Willem Ridder

Countdown to Freedom Willem Ridder

"Countdown to Freedom" is the story of a young Dutch boy from the big port city of Rotterdam, Holland who experienced first-hand the invasion of his country by the Nazis in 1940, the wanton bombing of the city by the German Luftwaffe, numerous bombings by the Allied Air forces, persecution of the Jewish population, reprisal killings, the gradual loss of all freedoms, the taking of thousands of slave laborers, the terrible 'hunger winter' of 1944/1945 when thousands of people starved to death and the dropping of food by B-17's and Lancasters to the starving population toward the end of the war. Throughout the war the desire to be free became an obsession. But not all was gloom and doom. There were funny moments and the population never lost its sense of humor. The family enjoyed some good times and laughed but those moments were always experienced under the oppressive Nazi cloak. Symbols of freedom were the contrails of thousands of bombers that would fly over Rotterdam on their way to targets in Germany and the lone Spitfire that one time swooped down low, rocked its wings several times, waved at us and then sped away. But it is not just Freedom for its own sake rather what in the end the cost of that freedom was. That is the story and the message the author would like to get across.