Not a question but maybe something ‘to end the week’. Recently a worker found a match box during renovation works in the Antwerp Sint-Jacobs Church. It contained a note from 4 painters written on July 21, 1941.
*In the year 1941 the ceiling of the church is being painted for the city building services, using a 26 meter rolling scaffold. Whenever this ceiling will be painted again, we will not be anymore amongst the living. We have to tell our descendants that we didn’t have a lot of fun during our lifetime. We experienced two wars, one in 1914 and one in 1940. That counts !
We are working while extremely hungry. They extort us for little food.
I advice our descendants, whenever during the course of life there would be another war, to have a stockpile at home, such as rice, coffee, tobacco, wheat, grains to stay alive !!! Enjoy life and in time take another woman, and for those who are married, watch your house!!! See you guys !!!
John Janssen, Jul Gyselinck, Louis Chantraine and Jul Van Hemeldonck.*
Original text in Dutch: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGz9oqwn-R3/
Some more info (also in Dutch): https://www.pzc.nl/antwerpen/schilders-vinden-oorlogsboodschap-uit-1941-in-gewelf-van-sint-jacobskerk-geniet-volop-van-het-leven-en-neem-bijtijds-een-ander-vrouwtje~a46004dc/