Ideas - A Walk of Remembrance: Honouring Canadian soldiers who helped liberate the Netherlands

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

In a powerful act of remembrance, a group of Canadians participated in a pilgrimage to the Netherlands to commemorate their fathers, grandfathers and uncles who helped to liberate the country from the Nazis. Producer Alisa Seigel shares their journey. *This episode originally aired on May 1, 2023.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyad. During the enemy's last hours of control in Northern Holland, a spirit of wild fiesta

reigns in towns and villages freed by the Canadian drive. Behind are the grim years of famine and oppression. The bands play and the people welcome the dawn of a free new day. In September 2022, a group of nearly 100 Canadians traveled to the Netherlands for a nine-day pilgrimage. They went to honor their uncles, fathers and grandfathers who helped liberate the country in the Second World War. We are glad that you are here today as representatives of these liberators.

The group walked 60 kilometres through villages and towns. They visited old battlefields and the cemeteries where Canada's soldiers are buried. Arsenault, Welly. Atkinson, Hubert, Fenton, Booth. Bailey, Robert, Edwards. Bailey Robert Edwards Remembrance is dying out. And unless we do something different to engage the next generation, who knows what will happen to it.

The pilgrimage was the brainchild of Karen Hunter, whose father fought to liberate Holland from the Nazis. Like so many veterans, he rarely spoke to his family of his wartime experiences. But at the age of 85, and just before he died, he gave his family a memoir, his memoir, of what he'd gone through. memoir of what he'd gone through. So in 2019, and a decade after her father's death, Karen Hunter traveled to the Netherlands to take part in an annual Dutch march honoring soldiers like her father. As I was walking toward the finish line, there was cheering and flowers and joy and dancing. And momentarily, I felt a glimpse of what my father had described. And it was actually at that moment that I thought to myself that other descendants of those who had served in the Netherlands needed to experience

this amazing Dutch gratitude. And it was really at that time that what was originally my personal in my father's footsteps became in our father's footsteps. And with that, a pilgrimage was born. Documentary producer Aliza Siegel followed. Old Dutch veterans of colonial wars parade to celebrate liberation. Hollanders hail the harbingers of freedom as town after town is emancipated. Town after town is emancipated. For me, one of the most amazing things was the number of people who wanted to come on the pilgrimage and joined immediately, without hesitation. When Karen first told me that she was planning this pilgrimage, my first thought was, well, of course, I have to go.

And then I called my brother in Jerusalem and I said, you have to go too. And so my brother told me about it. And we thought, wow, you know, Harry doesn't have any descendants. And it's important that he should be memorialized and he should also have somebody there respecting his memory. They load the gun, aim it, then a burst of thunder. They load the gun, aim it, then a burst of thunder. Shortly after university, my father enlisted. He joined the 30th Light Anti-Aircraft Unit as a gunner. I'm Karen Hunter, and I'm the founder of In Our Father's Footsteps. He went from England to Italy, and then from Italy up through Belgium and into the Netherlands. When he was in the Netherlands, he was with the 2nd Light and Aircraft Regiment.

He seldom spoke about his war experience. about his war experience. And so it was really quite a surprise when on his 85th birthday, he presented us with a war memoir that he had been secretly writing. He'd said that he'd written it for the family and that everything that we would want to know was there. Well, what was there really were his happy memories.

He'd left out all the nasty bits, except for one, the story of his good friend, Harry Bachner. Harry was my grandmother's youngest brother, and we didn't really know too much about him. My name is Elliot Schiff. Harry Bauchner was my great-uncle. He was a soldier in the Canadian Army in World War II, and I'm one of the participants in our father's footsteps pilgrimage. My name is Jonathan Schiff. We knew our grandmother had had a brother. There was a picture of him on the wall, a black and white picture of him in uniform, that he had sent her from Rome. And we had a picture of his grave in Holland, but we didn't know anything about him. She didn't talk about him. My dear Molly, firstly, my dear sister, I want to again express my deepest and sincerest gratitude to you for our most

