The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - May 5th Is A Day To Remember And Here's Why

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

Seventy five years on, and why the Dutch never forget.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the Bridge Daily for the beginning of yet another week, week eight, week eight of our special Daily Bridge broadcast. On COVID-19. That's our main focus, although we sort of move off that at times when those times warrant. And in a way, today is one of those days. And I'll explain that to you in a moment. I don't know whether you, I don't know what kind of weekend you had, but in, you know, central Canada, most of Ontario and Quebec, there was a fair amount of nice weather. It didn't get really warm, but it got sunny and people were out. And in some cases,

people kind of ignored the rules, those guidelines that we're all supposed to be following in terms of physical distancing. But for the most part, I thought from what I saw in a number of communities, that people were in fact following the guidelines. And while there were a lot of people outside, not surprisingly, right? It's that time of year where we're kind of out of hibernation. Give me the sun. Give me some warmth.

Let me get out there. Everything else seems to be growing, the grass, flowers, the trees. Things are looking good. Let me get out there. That's what I normally do at this time of year. But those are the normal times. These are different.

However, I was wondering whether you saw the pictures from Ottawa. Because, you know, it's early May, and things are still kind of coming up out of the ground. But they're getting ready for those incredible tulip beds in Ottawa. They're out in front of the Parliament buildings. They're all along different parts of the Rideau Canal, and especially around Dow's Lake. Tulips. Tulips. Thousands of tulips.

Tens of thousands of tulips in different parts of the nation's capital. Now, you know where they come from, right? Or at least most of them, you know where they come from. They don't come from some florist in Ottawa, some garden center in Ottawa. They come from the Netherlands. And you know why that is. You should know why that is. The Netherlands never forgets Canada and Canada's role in the liberation of their country in 1945 at the end of a horrible, brutal war where the Netherlands was under occupation by Nazi forces who were brutal. They were brutal in their takeover of the Netherlands, and they were brutal during their occupation. And in 1945, the winter of 44-45,

as things started to go rapidly downhill for the Nazis, they treated those under occupation even worse than they already had. They basically starved them. Many people in the Netherlands were starving to the point where some ate tulip bulbs, literally ate tulip bulbs. Well, the Dutch have a special place in their heart for Canada for two reasons. One, the Dutch royal family,

when they fled the Netherlands, when the Nazis were moving in, where did they flee to? They came to Canada. They lived in Ottawa for the duration of the war. That's one reason. As a thank you

for harboring the royal family. And second reason, because Canadian troops helped liberate their country, played a major role in the liberation, especially of the north and west of the Netherlands. And the Dutch have never forgotten that, never forgotten that. I mean, we lost 7,000 young men in the Netherlands. And the Dutch have never forgotten that. Never forgotten that.

I mean, we lost 7,000 young men in the Netherlands in that winter and spring of 1945. Young Canadian boys who died liberating the Dutch. Many had worked their way up from they'd landed on D-Day or in the days following, and then along the Normandy coast in France, moved through France, liberated France, moved through Belgium, liberated Belgium, and then into the Netherlands.

With so many of them making the supreme sacrifice they're still there they're in the ground in cemeteries in the netherlands beautiful cemeteries that are looked after by the commonwealth war graves commission but more than that, Dutch schoolchildren go there a couple of times a year, place flowers on the graves of Canadian soldiers. They never forget the bravery and the sacrifice that those young men made. Well, on specific years, there are, you know,

celebrations just doesn't seem like the right word for it, but in fact, that's what they turn into. The days are marked. The anniversaries are marked, still to this day. And they were to be starting tomorrow in the Netherlands, in places like Appeldoorn. There would have been a march. Now, there's not a lot of those guys left, but there are some,

and they were willing to go one more time to mark the anniversary. This is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. 25 years ago, I was there in the city of Appledorn. There were a half a million people in the street. There to wave and cheer and thank Canadian troops. These guys were back again, which was that year 50 years down the road. And there were at least 1,000. At least 1,000 of them.

And they marched down the main street, the main avenues in Appledorn, and there were all these tens of thousands of people cheering. It was remarkable. And then I was back for the 55th and the 60th and the 70th just five years ago, and I hoped to be back for this year's 75th, but COVID-19, as it has to so many things, got in the way. And so this year's anniversary has been postponed. They're hoping that maybe next year they'll still be able to do it. How many of those guys will be left? Don't know. At the 70th, there were about 100.

These guys are all in their 90s, some more than the 90s. And yet, they too don't forget the Dutch, just like the Dutch don't forget them. I remember being in the bar of a hotel in Appledorn with four or five of these old guys telling old war stories. But it always came back to what they felt about the Dutch and how they couldn't believe that the Dutch had never forgotten and that the Dutch still taught their kids about Canadians.

It reminded me of this story from that 50th anniversary when one of our reporters, because we were broadcasting this live, one of our reporters went up to this woman who was at the side of the road holding her child. A little guy who was maybe, I don't know, four or five years old, holding him in her arms,

watching these guys march by, and they were waving, and the little guy was waving. And one of our reporters asked this woman, why are you here? Why would you bring your son here to see this? And she just looked straight at the reporter and at the camera and said, I'm here because I want my son to know what a Canadian is. You know?

I've been in this business a long time, and I'm not sure I've got the answer to what a Canadian is. All the different constitutional this, that out in the others, we always kind of came around to that. You know, we do research surveys and polls and town halls and eminent persons groups and we'd say, what's a Canadian? And we'd come up with these great answers like, well, you know, a Canadian's not an American. Well, you know, it's more.

