The ties between the Netherlands and Canada are deep, dating back to the Second World War when it the First Canadian Army played a key role in the liberation of the Netherlands from German occupation.
Over 7,600 Canadians were killed in the fight to free the Netherlands. They are buried in cemeteries that include Adegem in Belgium, Bergen-op-Zoom in southwest Netherlands, Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery near Nijmegen, Holten in northeastern Netherlands, and in the Reichswald Forest Cemetery and Rheinberg War Cemetery in Germany.
The graves in Holland are still tended by Dutch school children, and the Netherlands sends 20,000 tulip bulbs – 10,000 from the Dutch Royal Family and 10,000 from the people of Holland - to Ottawa as a thank-you.
And every year on May 5, the flag of the Netherlands is raised in communities like Bradford to mark Bevrijdingsdag – Netherlands Liberation Day.
This year, on the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Holland, not even COVID-19 restrictions could prevent a small group from gathering at the Bradford Court house to raise the Dutch flag and mark the historic occasion.
Mayor Rob Keffer was joined by local MP Scot Davidson and, representing the Dutch community, Albert Wierenga.
Mayor Keffer read the proclamation, recognizing the historic surrender by German forces at Wageningen, Netherlands on May 5, 1945, to Canadian General Charles Foulkes, and celebrating the lasting bonds between the two countries.
“The commemoration celebrates the significant contributions that Dutch-Canadians have made to the growth and prosperity of our province and our community, giving us all a chance to pause and reflect on our values and ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights,” said Keffer.
MP Davidson spoke of the “deep and long-lasting bonds of friendship” between the two nations, and their common commitment to stand against all forms of oppression.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Canada landed 14,000 troops on Juno Beach in Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord, the Allied offensive to push the Nazis out of western Europe.
It was a hard-fought process as the Allies advanced from their beachheads against increasingly desperate German forces, entrenched in well-fortified positions.
Kilometre by kilometre, the First Canadian Army – including the Second Canadian Corps, and British, Polish, American and Dutch Infantry, closed the Falaise gap in Normandy, and then pushed on into the Lowlands.
During the Scheldt Offensive, the First Canadian Army fought to clear the German-held Scheldt River and open the harbour of Antwerp to Allied shipping. Over 6,000 Canadians were killed, wounded or taken prisoner during the operation, Oct.1-Nov. 8, 1944.
With Allied forces on the doorstep, the situation became dire for the people of the Netherlands. In retaliation for a railway strike, the Nazis cut off fuel and food shipments for an estimated 4.5 Dutch residents in the western Netherlands – leading to the Hongerwinter (Hunger Winter), and widespread starvation.
February of 1945 saw the launch of a fierce offensive to drive the Germans from the Nijmegen front, back across the Rhine River.
By April, fighting from dyke to dyke and door to door, the First Canadian Army drove the Germans from the Northeastern portion of Netherlands. British and Canadian forces cleared Arnheim, and then Apeldoorn.
There was also an advance in Western Netherlands – but there the Allies, fearing that a desperate German army would breach the dykes and cause wide-spread flooding, negotiated a truce, halting the Allied advance, and permitting airdrops of food supplies to the Dutch.
From April 29 to May 7, RAF and RCAF fighters dropped food supplies in Operation Manna; the USAAF also joined in relief efforts, May 1-8.
The occupying German army surrendered on May 5, 1945 – liberating the Netherlands. Within days, all German forces had surrendered, bringing an end to the Second World War in Europe.
Wierenga’s parents were both living in the Netherlands during the war – engaged, but not yet married. His mother, Ienje Hovius was living on the family farm, where her parents often sheltered refugees for short periods of time; his father, Minze Wijbren Wierenga, a young man in his 20s, worked as a clerk in the department of distribution services in the town of Grijpskerk.
Piecing together the memories of his mother, family stories, historical records and his own childhood memories– finding a fully-loaded Walther pistol that belonged to his father, and a letter from the BVD (Dutch national security) received on the occasion of his dad’s death in 1958, thanking him for his service to his country – Albert learned more about the role played by his father and others.
In 1942, Minze Wierenga was made head of distribution services at Grijpskerk, “which gives him a fantastic opportunity to ‘steal‘ things,” Wierenga noted - especially passes, identity papers and food coupons, which were passed on to the Dutch resistance, but also guns and radios, confiscated from Dutch citizens.
The Germans became suspicious. Minze was picked up in 1944 for interrogation, but was released, although he was stripped of his position. “They don’t fully trust him, but they can’t nail him,” said Wierenga.
The crunch came on Oct. 26, even as Canadian forces were engaged in the Scheldt Offensive. A desperate Reich needed healthy adults for forced labour, to keep up war production. In Wierenga’s town, the Germans were about to round up all able-bodied men, to be sent to factories and mines in Germany – but first they needed the Registry of population.
The town’s Mayor VandeNadort, Secretary DeBoer, two members of the resistance (Van Dijk and Middel), and Minze took action to prevent the round up – taking every ID paper, pass and passport they could find, and hiding the Registry, before fleeing.
“All five have to go under, in hiding,” said Wierenga. Minze fled to Ienje’s farm, where he spent the first night in a haystack – but could not stay, because the family across the road were Nazi sympathizers. He ended up spending the remainder of the war posing as a theology instructor in Drogeham, under the name of Dirk van Asselt, using false identity papers.
It’s a side of his father that Wierenga is still working to uncover. “He was the most upright citizen,” well-dressed, well-respected, a regular church-goer – but “there was a second part to him,” said Wierenga, that worked to resist the Nazi occupation.
Wierenga came to Canada with his mother and five siblings in 1967. Last year, he returned to the Netherlands, to try to uncover more about his father’s service to the country and the BVD – and to visit the war cemeteries.
“Do visit the cemeteries,” he said at Tuesday’s flag-raising: worth seeing, as a concrete reminder of the enduring bonds between Canada and the Netherlands.