consistent and most interesting letters. After she died in 2003, we found well over a thousand letters from Harry to our grandmother from the almost four years that he had been away. Boxes and boxes. And once I started reading the letters, I couldn't stop reading the letters. Sunday, April 8th, 1945, 6.30 p.m. My dearest family, we are again in what is called action, but in Holland this time. The mailman paid me an extra special visit today,

bringing me a total of five letters. And sister, I enjoyed every word. You two are pretty good at this racket, you know. From his letters, we understood that she had written to him every single day that he was away. And as often as he could, he wrote back. And those letters opened up a window for us into her life, and also into his life, because we didn't know anything about him. And through his letters, we learned a fair bit about his life, starting in 1941, and until he was killed in 1945.

One of the great mysteries of this whole journey for me was trying to understand what exactly happened to Harry. How did he die? What were the circumstances? I had to get to the bottom of it. The clock was ticking. How many of these people would still be alive? And in a desperation move, I put an ad in the Legion magazine, which is a Canadian military magazine that gets sent out or did get sent out monthly. And they had a little section at the back called Lost Trails. So I put a little ad in and I said, if anybody remembers Harry Bogner, please contact me. And I waited and I waited and I waited. Four months later, I received an email from a guy on the West Coast of Canada in Victoria who said that his father-in-law had

seen the ad and that he knew Harry and had fought with him. Three days later, there were three letters sitting in my mailbox. They were written by three different gentlemen who all knew Harry in different ways, and three guys who had seen the ad, which is like a needle in the haystack. I couldn't believe it. You could tell that whoever wrote these letters were really old. It was written in a really old scrawl. The first letter was from a gentleman named Gil Hunter, who was living in Gravenhurst, Ontario. Dear Elliot, Harry and I both joined the 30th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery, RCA, in Toronto, which was being led by Major Conn Smythe. Major Conn Smythe, a very well-known figure in Toronto, both because of his ownership

of the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club, but also because he had put together this regiment for World War II that consisted of some of the finest athletes in Canada. Harry's regimental number was B18604, and mine was B18628. We both were gunners. Gil and Harry enlisted in 1941 and ended up in the same regiment together. They had spent time together. They ended up traveling over to England, but they got separated. They reconnected in April 1945. Harry was part of this huge Canadian convoy, and it was there that Gil ran into Harry. And the convoy was stalled, and he said they sat and chatted for hours, and they had such a great visit.

And then Gil wrote that it may have just been a couple of days later he heard over the army radio that Harry had been killed. This incredible letter was accompanied by pictures, one of them of Harry's grave. Gil made a practice of going back to Holland, but he also took time to go visit Harry's grave on several occasions. And I thought that would be the end of it, and it wasn't. Many years later... When I was doing my research in the Netherlands for the pilgrimage, I visited Holton and saw his Jewish headstone with the Star of David. And at that time, the people there told me that they had obtained some new information about Harry. They discovered that he was born in Guelph, Ontario. Again, my heart just stopped because I live in Guelph. And I thought, what are the chances of that? So when I returned to Guelph, I went to the Cenotaph, and I noticed that his name wasn't there.

And later, I had an opportunity to speak with the museum. So the museum mounted the plaque in time for Remembrance Day that year. Shortly after that, I posted on Facebook that this had happened. I happened to be Googling Harry's name, and I wanted to see if I'd missed anything or something new would come to light. And I found the most incredible item. Someone had actually taken Harry's name and attached it to the cenotaph in Guelph. And I thought, who would have known, A, that Harry was born in Guelph, and who, all of these decades later, would have taken the time to put his name on the cenotaph?

