My Life with O_3, NO_x, and Other YZO_x Compounds (Nobel Lecture)

摘要

I was born in Amsterdam on December 3, 1933, the son of Anna Gurk and Jozef Crtitzen. I have one sister, who still lives there with her familv. My mother's parents moved to the industrial Ruhr region in Germain from East Prussia towards the end of thelast century. They were of mixed German and Polish origin. In 1929 at the age of 17. my mother moved to Amsterdam to work as a housekeeper. There she met my father. He came from Vaals. a little town in the southeastern corner of the Netherlands, bordering Belgium and Germany and very close to the historical German city of Aachen. He died in 1977. He had relames in the Netherlands. Germany, and Belgium. Thus, from both parents I inherited a cosmopolitan view of the world. My mother, now 84 years old. still lives in Amsterdam, mentalh very alert, but since a few months ago. wheelchair-bound. Despite having worked in several countries outside the Netherlands since 1958. I have remained a Dutch citizen.