The Aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands
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- čas přidán 29. 05. 2020
- The last days of WW2 in the Netherlands were violent and confusing. Then what? How was the aftermath of WWII in the Netherlands? This video I will talk about the shooting on Dam Square, the Georgian Uprising on Texel by the Georgian Legion (Russenoorlog), the punishing of collaborators (for example members of the NSB party and the Dutch volunteers for the Eastern Front) which was done by members of the Domestic Forces (Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten). Then there were plans of Dutch annexations of German lands and Operation Black Tulip was planned. For Holland WWII had delived the country a lot of material damage. Cities were bombed, factories and railways destroyed and many houses were lost. After the Second World War in the Netherlands was over it was time to rebuild te country.
History Hustle presents: The Aftermath of World War II in the Netherlands.
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SOURCES
- Dat nooit meer: de nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederland (C.A.M. van der Heijden).
- Veldgrauw. Nederlanders in de Waffen-SS (Evertjan van Roekel).
- NOS Bevrijdingsjournaals.
IMAGES
Images from commons.wikimedia.org.
MUSIC
"Crossing the Chasm" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
"Constancy Part One" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
"Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
"For the Fallen" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
SOUNDS
Freesound.org.
Wanna join forces and do a collaboration? Send me an email at: historyhustle@gmail.com
GERMAN INVASION OF THE NETHERLANDS: czcams.com/video/_IIsY664tE4/video.html
GERMAN OCCUPATION OF THE NETHERLANDS: czcams.com/video/776LXzMw3eQ/video.html
THE LIBERATION OF THE NETHERLANDS: czcams.com/video/Kg5GEEMtCsI/video.html
Ik heb een vraagje, ik zie af en toe een KNIL bamboehoed in je kamer liggen, nou vraag ik me af: waar heb je die vandaan/gekocht?
@@pieter-jandeburger9725 Via een reenactmentvereniging. Weliswaar zeer beperkte oplage dus zijn niet meer te koop helaas.
My Grandparents came here between the wars. One set was from the Netherlands and Protestant. The other came from Australia and we’re Cathartic; and fought for the Kaiser. Of course everyone still had family in the old country so they had their own version of WW11. Us kids and cousins were like countries everyone wanted. However there was a lot of bias. If you were blond and tall you were better and if you said “Jew” the other grandparents would turn purple.
How are you enjoying the fruits of victory now ? But, at least, none of the cultural enrichment speaks German.
I believe my parents carried with them to the United States the emotional scars of the German occupation, as well as the cumulative Dutch experience following WW1, including the depression of the 1930s, unmechanized labor, lack of gender equality, inheritance practices, and Catholic vs Protestant politics that resulted in large family sizes. Lack of post-war economic opportunities created additional stress. Much of our extended family split up and left for places like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Our family in America was cut off from the mainstream Dutch culture, which seemed to move on, adopting the colorful optimism of Mondrian’s modernism. My parents wartime suffering as teenagers never had a proper environment in which to heal. In America, our family lived in a kind of time capsule, oriented toward the experience of the war. My parents shared many emotional stories. They were lifelong kleptomaniacs. My mother would be caught stealing small items at the grocery store. She was always reclusive. My father ran his own business, and always set the example that no outside authority could tell us how to live or what to do. When the police where on our driveway, as they often were, my father would always tell them to find something better to do. The whole situation was both high functional and highly dysfunctional. We grew up feeling a unique sense of lawlessness that I believe came directly from the war experience. Finally, at age 60, my eldest brother, who was born in the Netherlands and had a difficult transition as a young child, hung himself. I think my parents had no idea how to help him since he was a baby. He abused substances most of his life. While I do not claim to make an objective cause and effect case of what past events lead to future events, I can certainly say that the war and the German occupation played a highly significant role in our lives as former Dutch citizens. Sorry if that was too much to read.
Very tragic and very real deep trauma😔
Many thanks for sharing this story, Paul. May your eldest brother rest in peace. Again, thanks for sharing.
Paul Kaptein: thanks for sharing your story Paul, I found it very interesting. By sharing our thoughts and experiences, maybe we can learn from mistakes and make life better.
@Rachael Kaptein Hi Rachael, not really but I did grow up in Belfast during the 70s and 80s. I learned a valuable lesson, namely how to get on with other folks even if they come from a different religion/race/class/gender etc so that we can avoid future conflicts.
Quite a personal story. Thanks for sharing.
