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Posted
There was one Dutch family – we had te use their barn. It was too cold to sleep outside. We took over part of the family’s house – the ground floor and the barn. We used the barn to put our vehicles in so they couldn’t be spotted from the air. The mobile baths started catching up to us, and our mail, they brough in a mobile bakery. I had to go back with the jeep and pick up rations so I got to know the guy in the bakery. Cigarettes and whatnot changed hands, and I came away with three loaves of fresh bread. They were still warm. This Dutch family, they had three children – very young ones. I walked into the kitchen and I handed the lady of the house a hot loaf of bread. She broke down and cried. The kids gathered around her, they did’t know what it was. White bread..
All Armstrong, 14th Canadian Hussars. Nijmegen, January 1945
📸 Picture: Janine Vilain of Dunkirk and other children enjoying Canadian bread and sugar rations.
Follow us on instagram for more pictures and stories 👉 https://www.instagram.com/joelstoppels/
May be a black-and-white image of 3 people and child
 
 
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Posted (edited)

Those close ties, forged at that time, remain in effect today, (aided of course by the War brides who returned with Canadian servicemen!)

Two of my Uncles, Doug and Lester, built long term friendships that lasted until they died. Uncle Lester's ties were even deeper, due to the wife he returned with at the end of the war.

A little Tid-Bit:

When Princes Juliana, of Royal Family of the Netherlands, was about to give birth here in Ottawa, Canada, the portion of the Civic Hospital effected was declared to be Dutch Territory, in order that a possible heir to the throne, Princes Margariet, would be born on Dutch territory.

When the Princes was baptized, President Roosevelt was one of her God Fathers 

The ties between Canada and the Netherlands are remembered and reinforced every year with the present of tulip bulbs delivered to Ottawa, by the Netherlands and the Tulip Festival that occurs annually, when they are in full bloom.

Edited by Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474
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