Column | If only everyone was like us

We went to the disaster area in a family context, the center of my hometown Arnhem affected by a fire. I had to check with my own eyes if Vishandel Gamba, known for the delicious herring, and Hijman Viamijd, the best bookstore in the country, had really been spared.

Yes, they were still there! Although the bookstore was still closed. According to manager Marleen, a sweet bookworm that has since grown so much with her workplace that she wanted to hug and feel the walls and all book racks after the signal fire master, because of the instability of the surrounding buildings.

Honest: I had never noticed the medieval character of the destroyed buildings, but I felt the history eye to eye with the charred remains. « There, » be a Arnhemmer, « there was first a medieval wall. »

Nowhere do they know how to maintain themselves in times of disaster than in Arnhem. Then the backs right, then they are all one. The news item that the fire station had been flooded in recent days with cakes, puffs and pizzas moved me. Don't know how to show your gratitude and then order food.

The Arnhemmers I met were unbroken, as if not their ancestors, but they themselves had stood for hotter fires. They were proud. On the collection campaigns for the affected Arnhemmers, on the Arnhem firefighters who had prevented worse, on all Arnhem care providers, on the many fencing with which everyone was kept at bay, on Vitesse, even on Dagblad De Gelderlander That all the engagement had withdrawn. The editors themselves were also proud of their own work ethic. Deputy editor-in-chief Niki van der Naald wrote a report about her tireless colleagues, with which the newspaper suddenly became more Arnhems than ever before. Modest, yet emphatically present. An unmissable footnote in the historiography. Some of the reporters had stuck in the city center, I met two on Sunday afternoon. They roamed around with blocnotes casually in hand, completely ready in case there would unexpected more big news arise.

In the meantime, the police have arrested three men who may have caused the fire, among them two Arnhemmers. The people I spoke to were especially proud of the detective work of the Arnhem police. Immediately the exaggeration, immediately a very deep bow for Arnhem authority. We grow in our role, we are getting more and more special, everyone was like us.

Marcel van Roosmalen Schrjft a column on Monday and Thursday

To share





Mail the editors