My wife's family spent WW2 in Japanese camps in the East Indies. She was born after the war, and heard some stories of privations and harsh treatment. The families were deported to The Netherlands by the Indonesians. Shortly after we were married in 1980, I was in a cafe' in her mother's village and unthinkingly answered a server's question in German. She stopped cold, looked me straight in the eye, pointed a finger at me and told me in perfect English, "Remember, we do not speak German here." Even 40 years after the end of WW2, many Dutch people had a visceral dislike of Germans.
Hearing a German accent made my great-opa freeze up with terror 40 years later. Nowadays we would call it a "panic attack".
Wow, I was raised that way by Dutch parents who went through the war. My dad fought in the underground (Haarlemermeer). I still have a reaction to Germans and have to consciously suppress those feelings of resentment.
About ten years ago, I was on a tour of Bastogne that was operated by some young Dutchmen. They'd grown up with stories of the occupation and starvation and refused to give their tours to German tourists.
I was in the British Army stationed in West Germany as it was.in late 1970s. Some of the blokes took a trip to the Netherlands and took in a football match. One of them was wearing a Bundeswehr shirt with the German flag on it, they wouldn't let him in until he cut the flags out of the shirt.
Im an American who at the age of 9 a Dutch family moved next door to our home in Pasadena California. The husband of this family was a scientist who became a visiting professor at Cal Tech where Albert Einstein taught for 2 years. The wife would tell my Mom how they ate Tulip bulbs to survive those harsh years of Nazi occupation. In 2009 I got orders to the Netherlands as an educator at AFNORTH in Brunssum. I bought a home in Landgraaf and my wife planted tulip bulbs. We went to Keukenhof and I told the stories to my wife of Nora and her family that lived next to us. Whenever I see a Tulip, I think of Nora and her husband and the brutal years they endured. We still have good friends in the Netherlands. One family helped me sell my home during Covid as traveling back to Europe with quarantines would have been difficult. As a reward, we flew them to Arizona and took them all over 6 states. When I traveled in Europe, I would ask Dutch people, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? They all answered, OF COURSE< IM DUTCH!!!
I was born in the Netherlands after the war. My father had been a German POW and my mother and older brother and sister almost starved to death. We all left for Canada as soon as possible. The war was central to what my family became but no one talked about it. It was only when I read my late mother's diaries did I realize the true horror. Joost
I like how he got super excited because the Netherlands finally got their own hill.
Can you imagine it? I'd go for governor of the Elten District and would make it the most thriving part of the Netherlands. Still wanna see that place.
Was it a hill or a mountain? all things being relative😉
@@mammuchan8923 So true.
The highest "mountain" of the Netherlands: czcams.com/video/rBZUQ_l3Q_o/video.html
We can make fun of the annexation plans, but fact is that for all the destruction that the Germans brought to Holland, no compensation was ever paid. Meanwhile, the East of Germany simply became Poland.
I'm an American baby boomer, from a mixed ethnic working/middle class district in the northeast.
When I was in school, during the 1960s, there was a fellow student named Ellen. Ellen's parents were "refugees" from Europe. They had been resettled in our district, because there was an organized Jewish community, which could provide them with support, social services.
Ellen's mother had had a European husband and child, who did not survive the war. She met Ellen's father in a DP camp. They came to America together. Ellen was born in our town.
At home alone, during the day, Ellen's mother was sometimes gripped with anxiety, which she could not manage. She knew that something terrible was happening to Ellen. She would rush to the school, demand to see her daughter.
The sympathy of the school officials did not last. Ellen's mom was barred from school property. She was disruptive. And so, a couple of times per month, students with window seats, could see Ellen's mother, standing across from the school, rocking back and forth and wringing her hands.
Many thanks for sharing this.
My next door neighbor here in Canada is of Dutch background. She came from a family of 12 children. Her father had fought in Indonesia during the war, and he developed a love for spicy food over there. In the early 1950s they immigrated to Canada from Friesland. The father worked as a tailor, and Mom stayed at home to manage the family. My neighbor and her siblings are all practicing Christians who belong to the Dutch Reformed church. They grew up poor in Canada, but there was always enough food, and they could go to school. She became a registered practical nurse. One of her brothers became a policeman, and so on. All the boys were taught to be tailors, but most chose other professions. They all know how to work hard hard, manage their money, save money, and they take care of each other. I have noticed that many of her nephews and nieces own their own businesses -- landscaping, carpentry, electrical contracting etc.
