Surrey North Delta Leader, May 29, 2015

Page 1

Friday May 29 2015

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70 YEARS OF GRATITUDE ▶ 85-YEAR-OLD SURREY MAN FREED BY CANADIAN SOLDIERS IN 1945 RECALLS THE OCCUPATION – AND LIBERATION – OF HIS HOME COUNTRY DURING WARTIME

Dewey DeVries, 85, greets some of the 100 Canadian veterans in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands on May 9 during celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the country’s liberation at the end of the Second World War. DeVries, a Fleetwood resident, travelled to the Netherlands with family members for the festivities, saying the annivesary is a ‘very important occasion.’ MENNO HERSTEL

BOAZ JOSEPH

In the winter of 1944-45, the Dutch were starving. Like many of their Amsterdam neighbours, the DeVries, living in a narrow townhouse at 84 Zaanstraat, were down to eating tulip bulbs, beet roots and potato peels. The buoyancy immediately following D-Day the previous spring had long evapo-

rated as the Germans hunkered down for a fifth year of occupation. The Second World War wasn’t over yet for the Netherlands. Not only had the Allies’ offensive in the south of the country stalled after the battle of Arnhem, the population was experiencing the coldest winter in memory. Supplies had run out, and the DeVries

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family, in desperation, gambled on a life-saving quest for food by 15-year-old Dewey and his worn-out bicycle. Dewey – “Douwe” in Dutch, like his father – was born in Amsterdam in 1929. He had two brothers and two sisters and grew up in the middle-class neighbourhood of Spaarndammerbuurt. The war broke out when he was 10. “Not too many people remember the

beginning of the war and end of the war,” says the 84-year-old from his Fleetwood home. After a five-day battle in May 1940 – including an aerial bombing of Holland’s second city, Rotterdam – the Dutch surrendered. continued on page 3

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