Shortly after, someone by the name of Elliot Schiff, responded to my Facebook post saying that someone associated with this page has posted about my late great uncle, Harry Bauchner, and I'd like to speak with that person. I couldn't believe it. And so I contacted Elliot Schiff. And I said to her, this is amazing. All these years later, how is this possible? And she said, I've been looking for so long to find somebody who was related to Harry. But because Harry didn't have any kids and the family line stopped, there was no way she could find somebody. And at first, I was so amazed that somebody had taken the time to do this that I didn't make the connection. He also shared that years ago, he put an ad in the Legion magazine. And then suddenly it dawned on me. Karen Hunter was Gil Hunter's daughter. My father saw this ad

and responded and sent a letter to Elliot. Oh my God, your father was Gil Hunter. The other amazing thing was that Karen was planning this trip and planning to honor Harry as part of the pilgrimage without ever having met or known anybody in his family. And Elliot shared the letter with me. I can remember in the letter my father saying, to this day I think of the convoys and the talks that I had with Harry. To this day I often think about the convoy and our talks. And I can hear his voice as if it were yesterday.

I can hear Harry's voice as though it was yesterday. Little did I know that we would not talk again. And little did I know I would never talk to him again. I realized why my father never spoke about the war. It was just too painful. spoke about the war. It was just too painful. And I realized that my father's story was now my story and that this was really the next chapter. The pilgrimage was the next chapter in this story. When he was 30, which was a very, very advanced age at the time, he enlisted in the Canadian Army in late 1941. He wasn't conscripted. He volunteered. Harry was a bit of a playboy before he went off to war. He was not married. He worked, but he liked to drink and gamble and play around, as it were.

like to drink and gamble and play around, as it were? Harry was much older than my father, and much older, actually, than most of the soldiers. And my father and Harry really had a very close relationship. Then my father was in Italy that he spotted Harry on a gunning tractor and waved to him. And he was so surprised to see Harry again and so excited to see him. And that was when they reconnected. become more serious. He still has a sense of humor. He's still very ironic, but you see him maturing. And there's a lot of insight into what he was going through, how he saw the world, people he was meeting and things he was encountering, including many of his soldiers. He was a sergeant and he had some young soldiers that he was commanding. These were guys who were, I guess, about 18 years old and had never been outside maybe their villages where they came from. They found themselves on the other side of the world in this hell. He really grew into a leader and he acted as a father for a lot of these young

soldiers. What he writes in his letters is he actually was looking forward to the day when he could come back and maybe start a family of his own. At one point, he writes, I'm sorry that I haven't written for a few days. We were quite busy and then I wasn't feeling well, but I'm okay now. And we found out that there had been a battle which resulted in the mountains just being strewn with dead German soldiers and the Canadians had to bury them and they all got dysentery. You know, he'll use expressions in the letters like a lot of noise, which we understand to mean that they were being heavily shelled. Thursday, May 18th, 1944.

My dear family, the weather and everything else has reached a torrid zone. For a stretch of about 20 minutes last night, I experienced again my thirty-three years of life in retrospect. All this transpired while huddled deep in a slit trench, upon which a thunderstorm of earth and stones, which had become misplaced by uncompromising and very weighty bombs. For now, this is all. With my fondest love to you all, I remain as ever in the best, and confident as ever, your Harry. programs and, you know, writing these small, small little letters and words to try and squeeze so much into one of these things. And you had to go by stamps and you had to go to the post office. You know, this was a real commitment on both sides of the Atlantic.

Those welcome notes from loved ones in the Dominion are loaded with a thousand ready for transfer across the sea. In Slit Trench and Tank Harbor, Johnny Canuck gets the news from home quickly thanks to the mail squadron of the RCAS. Through the letters, we understood how connected she was to him. They were a large family. They were six siblings. And I think she, more than anybody else,

kept in touch with him. And that, for him, was a bit of a lifeline for all the years he was fighting overseas. And for her, it was obviously very important. So at the beginning, that was the main significance for me. As I got more deeply into the letters, I began to feel a real connection to Harry. We're going to honor him by retracing the steps and walking in his footsteps. My dear Molly, in plain ordinary words, Molly, you are simply wonderful. Thank God in Knockwood, my luck has been of the best to date and can only hope it will continue so in the future.