My grandparents were all teenagers during the second world war and, though they survived relatively unscathed, they all had their own traumas. My parents also carry that with them in a way. Some examples: My grandmother almost starved in Delft in the winter of 1944-1945, she now has diabetes and is overweight and she hoards food. Every cupboard of hers has cookies or chocolates or something else stashed inside. She is also very emotionally distant. On practical matters she chats all day, but she keeps how she feels about things hidden from everyone else. My grandfather had the same thing being emotionally distant and my father and his siblings still have trouble sorting out their feelings about things. They tend to bottle stuff up and then explode when it becomes too much. I think the whole mentality of "don't look back, look forward" encouraged people to not deal with their traumas at all...
Those were hard times. Physically they survived but mentally they did not. I'll pray for your family and truly think that they need therapy.
I grew up with my father being a vietnam vet, he had terrible issues from that and it effected me even to this day.
You can never recover
All so sad. It is hard to imagine fully.
I'm English but my godmother was Dutch . She was a nurse during the occupation forced to care for wounded German troops . She told me horror stories about being beaten by the gestapo , hunger and nearly freezing during the winter .
My aunt was Danish with similar stories - this generation suffered a lot .
Thanks for sharing, Andy. Sad stories.
@@HistoryHustle for us Brits north west Europeans are so similar we're family , we got bombed but you got sadly occupied. Spoke to an elderly Belgian lady and I commented on her excellent English. She looked me seriously in the eye and said she learnt it secretly during the war , knowing they'd get liberated and wanted to greet the allies in their own language . Made me think !
75 years of European peace , let's be thankful .
Couldn't agree more. Looking at some comments on this channel I am baffled by how ungreatful people can be.
I'm shocked she was beaten by the Gestapo cause they considered Dutch as equal- Aryan. But Germans were so evil back then that you just never know.
@@andynixon2820 What a wonderful goal to aim for. A kind of defiance that no doubt burned in her.
My father was born on December 7th 1942 in Hilversum. He married my mother and moved to England in 1966. As a child I would spend many holidays with my Oma who still lived in the same house my father was born in. As a tool maker for Phillips, my Opa was sent to Germany as forced labour but escaped the train on the way and spent the remainder of the war in hiding. A hollow cavity was made in one of the bedroom walls where he hid during the day, and only came out at night. He had 3 children (my father being the youngest, and only a baby). The eldest, my uncle Aad, knew about his father in the wall, but uncle Ton who was about 5 at the time didn’t, as it was feared that he might talk and give away his fathers hiding place. This was one of many stories I have about my families time during the way, including things such as when Uncle Ton was shot at by gestapo for collecting coal that was pushed from a moving German lorry which was passing his house. The bullet holes are still visible in the walls opposite. Fortunately he was not hurt. I want my son ( who is English ), to know and see these stories, but Covid-19 is stopping us from visiting Hilversum. Maybe one day.
PS, love the videos, you’re doing a great job.
Thanks for sharing this interesting information, Peter!
@@peteraalpol4653 I wanted my children to also understand the impact of the war, and especially as you cite, the way the Nazi's shipped young Dutch boys to work in their factories in Germany. So, here is a link to a video I made that discusses this aspect of the war. It has a lot of historical context up front, but the personal story is in the second part: czcams.com/video/XoeoSPAYCBE/video.html&t
As a Brit who's Dad was a Captain in the Royal Tank Regiment - those guys didn't talk about it, but rather gave off a grim menace. In my 30s I cycled from Amsterdam to Utrecht with all those cemeteries of "a bridge too far" by the wayside. Speaking no Dutch I asked some locals the way (they didn't speak much English either). The Old guy asked his wife "Deutch?" (about me) she said nee Engles - then they loved me lol.
Interesting to read, Richard. Respect for your father.
You won't find many cemeteries from Market Garden between Amsterdam and Utrecht.
The Dutch people were always admired
My parents spoke openly about the war while I grew up mostly as my mother would say “ That it would never be forgotten “
We didn’t realize how much they were effected by the war until my mother visited the Army 8th Air Force museum in Georgia ,USA. This is where the effect of PTSD presented itself . A old flyer helped my mother and spoke with her and said that they all to this day have those episodes. He was so kind to her and calmed her . She was suddenly flooded with memories she had buried away in the mind of a child that for that day came back as fresh as the days that it happened. So so very sad 😢
Thanks for sharing this.
