I think in some ways, talking with Henry I had a chance to travel vicariously to places I’d never heard of. Henry may have had barely two francs to rub together, but he managed to see a lot. Ultimately, no matter how much of Europe Henry saw, Elvis pointed him to his real dream.
My friend Slagboom lived in the Netherlands, so Leon and I would go to there every weekend, up by the North Sea. Hoek van Hollen is one of the most famous places in Holland, not far from Maassluis. If you go to Holland, be sure to visit Madurodam. It is a miniature town; tramways go in between, and cars and everything, and everything is miniature.
Leon and I would go to the movies when we had time. I remember seeing Tarzan movies, and Esther Williams. The movie I remember the most is Elvis Presley in Love Me Tender. I still remember the beach and sand and America looked like a great place. So I decided before I die I want to see America. – Henry Zguda
Note: Madurodam opened in 1952 as a perfect 1:25 scale version of famous Dutch castles and public buildings. What I find interesting is that Madurodam was named after George Maduro, a Jewish law student who fought the Nazi occupation forces as a member of the Dutch resistance and died at Dachau concentration camp in 1945. In 1946 Maduro was posthumously awarded the Medal of Knight 4th-class of the Military Order of William, the highest and oldest military decoration in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for the valor he had demonstrated in the Battle of the Netherlands against German troops.
Further information: www.madurodam.nl/en/; Tripadvisor.com ranks Madurodam 6th out of 67 places to visit in the Hague. General background info – Wikipedia. Photo courtesy of netherlands-tourism.com.
