Hi, I am Auke and I am 12 years old. I’m with my ‘adopted’ grandfather

Hi, I am Auke and I am 12 years old. I am going to tell you something about the visit to our “adopted” grandfather. His name is Yuri, 91 years old, and he’s still moving around a lot. Every day when he wakes up, he will first do three-quarters of an hour of floor exercises so that his muscles don’t get too stiff. He also plays games and billiards with other elderly people in the retirement home.

Our “grandpa” Yuri had prepared well for our visit and served us cola, wine, and a lot of goodies and we all received a chocolate bar. Then the most chaotic conversation ever began: Grandpa Yuri speaks Russian. Luckily a friend of his was there who also speaks that language and translated what he said into Hebrew for Ria, who translated for us in Dutch. I did my best to follow some of the conversation. For example, I now know that his daughter died following a nuclear disaster in Russia. You saw, when Grandpa Yuri pointed out the pictures of his daughter, that he still sometimes has a hard time with that loss. His wife also passed away. Only his son is alive and also lives in Israel. Yuri earned his living in Russia by training a football team; he did not say which club, but we will find out. Probably it was not an amateur club, otherwise you would not earn a living doing that. He also said that he is a Holocaust survivor and he came to live in Israel in 1991.