Schiedam established relations with Esslingen in Germany and with 6 other cities in Europe.
As a 20-year-old young woman, Connie worked at the Schiedam Community Foundation and organized youth exchanges between the cities.
“My father had been in the resistance and my mother worked at a voucher distribution office during the war and extra vouchers always had to be arranged for people in hiding. So they were not very pro-German. We went on holiday to Italy, for example, but not via Germany, we then went through other countries. But through those exchanges they felt like yes, this is important: that we never have a repeat of that situation again. That, bring it on! So we always had two guests at the same time, one from one country and one from another country. We are from the third country, so you always had at least those three countries at the table. And that led to many, often fanatical conversations. Germans were very driven to make things better and never make the same mistakes again, as they often called them. And the Italians and the French were all very driven by that. But you shouldn’t exaggerate it either, because during the day on the bus to activities it was of course about completely different things, they were busy with each other and love arose. There are also people from those different countries who married each other. Of course that all happened and that was part of the process of living together I think!”
“Once Europe will be real!”
