Reports of the war and suffering in Ukraine filled my mind with emotional childhood memories of the Second World War in Holland.
A Thank You Letter to My Mother
Since Mother’s Day coincides with this week’s celebrations of the 77th anniversary of VE day—Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies—I thought of my mother who died at age ninety-seven, eleven years ago. Here is a letter I wrote her:

Dear Mama,
Seventy-seven years ago, Canadian soldiers fought their way through Holland to Hilversum, our city, and freed us from fear and oppression. I was seven years old when Papa took me to cheer the Canadian soldiers in their tanks driving down Main Street. Thank you, Mama, for shielding me from so much of the horror of the war.

I was only two years old when the enemy overran our country. You sheltered me and you and Papa tried to live a normal life. The year the war started, you gave me a little brother, and cared for him day and night for nine months until he finally died of an inoperable heart defect. I often wondered if you ever got over that stress and loss.

Two years later, you gave me a little sister, and two years after that another little brother. All this time you and Papa kept searching for food to feed us all. I woke up some nights to the sound of gunshots in the neighbourhood. I got used to it and slept right through it. But did you, Mama? How could you, when you knew Papa was out there, in the night, after curfew, bartering for food? How could you sleep when you didn’t know where he was, or if he was safe? How did you live through those weeks he was gone and finally arrived with one jug of cooking oil?

When the grain for porridge was gone and there were only two potatoes left in the bin, I didn’t know. But you knew. And you prayed that God would protect a sack of potatoes Pake and Beppe, your parents in Friesland, had hidden in a fishing boat coming our way. Thank you, Mama!

I ran to the house one afternoon, excitedly pounding on the door to be let in, shouting, “De moffen komen eraan!” (German soldiers are coming!) You quickly yanked me indoors and shushed me, “Don’t shout this warning outside, tell me when you are inside.”
“The soldiers blocked off both ends of the street,” I said. “They are taking some men out of the houses and putting them on their trucks.”

I already knew those men would travel in train cattle cars to slave labour camps in Germany. Papa quickly dragged the buffet in the back room away from the wall, rolled back the carpet, yanked open a trapdoor, and clambered down into the darkness, telling me, “Help Mama push everything back into place.”

I was only five years old, and I was used to Papa often living under the floor. But, Mama, how could you sleep when you knew that any night, rifle butts could pound our front door and Papa would have to rush down the stairs into his hiding place?

Finally, in the last winter months of the war, our rescuers bombed all the railway bridges. That stopped the trains to Germany and the raids. Papa came out of hiding; we took our bikes from their hiding places. One day Papa took me for a bike ride out into the country. When we returned, I excitedly told you about the fun day we had.

“The airplanes came and Papa and I threw down our bikes, and we jumped down into one of those trenches beside the road. And I saw the Germans shoot at the airplanes. And then they hit one and I saw the smoke, and I saw the parachutes. And then we got to the farmer, and he put the rabbit in the bottom of Papa’s bike carrier and covered it up with vegetables. And then the soldier stopped us on our way home and poked his gun among the vegetables. And then the rabbit poked his nose out and sniffed the gun. And then Papa gave the soldier a package of cigarettes. And then the soldier walked away.”
No doubt you prayed hard during that fun day: that all three of us, including the rabbit, would arrive safely. Thank you, Mama.

Then, finally, liberation! No more night curfews. No more food smuggling. No more hunger. No more waking up from shots in the night. No more listening to the BBC news in Dutch on earphones from a secret radio hidden above the linen closet. No more trains of cattle cars with begging hands sticking out through the cracks in the boards.

Thank you, Mama, for looking after me during those terrible years.
Your grateful son, Jack

PS: And you 7,600 Canadian mamas—you whose soldier sons died to liberate our country—I continue to thank you for your sacrifice.