As always, I take every care and precaution and whenever possible, refrain from taking any callous steps. All of them deserve that there be a significant contingent in this trip of people thinking about them and remembering their names. and remembering their names. Part of the pilgrimage was walking through fields and forests where the Canadian soldiers had been. They were really in the path of the Canadian army at the time. The participants were all divided into platoons, and the platoons were according to the division that their fathers had served. And the platoons were according to the division that their fathers had served.

This part of Holland that we were in is full of enormous fields that are completely exposed with forests around the perimeter. And so as we walked through these fields and knowing that in the forests there had been German snipers and soldiers firing at them, it really brought home the sense that they must have been so vulnerable and feeling so much fear trying to get across these places. Something similar I felt when we were in some of the towns. In the windows there were snipers. There were people firing at them as they were going from street to street and from house to house to liberate these towns. We walked through the villages that they'd liberated.

We walked through countryside, along rivers, and just in beautiful Dutch environment. And you try to imagine as you were walking what it must have looked like at the time. I mean, right now it's beautiful, but what did it look like then? It was muddy and cold and dangerous and noisy and far from home, not on a holiday, but after several years at war. As we entered the Dutch villages in the Netherlands, we were met with just an incredibly warm welcome. We would walk along the main street, followed by a pipe and drum band, marching in step with them.

And as we would reach the village, the people were lined along the streets, the families were in the doorways, cheering and clapping and we would be waving our Canadian flags and in one village in Etten, as we entered we were greeted by a choir. Every year the residents of Etten commemorate the Canadian soldiers who died for our freedom. We will never forget. We're now going to listen to the Etten's Man Choir. They sing for you, O Canada, and home and native land,

In the fight, we stand, in the fight, Gelidon, race in arms, Gelidon, race in arms, Race in arms. Raise it up! Then as we continued along, in the same village, we were met by another choir. I will pledge with mine For leave a kiss within the cup And I'll no last for thine And we continued along and we were met by another choir. When the saints go marching and marching in, when the saints go marching in. It was just an overwhelming, beautiful welcome.

And the smaller the village, the grander the welcome. And the smaller the village, the grander the welcome. There were several that welcomed us like this. Etten and Almond and Duticum. Those villages knew these Canadian soldiers. They know them by name. Arsenault, Welly. Atkinson, Hubert, Fenton, Booth.

There was one time when we were walking, it was at night. Torch walk and candlelight vigil in Almond. It was dark and we were carrying 40 lit torches following behind the pipe and drum bands. We walked about two kilometers to Almond, where there is a Canadian monument to 40 Canadian soldiers who were temporarily buried there. So as we arrive, we are met by the community of Almond, who are already sitting there in chairs with a full band behind them. The band played O Canada, and then they played the Dutch anthem, and they read the 40 names of those soldiers.

Bailey Robert Edwards. Bélanger Jean-Paul. Benz John. Bernier Armand. Bouch, John. Bernier, Armand. Bouchard, Stanley. Royal, James, William. Cavanaugh, Peter, Alistair. Patterson, Colello, Frank.

Alcourt, Alfred. Wilson, Reginald. You're listening to Ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This

is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you got to know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto wherever you get your podcasts. In September 2022, nearly 100 Canadians,

all of them descendants of World War II veterans, travelled to Holland for a walk of remembrance. They were there to honor their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles who'd fought to liberate the country from the Nazis. In addition to honoring people's memories,

which I think is important, we also can learn things from that. I think as a society, it's good for us to remember people who sacrificed for society, for people to learn from what they did. Harry Bochner could have stayed back in Canada and continued having a good life. And instead, something motivated him to go and endanger his life and give up his comforts

for the greater good of society. My dear family, old man winter reared its ugly head. Cold, rain, snow and mud has made life more than somewhat miserable. They were cold and they were wet and they were being shelled. The Germans were not giving up easily. Things were active here last night when Jerry, meaning the Germans, sent a lot of stuff our way. In the stubborn mountains south of Rome, stubborn Germans hung on the whole winter through. By the time the mountain stronghold of Cassino was reduced in the spring of 1944, it was a shattered ruin. February 1944,

the Battle of Monte Cassino was a particularly horrific battle. And those were some of Harry's grimest letters. They were raw. He could barely bring himself to write. My dear family, I didn't write yesterday. I just couldn't. The weather was so gosh awful. The morning started off with rain, but then turned into a terrific snowstorm. Naturally, we still carried out our duties on the gun. The guns are roaring out their angry screech, and the darkness itself... You could see his handwriting was different.