I had a Polish father and an Italian mother. My father fought in 1939 near Warsaw, then lived during the German terror occupation to August 1944 when the Warsaw Uprising took place for 2 months. He was taken POW to April 1945 when freed by the Canadians near the Dutch border. He then served in the Polish army in western Europe. He was obsessed with his WW2 experiences and frequently had bad nightmares about them. He spoke about some of them but not all. My mother , Italian by birth and French by upbringing, was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1943 in Toulon, France. She spent 6 months in solitary prison, then 17 months in one of Dachau's sub camps in Austria near Salzburg. She would not speak about her WW2 experiences, just occasionally berating us children for leaving uneaten food on the plate, which food we would have to eat at the next meal. This was a result of her prison and concentration camps experience. Both my parents traumatic WW2 definitely impacted on us. 3 of our 4 grandpRents were killed by bombing in 1944, my paternal grandfather in Warsaw by the Germans and both maternal grandparents by US airforce bombing of Toulon. Watching what is currently happening in Ukraine is a very sad reminder of WW2.
Have you considered writing all of your recollections down to share with current and future generations of your family? I am afraid that the unimaginable suffering experienced by your family will be dismissed by those who follow us because they will not believe anything like this could have happened.
@@texasflood1295 that is material for ongoing family discussions. The younger generation is well aware of the family's history.
I was born in 1952 in Amsterdam. My parents didn't speak of their experiences, their high school years were under occupation. I felt cut out of their lives, and driven by their effotts to forget. I resented that immensely, and became very rebellious, ending up spending my high school years as a dropped out hippy. I was really lost. The only thing I had going for me was an insatiable quest for answers to the hung over fog of war. My parents sought to distance themselves from all of their roots, but I became interested to know spiritual reality-based life. To their chagrin, and my own amazement, I became a born again Christian. History and my future opened up tremendously for me from there.
Thanks for sharing this.
Maybe they remembered how God didn't seem to be interested when the Germans invaded.
I remember the 50's eggs and chickens were still a luxury and you were always reminded "we eat 10 times better than during the 'honger winter'". The picture of the cat of that time took the place of honour, he managed to steal an eye fillet (from the German naval barracks was the theory) of beef just in time for Christmas 1944. He was the only member of the family who was not skinny and helped out on numerous occasions.
Interesting, thanks for sharing Charles!
My father lived through WW1 and WW2 in Rotterdam, married in 1949. In 1953 our little family of 4 moved to Australia as he could not face the thought of the possibility of another war. He never spoke about it but then we children never asked. He would sit reading the paper about conflicts overseas, with the paper shaking in rage. Trillend van woude
of beveren...
Your explanation of 2nd generation psychological effects rings many bells, and explains much of my family history.
Bedankt voor de video...
Thanks for your reply.
My father served in the Royal Navy and as a young boy I talked with him as he had many photographs of his experiences.
They were allowed to buy official photos so he had ones from all theatres; Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, and Indian Ocean.
He lost many shipmates. My Uncles served as a Bomb Disposal Officer on the Home Front, at Dunkirk, India,and Burma. Sadly one was killed in the Normandy invasion. I found that others such as my Secondary school headmaster who was an Army Major would volunteer experiences from the Desert War and the occupation of Germany. We owe all of those and previous generations our freedoms which the Ukrainians are currently fighting to preserve. 👍🏻🏴
Thanks for sharing this.
My father was injured on the second landing on D day and he never spoke about the war to me and my siblings until his dying day.
Thanks for sharing this.
I love your work. Thank you so much. You’re the history teacher everyone should have! Anyway, my Father was 17 on VE Day, having barely survived. He was an only child but they hid 2-3 others in their home all through the war. Nazis occupied their home in Epe many times. I recently found some hand written letters from my Grandparents written to Canadian relatives just days after liberation. They tell of my grandmother being marched through the house with a pistol at her back while the house was searched. Indeed, my father was often hiding right under the kitchen floor - under the STONE floor because they knew that Nazis shot through the wooden floors. They also had made hiding spots in the walls. Also, the drunkenness of the soldiers was an opportunity for them to steal back a bit of their own fuel and food from the Germans, none of which they were not allowed to have. My grandfather writes that as soon as the writing was on the wall he decided to become a farmer in order to feed his family and it did work for the first two years but nothing could be done during the hunger winter and they like so many others very nearly starved to death. Another horror written about was the torture of a neighbour who was a Doctor. They ripped out all his finger and toe nails, smashed his hands and then for fun (as written) hung him until he was almost dead, then revived him to repeat. Just awful, I could not read these letters all at once, I had to read them in small bites. They all emigrated to Canada which is where I grew up. My father rarely talked about the war and his coping strategy for getting through it all was, and remained, to try to feel and show very little emotion. My father never hugged me until I was about 16, but only because I started hugging him and eventually he started returning and expecting hugs. He did tell me a few stories, one of which I will close with to leave you with on a happier note: near the beginning of the war, my grandfather anticipated what drunk soldiers were capable of, so he had a big hole built and had “his man” smash all the liquor bottles into this hole and buried it all. My father, a kid of 13, stole a magnum of champagne and some other bottle of booze from the supply. He ran into the woods and buried them. On VE Day, ( or more likely, a few days afterwards) his father mentioned that he wished they had something to celebrate the day. My father suddenly remembered the bottles he had “ rescued”, ran into the woods and returned triumphantly with the two bottles and was a hero!
