Canadians, especially veterans, who are used to being welcomed to Holland with open arms during ceremonies marking anniversaries of the Liberation of the Netherlands might be in for a disappointment if they are here on Canada's Remembrance Day and expect the same results.
Where thousands of grateful Dutch people line the streets of their cities and towns to cheer as Canadian veterans march by during events in early May, very few people here are even aware that November 11 has any import.
A casual survey of busy commuters outside Amsterdam’s Central Railway Station today revealed that hardly anyone knew the significance of November 11. And no one could identify the poppy worn in the questioner’s lapel.
“Does is have something to do with the Prince of Wales visiting Canada?” asked Nicole Brouwer, a flight attendant rushing to catch a train to Schiphol Airport. “I saw him there on television last week and he was wearing one. So was everyone else so I thought it was a way of marking his visit.”
Told it was a poppy, Nicole didn’t recognize the name and was surprised to learn that the wearing of the flower actually stemmed back to the end of the First World War. As for November 11, it will be just another working day for her.
Similar reactions came from almost everyone approached, even Holland’s young people in their teens and twenties. This seemed surprising, given the fact that schoolchildren adopt and take care of individual graves year after year at the Canadian War Cemeteries in Groesbeek and Holten.
However, Frans van Marle, a 52-year-old tourist guide coming into Amsterdam from his home in the nearby city of Almere, had an explanation for why his fellow countrymen seem non-plussed when asked about November 11. Since many of his clients are Canadians, he has made it his business to know as much as possible about the ties between the two countries.
“For one thing, the First World War doesn’t mean that much to the people of Holland because we were a neutral nation during that conflict,” he said. “ For that matter, we expected we would be allowed to remain neutral during the Second World War as well. But Hitler conned us. He led us to believe that as a Germanic people, we were part of the tribe. That was a bit naïve – although it’s perhaps unfair to judge those times as compared to today.
“As for why most people in Amsterdam aren’t as familiar with the Canadian contribution to our liberation, this city, unlike Rotterdam, received only minimal damage during the war. The smaller towns and villages in other parts of the country where most of the fighting took place are well aware of the fact that Canadian troops played a major part in gaining back their freedom.”
Frans said many older residents of Amsterdam remember Canada’s role in both the liberation of their country from the Nazi occupation and the harbouring of members of the Dutch Royal Family in Ottawa until it was safe to return to the Netherlands.
“But they are dying off and, to our younger people, Canada is becoming just another country on the world map,” he said. “Life is a lot quicker in this city than it is in the smaller communities. That’s just the way it is. Things get shuffled aside.”
Fifty-three-year-old Harry Baaker, a lifelong resident of Amsterdam, is grateful to Canadian troops for rescuing his grandfather in Nijmegen, a city in southeastern Holland, towards the end of the war.
“He was on the run from the Nazis,” said Harry. “He had been a police commander in the city of Haamstede near Haarlem and had to do a lot of things that he hated. Finally, he had had enough and he made a deal with the Dutch Underground. When he was guarding Jewish prisoners – there were about 60 of them in his jail at the time – the resistance fighters would make a charade of sneaking up on him and tapping him lightly on the back of the head. He’d go down, and the prisoners would be freed.”
Harry added that this actually worked on three different occasions but his grandfather was finally tipped off by the Underground that the Gestapo were on their way to arrest him.
“He fled but it was a close call,” said Harry. “He was on the run and managed to make it to the Canadian lines. He never talked much about it, but he always said that if there was one country he’d like to live in other than Holland, it would be Canada.”
Ironically, it was a relative newcomer to the Netherlands who was aware that November 11 was celebrated as Remembrance Day.
“I saw something about it on the television on Sunday,” said hotel front desk clerk Boryana Huenova, a young woman who moved to Amsterdam from her native Bulgaria seven years ago. “The Queen of England was laying a wreath and I remember talking to some of our guests from Canada last week about it all. They told me that Canadian troops had liberated different parts of the country.”
Perhaps the best summation of why many Dutch people do still feel a debt of gratitude to Canadians came from Jan Bos, a police officer visiting Amsterdam from his small community not far from Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery.
“In the Second World War, you Canadians hadn’t been attacked,” said Jan. “You didn’t have to go to war. But you chose to come over here and help us. Many of your young men and women gave their lives so that Holland would once again be free. We will never forget you for that.”
Photo of Frans van Marle by Tom Douglas
This article and photo were filed to The Canadian Press, Canada's national newswire service, and were picked up by daily and weekly newspapers across the country.
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