Özcan Akyol brought Fritz Spitz a surprise during their conversation while the artists were at work. It is a book written by the mother of the 73-year-old broadcaster. It relates to the Irene Corps, of which his father was also a part. His parents ultimately ended up in Montreux, Switzerland, where his older sister was born as a result of the war, Spits says in response to the book. “This has become for us a kind of pilgrimage site.”
“There are two big trees in Les Avants above Montreux where we scattered my parents’ ashes,” he explains. When his wife Greti, with whom he had been living since he was 15, passed away in 2018, he decided to return to that place. “I had to tell them my wife had passed away. Then I told those trees that my gut was no longer there. I really wanted to tell them myself.”
Spit had a good relationship with his parents. “I loved them so much and received so much love from them. They carried with them, of course, the history of that war, and tried to distance it from us in an unbelievable way. But let us also be a part of it. And yet they have succeeded in giving us a decent life.”
Sterren op het Doek can be seen tonight at 8.35pm on NPO 2 at Omroep MAX.
