.

I thank Tom for the book, and pay up my tab. I drive out and find the cemetary. The monument there is very simple. I go in wondering if there are any soldiers in this small cemetary. I wander through the shaded graveyard next to a little stream. There are no soldiers resting here, and I leave and take a picture of the memorial on the way out. Two girls out walking a dog seem to be asking me why I'm taking a photo of the cemetary. My dutch is as good as their english, and we wind up taking a photo of ourselves for kicks.
Pension Tolhuys in Klundert. Call them at +31 0168-402746 for a good room.
Myself with Karl and Astrid
With Tom and the book "Brabant Bevrijd"
I spend the rest of the afternoon driving through the countryside and pausing shortly in each village. I feel pressured to keep moving, since I want to see all the towns. Now, I don't it to seem like I had a big tally of cities and the end game was to check them all off the list. I wanted to go to all these places, follow the footseps of my grandfather, and hopefully come to and understanding about the war, what it meant on a personal level to people like my grandfather, to try to come to a small understanding of how it all affected him, and us all.

In Zundert, I stop in at the VVV office which is co-located with a bar. I hadn't had any luck finding any memorials or museums after Klundert. Hopefully they could point a few things out. Well, the office had closed for the afternoon. In fact, I had just missed them. But the bartender is eager to help out. He lives in Breda, and asks if I have already been to the General Maczek museum. I say the what! It turns out there is a semi-private museum in Breda that is all about General Maczek, the leader of the 1st Polish Armored and the liberator of Breda (amongst other places). He says that one needs an appointment to visit the museum, and if I can wait a few minutes he'll try to arrange it. He starts making a few phone calls, and suddenly I have a 10:30 appointment for the next morning at the Breda military garrison, which is the home to the museum.

It seems like I've done quite a lot today. But there is still much I want to do here. It's about six o'clock, and I start heading back to the hotel. I decided that tomorrow I will visit the museum in the morning, and then continue visiting villages, making my way south in the Belgium where the war began for grandpa.

I get back to the hotel, tired, and decide to have dinner in the hotel restaurant. As much as I would like to go back to the city center, and find some new friends to party with, I want to be sure that I'm in good shape to go the whole day tomorrow.