Hello Kathy, many thanks for taking the time to write such a lengthy comment. I read it with great interest.
Very interseting read! Thanks for sharing. Your comment about hugging is interesting to me. I have always presumed my parents generation weren't huggers but never wonderd why that might be the case. If it's just a cultural thing or if it is caused by a greater past trauma I don't know. But it makes me reevalue how I would bring up my childeren in the future.
Atticblur hugging is so great. It will mean more to your children! I have four grown children and we are very very close.
Wow!!!! Interesting insight on what civilians has to endure under Nazi occupation, thanks for sharing that.
I agree , I wish he would my history too.
So my grandparents experienced ww2 firsthand. They're both still alive (98 and 96) and have told me little about their experience. My grandfather was in the Dutch resistance and did quite important things too. For example, he participated in the 'Tilburgse Zegeltjeskraak' (I would love to see an episode about this!!!). After the war, he was awarded a medal for his deeds but refused it. He always says that, he just did his job and anyone else would have done the same.
Naturally, my parents are both from the 2nd generation. My mom doesn't talk much about how things affected her but my dad does, sometimes (his dad is the resistance fighter).
Over the years I have noticed that me and my parents have a different mindset and that's because I have not experienced war personally or through my parents.
It is really difficult to say how you notice this. A big part of this is happening psychologically, which can't easily be explained. But for example 'scarcity' is always important theme: Everything has to be either saved , reused or stored. No food is thrown away and you have to be extremely careful with any items you own.
Thanks for sharing this Oliver. That example 'scarcity' I heard about often.
My grandparents also experienced the war first hand...now my Oma she is 90 and stills remembers everything of it vividly. They emigrated to Argentina in 1948 and have lived here ver since,and what you mention about the behaviour of them,or the silence in talking about the events that happened,me too i have the same experience..only the father of my mother that lived in Utrecht spoke little more of it,and the father of my father,who lived in Breukelen, joined the resitance movment too...my Oma was born in Den Helder, and i can only understand her silence as a psychologist, and i try to understand,accept and respect,the fact that even 75 years have passed since the end of the war,some pains perhaps will never heal,and perhaps then in the other life ,if you are a believer or not,perhaps they will find the inner peace,that was stolen and taken away by those tragics events. I do hope your granparents can have the comfort and refuge in their old age,from you and your family.
My greetings from Buenos Aires.
@@HistoryHustle true..my oma always mentions it,still at 90,she cooks for me almost daily because i live next to her,always plenty of food on the table...and nothing is left to be thrown away..
If your parents were born in the US they would be the first generation and you'd be the second generation.
@@dr.barrycohn5461 you're right, I meant 1st generation. But were not from the US though.
My father was 9 years old and held his father's hand as they witnessed together the 1940 German firebombing of Rotterdam. In the last winter of the 1944/45, the family members had very little food. My mother was luckier growing up on a farm in Drenthe. Her family hid 4 Dutch soldiers saving them from being sent to Germany to work in factories.
Hi . You make nice CZcams clips. I am a 64 year old man. Stories from my parents about the 2nd world war have aroused my interest about everything that happens from 1914 onwards in this century. Although my parents, compared to many other Europeans, have rolled through the 2nd World War reasonably well. I almost didn't sit here because my parents have been close to death a few times. My mother was in the middle of the bombing of Geleen (Limburg). Furthermore, a whole cordon of 20 millimeter 4-ling anti-aircraft guns was placed at my mother's parental home (Urmond in Limburg). The command center was in my mother's parental home. 20 millimeter FLAK was also a formidable flat track weapon with which the Germans, the allied infantrymen, could make it quite difficult. They probably once opened fire on an allied reconnaissance unit. However, the Germans have retreated otherwise my mother might have died under the term "colleteral damage". My father saw how the Germans opened fire on a P 38 lightning that flew overhead. The Germans fired when the plane was over so as not to betray their position with their tracer ammunition. The P38 turned to fire at the Flak position . However, before it could properly fire at the Flak position, it was hit and crashed behind my mother's parental home. So I'm here because my dad was lucky, he went to see where the P38 crashed and saw the pilot's intestines hanging in the branches of an orchard. It is striking that relatively few P38s have flown in European war events. Most flew in the war zone where the Japanese were fighting . This is because the P38 is in possession of 2 engines, which is a must when flying over large pieces of jungle, etc.