They were losing a lot of men. They were under constant attack. Freezing in the Italian winter. It was so cold. They didn't have proper shelter. They didn't have food, enough food. And they would commandeer places. Today we might look down on it, but they would find a house in a village and they would take it over and he would scrounge around to get food. And it might be tin food and it might be some chickens or whatever they could find and some vegetables, and he would cook for the men. He certainly saw himself as

responsible for them and as somebody who had to take care of them because they couldn't necessarily take care of themselves and the army wasn't taking care of them. As Harry got towards the end of his service and his life in April 1945, you could almost feel him exhaling and experiencing some sort of relief that maybe this horrific ordeal was about to be over, and an understanding and feeling that the war was soon to end. I shall be very happy to see it all done within six months from now. Visual factors are the basis. Just his general feeling about, oh my gosh, this is finally going to be over, and I'm finally going to get to go home and be with my family. He writes at the end of the war, and we can only surmise what letter he had gotten from my grandmother. He writes,

it was touching to hear that you got my room ready for my return. I'm not sure I'm coming home so soon. Between Deventer and Zutphen, Canadians massed across the Isle River. Initial bridgeheads are established by waterborne troops. Under intense shelling, the engineers construct a pontoon bridge for the light traffic. Soon vehicles of all kinds augment the force of the attack. One of the last operations was called Operation Cannon Shot and involved crossing the IJssel River in Holland. Further south on the IJssel River, troops of a British div launch their thrust to take the never-to-be-forgotten town of Arnhem. Canadian guns fire in support.

8,000 rounds of ammunition from Canadian guns clear the way for British infantry to take Arnhem. ammunition from Canadian guns clear the way for British infantry to take Arnhem. Canadian engineers were tasked with building a pontoon bridge in order to transport the soldiers across the river. Harry and his group were some of the first people that were supposed to cross on that pontoon bridge. And one guy jumped on his motorcycle when he was given his order and started crossing the bridge. And as soon as he started crossing the bridge, the Germans started shelling. He said that Harry ran onto the bridge, rescued him. They ran back and took cover behind a barn. And they were sitting there thinking, boy, we just dodged a bullet.

a barn. And they were sitting there thinking, boy, we just dodged a bullet. About an hour or so later, they received a second order to try and cross the bridge. And the exact same thing happened. The guy jumped on his motorcycle, started crossing the bridge, came under fire, and had to retreat. This time, though, the motorcycle rider parked his motorcycle in front of the barn. And he said to me, that was a mistake that I regretted. Because what that did was it gave the Germans a target. And so they started shelling this barn. And as these guys were sitting in a barn, Harry and these two others that were on either side of him, a shell came bursting through the roof and literally took

half of Harry's head off. And the two guys on either side of him, the two letter writers, didn't have a scratch. Operation Cannon Shot took place over here. My father was eight years when it happened. As part of the pilgrimage, we went to a spot in a small little village called Horsall, where Operation Cannon Shot was launched. And the closest spot to the actual crossing of the Isle River was exactly the place where Harry was killed. We visited the farm, and the family that lives there lived there at the time. the farm and the family that lives there lived there at the time. And here was this family standing on their front lawn, welcoming the entire group onto their property to commemorate not only the Operation Cannon Shot, but also to commemorate the spot where Harry was killed. May I introduce you to the family Walters. And we met the grandfather who was a boy

at the time. This elderly gentleman who was only eight years old at the time clearly remembered that during the confusion and bombing that was going on as these Canadian engineers were trying to build this temporary bridge and these Canadian soldiers were getting blasted off the bridge, this man who was now in his late 80s remembered as a young boy running for cover into the basement of the shed next door as this bombardment was taking place, and coming out several hours later, just as they were pulling Harry's body out of the barn. He described being there and watching them come with the jeep to take Harry's body away. I'm sure your dad's told you about what happened that day. Can you tell me?

