Thank You Canada

Who has not experienced an occupation, will not be able to imagine what it is like to have had to live in a country occupied by an enemy for five years. The Dutch people and people living in other occupied countries know something about this. Who has not experienced an occupation, will not be able to imagine either what liberation meant to us. The arrival of the Canadians: it cannot be put into words. It is an experience never to be forgotten. Those who have, never will. What army, what young and fresh fellows. What quiet after the noisy German orders.

Grown men were weeping when they saw the first liberators. There was dancing in the streets and squares. In the churches thanksgiving services were held. Smoking a real cigarette again: unimaginable. Whoever can imagine now that fifty years ago mothers wept when a piece of real soap was given to them by a quartered soldier.

This concise booklet deals with the years of occupation, the resistance and our liberation by the Canadians. This story could be set in any village, any town in the east of The Netherlands.

Nijverdal, The Netherlands 1995