https://www.reddit.com/r/insanepeoplefacebook/comments/mn25fv/bruh/gtw163h/?context=3
My Grand Oncle Jacques (Great Uncle) was imprisoned in Dachau for three years. He was a member of the Belgian Resistance and was tasked with finding food and faking/forging ration cards to help feed the Jews in hiding. When not busy with that tremendous task, he helped with the militia that sabotaged Nazi vehicles, trains, whatever infrastructure they could damage to slow them down.
I met him several times as a young child, and with a child’s curiosity I asked him about the number on his arm. In age appropriate terms, Grand Oncle Jacques explained to me that he was in prison during a war because the bad guys caught him and punished him for it. He told me he had the tattoo because the bad guys wanted an easy way to tell prisoners apart.
The next time I saw him, I asked why his hands were bent and fingers curled. This beautiful, broken man explained, so kindly, that the bad guys tried to make him tell on his friends by hurting him. They broke his fingers and his hands, his feet and his knees. They broke his wrists and hit him with whips and did many cruel things. I was in tears and asked why he didn’t just tell on his friend.
Grand Oncle Jacques kissed my hair and dried my tears. And then he said, “My sweet child, one day you will learn about the bad men and what they did to innocent people. I wasn’t just protecting my friends. I was protecting hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent people all over Belgium.”
The song I will Survive, the Gloria Gaynor classic, came on the radio. And this beautiful man, bent and broken by Nazi abuse, a man with twisted limbs, a man whose every step caused pain. This amazing, wonderful man got up and he danced. He held my hand in his and I danced with him, with the carefree spirit of a child. When the song finished, he sat down and mopped the sweat from his face. He drank some lemonade and held my hand tightly, between his gnarled and broken ones.
“Debby,” he said, “Do you know why I dance? Because I survived. And I dance to remember those who did not survive. In dancing I remember those who survived and those who did not. And each time I dance, they are remembered.”
That was the last time I saw him, as his many injuries and ailments made him far too fragile to travel internationally. I grew older but each time the song comes on, I will dance. When I was whole, I’d bust out in a full boogie no matter how ridiculous I looked.