Around three or four in the afternoon, the crossing started. The Canadians tried to cross the river. They didn't succeed and came back to the east side of the river. And there, Harry Brockner took in a shed and was unfortunately killed. And he was recovered and put onto a brown car very fast after he was killed. My father was in the farmhouse, in a shelter, in a cellar. And during the bombing, he and his family walked from this place

to a shelter nearby and he saw Harry being transported on the brand car. He was there as they put him into his blanket and were just loading him onto the truck to be taken away to this temporary burial site. I was very shocked. But he has seen the movement of the body of Harry. Not only was that a strange confluence of events,

but that was also exactly the same time that Karen's father, Gil Hunter, showed up on the scene 77 years ago to say goodbye to his friend. One day when we were set up in Holland, the news of Harry's death came over the radio. I received word of his death over our radio. I was at battery headquarters and immediately took transportation to Harry's gun position. Over the radio, my dad received the message that Harry Bachner had been killed. that Harry Bochner had been killed. And so he immediately got in a Jeep and went to the location.

And when he arrived, they were sewing Harry up in his blanket. And my father helped to lift the body into the vehicle that took Harry to where he was going to be buried. I arrived just as they were finishing sewing him up in his blanket. I arrived at his gun position just as the men had completed sewing him up in one of his blankets. I was able to assist them. I was able to assist in placing him in the back of a 15 CWT vehicle, which took him to the place of burial. I think that in many ways, when Harry died at that location,

a piece of my father died with him, a piece of his youth. This is a letter from Captain W.A. Drennan, dated April 12 12, 1945. Dear Mother Bachner, I'm Bill Drennan, one of Harry's many friends. As Harry's friend since we embarked for North Africa and through Italy, France, and Holland as his troop commander, I must proceed with the most painful of tasks. Harry was instantly killed at his gun during an intense bombardment yesterday. We, his detachment, and a regiment of friends extend heartfelt condolences to you and yours back home.

It's an irreplaceable loss, but be brave, Mother, just as he was. Be proud of a good son, Mother, and a good Canadian. You know we would give up all rather than cause extra grief or pain to you mothers. So like Harry we would say, don't worry, mother. He was buried today amidst heroes, the resting place of his comrades-in-arms in a small but beautiful corner of Holland. Rabbi Rose officiated while a multitude of friends paid homage to a good soldier and a dear friend. You will be proud to know he fought and died for you and all you stand for. Keep up the good fight, hold high the torch. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though the poppies blow.

These quotations from McCrae's In Flanders Fields are a fitting epitaph, a challenge, an inspiration to us remaining. We shall not fail him. The battle moves on and eventually dies, but the memory lives on. If there is anything we can do to help, please allow me the honor. We join you in pride and sorrow, your sincere friend, W.A. Drennan. W.A. Drennan. The last letter Harry wrote, I believe, was April 9th, and he was killed on the 11th. Monday, April 9th, 1945, 6.30 p.m. My dear family, I discussed the topic of home leave with my captain this afternoon.

And just like I thought, he didn't consider my chances to be very good at all. Therefore, I decided to drop the entire project. But if ever the possibility presents itself, I shall leave no stone unturned. And so I close with my usual quote of love and good wishes to you all. As ever in the best, I remain yours devoted, Harry. That was the last letter from Harry,

written two days before he was killed. I feel that Harry Bachner deserves to be remembered. He volunteered to fight because, obviously, he felt that that was the right thing to do at a time when he could have gone on living quite comfortably in his life. And he went through real hell. And then he was killed. And I believe he deserves to be remembered as somebody who did all that and not just sort of disappear into history. And I think he also deserves to have family who remember him. He was 34 years old when he was killed and he hadn't been married and he doesn't have any descendants

and I think he would be probably surprised and tickled pink to know that Molly's grandsons are crossing the world from two directions to be there to remember him and that he's become a part of our lives. We're going to take a detour into the field where Harry was originally buried along with other soldiers. There was this field where Canadian soldiers had been buried.

