hallo. mijn naam is johannes gerardus klabbers. until the age of 22 i answered to the name of hans.

i was born above the big rivers on my mother’s 23rd birthday in the long shadow of the nazi occupation and the famine in the honger winter of 1944-5.

at the ages of 5, 10, 20 and 60 there were Events that would take the rest of my life to come to terms with.

i used to live under a rock afraid of things that might befall me — but i didn’t know it.

my life has been lived under the sign of things-that-almost-happened.