Arno Vyth: “This photo of my parents was taken in 1953, eight years after the Second World War. This was their very first vacation.
“From 1954 my sister and I were also allowed to come along, with a tent, and later with the caravan. I have fond memories of these holidays, because our parents – who were always busy together in the store – then had all the attention for us.
“In the years immediately after the war, my parents had their hands full building their lives, like almost everyone of their generation. They started a textile business in Nijmegen. They had a Ford Taunus. During the holidays it was used as a camper. My mother had sewn sheets and curtains for the car herself. She was trained as a seamstress. She also made the dresses for my sister. When my mother sat at her sewing machine, those were intimate moments: I sat close to her.
“My Jewish parents fled from Germany to Nijmegen in the late 1930s. During the war they spent two years in hiding in an attic room, with a family with three growing children. My father had to hide from the children. He could only go out at night. My mother worked as a maid in this family.
‘My father’s parents and two sisters did not survive the war; they were murdered in German camps. My mother’s mother was Orthodox Jewish, her father was Catholic. She was a premarital child who grew up with an aunt. My mother’s family history is too complicated to summarize here.”