Charlene Von Sayer

She was easy to hug.

Let's put it that way.

I think she just felt perhaps closer to Jacques, who was her true love.

But she spoke about Jacques and how wonderful he was and how much he would have loved us.

She always said that.

And she also told me that he loved food and he would sort of satisfy his cravings by reading cookbooks.

That he was romantic and, you know, gave her lots of beautiful little gifts and jewelry and was very loving.

I don't know why, but I didn't think to ask more in-depth questions.

Maybe because we were just enjoying each other's company and in the present.

So I don't know why I didn't and I do regret not asking more.

But clearly she didn't want to tell me or talk about it, otherwise she would have.

And we would jump in her car and drive by Nine Rota Castle and Ostermere, which was their actual home that they lived in, and Herengacht 458, which was my grandfather's place of business, his art gallery.

And she would tell us that these properties were once hers.

And I guess as a kid, I never understood then why they weren't still hers.

And I do clearly remember she would look at me and my sister and she called us like her suite.

She would say, my suite, things were different before the war.

And that's really all I got from her on that.

Everything started to come together.

I understood why she didn't want to talk about things.

I started to understand the magnitude of the situation.