To that woman in Appledorn, given her experience and what her parents had told her and what she was telling her son, that he would never forget, it was pretty clear what a Canadian was. A Canadian was one of these young guys who'd come to their country and sacrifice, willing to sacrifice everything to help them.

That's what a Canadian was to her. And so generation after generation, the story gets handed down and they still come out. You know, on the 70th anniversary, there was at least 150,000 people in the street, and it had been raining. But they came out to be there when these guys, kind of around 90 of them, I think,

when they came down that street one more time, they were all in, you know, vehicles now. They used to march. Now they're in vehicles. And there were 150,000 people there cheering them, thanking them never forgetting them, people of all ages these weren't like old people like them this is a total cross section right down to the youngest, all who'd been taught

never forget what Canada did, never forget what those Canadians did. And they didn't. You know, I remember being in a town called Vongeningen. I think that's the way you pronounce it. It's not far from Appledorn. But it's the town where Canadian officers took the surrender from the Germans

on May 5th, 1945. And in that town, Wangeningen, in that town, Vongeningen, in this hotel, is where the surrender took place. And the same table exists in one of these rooms that had been the table they did the surrender at. And you can see it. There are pictures of the surrender. You can see them online. And one of the Canadian officers, not the lead officer at the time, but one of the Canadian

officers was a fellow by the name of George Kitching. He'd become a lieutenant general eventually. He was at that table. And that year that I met General Kitching was 1995 on the 50th anniversary. And he was the parade marshal, the honorary parade marshal for the parade through Appledorn and through Wangeningen. And I went with him to that room, and we sat down at that table where he'd sat 50 years before to the day. I looked at him and I said,

General, what does it feel like to be back in this room? He looked at me and he said, Peter, I still see them sitting here. I see the ghosts of those German officers sitting here in this room where they signed the surrender. General Kitching was an amazing man. Lived in Victoria until he passed away. In the early 2000s, I believe.

But I'll never forget sitting there with him recounting that moment in May of 1945 when, for that part of the world, the war ended with that signature on that document, in that room at that table with him sitting across from it. I also remember on one of these anniversaries, meeting the mayor of Appledorn, and saying to him, you know, these anniversaries that your community organizes

to remember the Canadians are really special, and it's so touching as a Canadian to be here at this time of year on the anniversary, but actually at any time of year, because any of you have been to the Netherlands, been to Holland, been to Amsterdam, been wherever, and tell people you're Canadian, man, they'll do anything for you. So I say to the mayor, it's really quite something being here.

What does it mean to you to be doing this on all these anniversary dates? And he looked at me and he said, you know, if there's one thing that you don't understand, and only we can understand, is you have to have been occupied to understand what freedom really means. You have to have been occupied to understand and appreciate what freedom really means. And I've never forgotten that. Wherever I've been in the world and wherever I've seen difficulties, seen situations where it's clear that freedom didn't exist or freedom had been won.

I remember what that mayor of Appledorn said, because he's right. For us, it's sometimes hard for us to realize what that really means. Well, I think in some ways this experience is teaching us on a different level what freedom really means. Because right now we don't have it in the way we always thought we had it. And we're having to fight to win it back. We have to believe we can win it back. And we have to believe that together we can win it back. And so whether it was that little boy with his mother on the parade route

or whether it was those people who were clapping and cheering, the Canadians, as they went through the streets, or whether it was the mayor of Appledorn, or whether it was those old guys who were young guys when all this happened 75 years ago this week. Young guys from across Canada. Young guys who had got on ships, sailed out of Halifax to come to Europe, and probably couldn't even find Netherlands on a map.

But there they made a difference to so many people who've never forgotten all these years later. Never forgotten. And we shouldn't forget those more than 7,000 who never came home, who lie in cemeteries in different parts of the Netherlands, as well as Belgium and France and Germany, the Canadians who sacrificed everything.

And in the Netherlands, a couple of times a year, schoolchildren go there to lay those flowers on their graves. Learn the stories of individual Canadians who were buried there. They know them. They know about them. They know where they came from. They know who they were. And they don't forget.

So I ask you tomorrow on May 5th to remember them, to remember those stories. If you have time, I'm going to do a special program on the, you can get the details through True Patriot Love on their website, but I'll do a special program with General Rick Hillier, the former chief of the defense staff,

and a couple of very special veterans, as we'll salute not only those who liberated the Netherlands, but all those involved in what we're coming up to as well, as we'll salute not only those who liberated the Netherlands, but all those involved in what we're coming up to as well, the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, which is May 8th, just a little later on down the week. We'll remember both. So we'll have a special, you know, program by Zoom. Couldn't go overseas this year.

But I'll tell you, those people are remarkable in the Netherlands and in Appledorn and in the other communities who also mark this day and Canada's role in this day. So keep those in mind. Keep the lessons of that time in mind and show the same kind of resolve as so many of you are doing. As we continue to march forward to beat this, we'll win this war.

We win wars, and this one we will win. All right. Tomorrow's, because I'm going to be pretty busy throughout tomorrow, the Tuesday podcast will still exist. It'll be there. But it'll be a different kind of podcast, too. Because it's going to be about leadership. Not this kind of leadership that we've talked about today.

Different kind. And the lessons we can learn from it. So I hope you can join me tomorrow. So for now, thanks for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge Daily. We'll be back in seven days. We won't be back in seven days.

We'll be back. This will not be the first time this week I do that. We'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.