Belonging - Back to the Netherlands by Kay Yendole

"Quite Emotional" 

Visiting the Canadian War Cemetery Holten., the Netherlands:

one of the most impressive reminders of the Second World War.  

It's 1983 and my father and my brother and his girlfriend Margaret are with me on a nostalgia trip visiting the place where John and I were born.

De Crito a thatched cottage in the middle of a pine forest in Holten Overijssel on the Dutch border with Germany.

The house surprisingly after all this time looks much the same and extremely well kept with more modern double glazing but still the thatched roof. Obviously lived in, the well tended garden is full of tidily clipped bushes framing the perimeter and wicker garden chairs look comfortably inviting.

We had not thought to look the place up and its owners and forewarn them off our visit, but I with trepidation gently knock on the door hopefully. But no reply. I scribble a note hastily explaining where we are staying and asking if they would not mind giving us a ring. We continue to circle the house peering through windows, there are no neighbours to question us or for us too question them.

We carry on to the Canadian War Cemetery where others are also admiring its beautiful gardens. My father looks proudly on at the terraced landscape of silver birches, the pines forming a natural backdrop to the rows of graves each one planted with a rose bush and heathers and no doubt in springtime thousands of tulips everywhere. Sculptures, monuments and fountains are dotted around the pathways commemorating different regiments and troupes and the sadness of the enormity of loss to defend this country overwhelms me even though we have no direct connection to any of the dead here. My father tells us the story of how after the war he applied to The Canadian War Commission as Landscape Architect for this cemetery built in a pine forest. Of the tons of peat he had imported to enrich the soil of the terracing the ground and team of men that worked with him to create this beautiful garden. Of the pride he felt when Prince Bernhard came to officially open the cemetery. My Mother often said how so sad she was to leave the Netherlands after seven happy years. John was born here in 1948 then me in 1950. I recall Mother saying how kind all the villagers were to us and how they treated her like a queen. Giving her presents on her birthday and the shop keeper’s gifts when we were born were a loaf and a joint of meat the size of our birth weight.

We went to the local hotel also still just as my Father remembered it. We enjoyed an excellent lunch and the owner fussed over us when he heard why we were there. My father joked about the many times he and his work crew had a beer there to celebrate each milestone of building the cemetery and how all the village turned out for the opening ceremony. The hotel owner told us how the villagers each have allocated graves they tend and keep tidy for when visiting relatives come on Remembrance Day May 4th from Canada to respect their forefathers. Then he insists on calling the local paper to let them know the story of my Father revisiting his creation and sure enough the next day a reporter visits the hotel in Deventer where we are staying and interviews my father like a celebrity and we return to the cemetery for him to take photos.

We were made so welcome, we had no idea of the enormity of appreciation the Dutch people felt for the British being party to their Liberation alongside Canada. Gratitude also to my Father for his part not just in the war, but for his work afterwards.

I will forever feel a connection to the Dutch and the Netherlands a sense of belonging to a brave people and country. They were a neutral country but still invaded by Germany in May 1940 endured five years of occupation. There are many stories of their brave resistance and efforts to hide the Jewish citizens from Nazi clutches.

I am proud to have been born there and have been back many times and love it more each time I go.