And the organizers of this trek had set up crosses and for our uncle, our great uncle, a Jewish star, out of wood with pictures of the soldiers who had been buried there. In preparing for this trip, I've had many thoughts about what it means, and found myself here not only to commemorate his memory, his tragic death, but also to commemorate the lives of the thousands of Canadian soldiers

who left the comforts and safety of their wonderful country and spent years in the cold, the wet, the mud, the loneliness, the unending noise and the fear over here in Europe in order to keep the world safe and prevent the Nazi conquest. Harry's temporary burial site is a large field where between 11 and 14 soldiers had been buried. And it's just out in the country, like there's nothing there except for this field and a highway and the house next to the field. There's nothing there that has the sanctity

or the holiness that one feels in a cemetery. It isn't with gravestones. It isn't with paths and flowers. It was clear that they, in a rush, just had to find a place to put these bodies. The soldiers had to get the bodies in the ground and get back to the battle, which was in the middle of happening. Since there's nothing to mark that field as a cemetery, nobody would ever know that Canadian soldiers who were killed liberating Holland had been buried there. But one thing that was incredible about that ceremony was that there was a little girl and she would leave flowers on the graves of the Canadian soldiers who were buried there. And that woman is now in her 90s and was at the ceremony.

She was in a wheelchair, and the organizers had gotten together bouquets of flowers, and she gave them to her grandchildren, who laid them on the spots where the men had been buried. My name is Antje van Geitenbeek. I was born on December 21st, 1931. I lived near the graves of the boys. I was 14 years old at the time. On Saturdays, my friends and I used to tidy the gravesite and lay flowers. I was a child at the time.

It was hard to understand that these young men fought and died for my, for our freedom. And now they were lying in a field. I felt an urge to keep the grave sites clean and through this act to show gratitude for the sacrifices the soldiers made. We could not lie down. That was not like this. So... We also visited the Canadian Military Cemetery at Holton, which is enormous. There are close to 1,400 graves there. And that's where our great-uncle Harry is buried.

And it was a very beautiful place, and we had a very moving ceremony there. And it felt very right and important that we were visiting his grave. And the organizers had asked that I say a prayer at this ceremony. Merciful God who dwells above, provide a sure rest on the wings of the divine presence amongst the holy and pure and heroic who shine as brightly as the sky to the souls of all the soldiers of the Canadian armed forces. And as I said the prayer,

I was holding Harry's prayer book, which had come home with his personal effects after the war. And so that was very moving to me to sort of beholding his prayer book and saying a prayer for him and for all the Canadian soldiers who were buried there. There was so much sacrifice during the war by so many people. And we need to be aware, just mindful of that sacrifice as often as we can, thinking about remembrance beyond Remembrance Day, and as well to attach emotions beyond sadness to remembrance. During the enemy's last hours of control in Northern Holland, a spirit of wild fiesta reigns in towns and villages freed by the Canadian drive. Driving ahead, our armor outflanks the town of Appledorn. Appledorn is the village that my father wrote about in his memoir.

This is the village that he had helped to liberate. It's the village that he had so many fond memories of. We walked along the grand entrance to the palace as this large contingent of Canadians with flags behind the pipe and drum band in step with their march. I couldn't believe when we did arrive at the palace, I'd been told to look up to my right, but I didn't know what to expect. And there was a huge banner with my father's picture on it. huge banner with my father's picture on it. Oh, it's just stunning, such an honor. I tried to imagine what my father would make of it.

