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100 War’s Insidious Bite I Nijmegen knocked to its knees. Allied forces bomb the city centre by mistake, a report later tells us. Schools are hit, hundreds die, more injured. And Papa at home sick that day, not on the train blown to bits. Dr. Houtman not so lucky. Told his wife and children to hide in the basement: they all died. He had to live with the weight of this misguided advice. II She gets through it, only to crash into an army truck on her bicycle at war’s end. Serious trauma, in a coma, no identification, a broken arm doctors don’t set because they don’t know who she is, don’t think she’ll make it anyway so why bother? Finally she is recognized by a nurse; they fix her up. When she regains consciousness she’s someone else, never quite my mother— constant pacing, 101 sobbing over clicking locks and bicycle horns, shrieking at loud noises, pulling her hair out in clumps. ...

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