By plane, car, train and even bicycle, members of Badminton Club Poona arrived in Bath on 18 september. For the 22nd time since 1989, this time in Bath, we held an exchange weekend with members of the Bath Sports Centre badminton club. For most it was a reunion with friends, for some the first time.
The program, as always, was secret until the last moment. It was only certain that – how could it be otherwise-there would be a badminton tournament. A surprising whole was composed around it this time too. Because the city link between Alkmaar and Bath is 80 years old this year, the center of gravity was there. Victoriapark and Alkmaar Garden, where the urban connection is most clearly visible, were visited.
An impressive highlight of the weekend was the walk on Saturday morning through the city center of Bath along places that played a role in the establishment of the city link between Bath and Alkmaar in 1945. Chris Davies, the chairman of the Bath Alkmaar Twinning Association (Bata, counterpart of the AUC), played the role of guide/narrator with verve. About the Jewish Eli Prins, who escaped from Alkmaar in the first days of the war and ended up in Bath because his sister lived there with her English husband. Eli quickly became a well-known resident; he gave lectures on Alkmaar and on the needs of his former townspeople. He did so insistently that the Rotary in Bath decided to put an action for the Alkmaarders on hold. Bath itself had been bombed by the Germans for three days in a row in april 1942, in revenge for the Allied bombing of Lübeck.
Chris Davies, standing in front of the House of Prince, described the action as a handout from people who hardly have anything, to people who have nothing at all. The inhabitants of Bath raised about 350,000 euros in money and goods by today's standards. Some of us knew that story, others heard it for the first time. But it touched everyone. Left and right were teardrops, also by narrator Chris. All of us, our English friends and us, realized that this story of humanity has lost nothing of value and relevance, precisely in view of the current developments on our own continent.
This also means that the story of Eli Prins, from Alkmaar, and Bath rises far above his personal history.
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