When a local writer started interviewing Dutch immigrants who lived through the Second World War, she had no idea the result would be such a success.
Marika d’Ailly, a member of Black Diamond’s Monday Morning Writers Group, was published for the first time and a book launch was held at the Sheep River Library in Turner Valley on Oct. 19 to celebrate.
“Hope in the Colour of Orange: Dutch Civilian Memories of War and Liberation” is a collection of stories of people who lived in occupied Holland during the Second World War, and eventually immigrated to the foothills.
“When we started, we didn’t really know that this was going to balloon to this,” d’Ailly said of the project. “We came to the realization that all of Canada is crawling with Dutch people, offspring... and these are the people that are after their parents to write these stories.”
A Dutch immigrant whose own account of Canadian troops liberating her country is in the book, d’Ailly said she started interviewing local people with connections to Holland she found through word of mouth. Before long, the project grew and her first book was completed in about a year.
“The only emotional part was about a month ago when we got the proof and I saw the whole thing together and I read it from cover to cover. Then all of the sudden I started to realize the impact of the whole thing,” she said.
D’Ailly said she wanted the war stories to come from those who lived it, not from their children. She said it is important to preserve these peoples’ stories as they are aging. Their children want the stories to remember, but the parents often won’t write them down, perhaps because they can’t write, she said.
“There is a common thread that runs between people who share an experience and so I think a lot of these people may not be telling these stories to their kids, but they are much more comfortable to tell the stories and share the stories with each other,” said writing club member Evonne Smulders.
Smulders’ mother-in-law shared her story of living in the occupied Netherlands with d’Ailly for the book – a story her own family had never heard.
“They never really talked a lot about the war,” Smulders said of her in-laws. “But all of a sudden with a project like this, it’s like it opened the floodgate of memories, and then all of the sudden all these stories started coming.”
Her father-in-law was part of the Dutch underground during the war, while her mother-in-law, Nel Smulders, was a teenager. Her story in the book, “Amersfoort”, tells of how her family hid a Jewish man in their home. They depended on food coupons to feed the family, and received one portion per resident, which they shared with the Jewish man. Eventually, the children were sent to their grandfather’s farm so a food coupon could be used for the Jewish man. Nel was 12 years old at the time, and remembers riding a bike with wooden wheels, as there was no rubber available during wartime.
The book’s editor and writing club member Sheelagh Matthews said it can be tough for people to share difficult memories, but they were grateful people did because their stories tell a legacy and are important to preserve.
“We always think about ourselves in terms of the present and the future, but actually it’s a continuum,” she said. “We have a past as well, and sometimes our past is associated with our parents’ past and our grandparents’ past and all of their pasts, their experiences, will affect how the children are raised.”
Matthews said when she went to edit the finer points of the stories, it was difficult because of their nature.
“Some of them were just so alarming and just so beautiful in how people coped with such immense hardship or dangerous situations or how they hid people to save them. It was extraordinary.”
Story contributor Cornelus “Kees” de Leeuw said he was pleased to be part of the book.
He fought with the underground movement in Holland, and wasn’t aware at the time, but his future father-in-law was the head of resistance for Western Holland, he said. After years of service with the Dutch military, he came to Canada with his wife in 1951 and became an officer with the Canadian army.
Years later, he said Canadian Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney told him the Canadian government planned to honour him and he asked why.
“We found out that you have been working for Canada ever since you came here,” he said Kenney told him. “I said, ‘Well, Canadians were willing to die for us, to liberate us, should I not do something for this country?’ And he said, ‘Well I wish to hell all immigrants would think that way.’”
“Hope in the Colour of Orange” is the first published project for the Monday Morning Writer’s Group and Matthews said it was an opportunity for the women to work together and learn from the experience.
“We all worked together and made this somehow click and we got it to work,” she said.
The six-member club has been meeting every Monday since 2005 at a coffee shop in Black Diamond to offer support and share their work.
“It’s like religion. It’s like going to church every Monday morning from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.,” Matthews laughed. “And you have to be there, and that’s part of the commitment to the group.”
For more information on the group or to purchase “Hope in the Colour of Orange: Dutch Civilian Memories of War and Liberation” online, visit www.mondaymorningwritersgroup.com. The book will also be available at bookstores and independent retailers.