He would be stunned. He just wouldn't understand why him. I think Appledorn was important to him perhaps because it was a joyful time. Behind are the grim years of famine and oppression. The bands play and the people welcome the dawn of a free new day. And so on the rare occasions he spoke to us about the war, Appledorn was always his first choice because he'd helped to liberate the village. The people were joyful. And that was a passage I particularly remembered in his memoir. This is the excerpt. There were so many cheering inhabitants, the people rushed over and mobbed us.

They climbed into the jeep, shaking our hands and giving us little notes thanking us for liberating them. I had more than one necklace of tulips placed over my head and countless small bouquets of flowers were showered upon me. The great excitement, the cheers and clapping of hands was unbelievable. The air was filled with joy. Hollanders hail the harbingers of freedom as town after town is emancipated. Proclamations are read and posted announcing the resumption of normal government. I remember asking my father how he felt at the time and he said that there really wasn't that same sense of joy. It was a sense of a job well done

and that they needed to just continue and complete what they were there to do. There's a sort of a letdown among our men, as always happens when something big is over. After all, here are six years of their lives that millions of men can now look back to, wash away from their existence. Among those millions, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are faced with a concrete perspective of their return to civilian life, to normal life. This is

why it's so hard to analyze their feelings or their reactions. One can say, however, that to most of them, V-Day will not come until such time they land in Canada again. Even the inmates of Belsen add a trembling note of thanks for liberation. In Belsen, there is other significant music. A British chaplain holds a Jewish service. A handful of Jews have strength to sing. The BBC man, some 35,000 corpses around him, describes the place on VE day. When we reached the camp, there were 35,000 corpses on the ground. In the first days of liberation, thousands more died.

We were burying them in mass graves. One I saw was not quite so large as a tennis court and 20 foot deep. It was half full. For the first two or three days the burials even on this scale could not catch up with the deaths. It was hard to tell between the living and the dead. People lay down and died before your eyes. A skeleton amidst the skeletons would suddenly begin to move and crawl away. I spent a lot of the week in the Netherlands thinking about memory and remembering people. What does it mean to suddenly come back after almost 80 years and talk about somebody or remember them. I've been thinking about how one can use memory to improve things and to give meaning to somebody's life and to their death. We have a prayer we say every year on the anniversary of a death. Every year on the

Hebrew anniversary of Harry's death, I recite that prayer for him. The name of the prayer is the mourner's Kaddish. On our last day of the pilgrimage, we visited a new museum in Appledorn, the Museum of Remembrance. And on the wall, there was a map of the Weimar Republic. And as Jonathan and I were standing there, what we noticed on this map, Lemberg, this small village or town that our family had escaped in 1900 and come to Canada.

And it occurred to me, you know, our ancestors left a life of poverty and repression and no future and came to Canada, this land of great opportunity, raised a family. And then Harry turned around 40 years later and went back to that very same continent to fight and to ultimately die in a faraway place that his

ancestors had escaped. And then, of course, even further to think that 77 years after that, here we are following in Harry's footsteps is sort of a crazy cycle and a circle that I guess we were able to complete. Amen. We don't give remembrance a great deal of thought, and yet there are so many that want to. Remembrance, a great deal of thought. And yet there are so many that want to. So for me, it strengthened the bond that we already had with the Dutch. The Dutch are known for remembrance. And as Canadians, not so much.

And as we walked through the villages carrying the Canadian Remembrance Torch, it was like making a statement that as Canadians, we too will remember. The documentary, A Walk of Remembrance, was produced by Aliza Siegel. Special thanks to Peter Vandermeer, Jane Fleetwood-Morrow, Antje von Heidebeek, Tjerd Malderenk, Anna Maria Esbosito, Yuvraj Sandhu,

and Sebastian Tattersall. Thanks also to Kate Zeman, Bob Rempel, and Melody Muayyadi of CBC Library and Archives. Lisa Ayuso is the web producer of Ideas. Technical production, Danielle Duval. The senior producer is Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly. And I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.