I'm American and my grandfather had dutch roots from his mom. He was only a teenager when the war was over, but I later found out that his cousin was a glider pilot during the war but never made it back home. He was deployed during Operation Market Garden to liberate Nijmegen just a few miles from Arnhem, where the family originally came from. Even though I didn't know him I still feel this urge to visit his grave someday.
I understand, thanks for sharing this.
My father's cousin was at Nijmegen too.
those gliders were absolutely decimated.
There is a book called Glider Infantryman. It is out of print, but used copies are available. The book covers Opheusden in Gelderland where my great-grandmother was born.
Me: *has homework to do*
History Hustle: *uploads video*
Me: *Clicks video furiously*
What can I say.
When I watch interviews with people of my country who survived the senond world war, sometimes it's darkest periods I'm often amazed that those people menage to get back to normal life and be so positive in their 80 or 90s. I bet that many of those kids who witnessed the war in the Neatherlands later became greater members of the Dutch society. I hope that our kids and grandchildren won't have to go through the same.
Can't believe what it must have been like for Polish people: being terrorised on a more severe scale and not only by the Germans, also by the Soviets...
It's not a good idea to play the game of "We suffered more than you during WW2." and this I learned from my parents' community of Polish war refugees in Toronto in Canada after WW2. My parents and most of their social circle were young teenagers in Poland who were deported to slave labor and my father became a soldier by age 16 and actually the war ended before his 18th birthday while my mother was finally liberated by US troops and spent three years in a "DP" camp and both were then admitted to Canada as "indentured laborers":- ie Canada's last "slave laborers"! My parents and their young friends used to discuss very freely their and other's war experiences but non-judgmentally until we children became old enough to start understanding resulting in horrible nightmares and sudden spells of nausea etc so they suddenly "clammed" up when we children were present but I certainly inherited their "PTSD" and it was like having your own personal cloud following you everywhere. Jewish children of Holocaust survivors had similar problems. I grew up surrounded by Polish war veterans of WW2 including the Polish First Corps who helped liberate the Netherlands and they are still fondly remembered there and apparently many of our soldiers settled there after WW2. My parents and their friends were very irreverent and very inclined to challenge arbitrary authority of any kind (my mother was especially feisty and spirited and could be very combative despite her small size) and also they had a very religious attitude about food and would "freak out" if we even thought about wasting food so you learned to eat up whatever was on your plate and to this day I also "freak out" about food waste. @@HistoryHustle
My dad was a small boy during the entire occupation, he 'claims' to have very little memory of it despite his parents being taken hostage on a couple of occasions. My mother was evacuated to Canada during the initial invation, she has never discussed the war with me or anyone else.
Thanks for sharing this.
I visited my Dutch friends in Voorst. It amazed me that signs of the war are everywhere. There was a field kitchen in their front yard, flak gun emplacements, an english bomber propeller placed as a monument to a plane that was shot down, and one or two neighbors who suffered during the war.
Thanks for your reply.
My Opa and Oma went to Canada because Canada (and Brazil) was offering land for them to farm. He stated that it was going to be years figuring it out (place to farm) in the Netherlands.
Years later when he would go back to the Netherlands, he would point to a house/place and say " a Collaborator lived there " .Decades later and he still didn't forget.
Thanks for sharing this.
I met a woman working in a hotel in Canada around 1990 she was not at all traumatised but complained she would have had an easier life had she stayed in Holland . I guess it was hard to visualise the Euro rebuild in 1948 and beyond at that time
Thanks for sharing this.
In 1943 my great-grandfather got drafted into the US Army as a flak gunner, he stormed Omaha Beach in 1944 then freed Paris and moved into the ardennes, he fought in cities near Cologne in germany. Something kinda funny is that me and my uncle found a book called "Returning to civilian life" in an old box from the war that my great-grandfather had.
Respect. Thanks for sharing. What were his experiences in returning to civilian life for him?
Freed Paris? have you seen it now?
Thank you for this episode. I comprehended a new term today: "2nd generation victims". In the case of my family we are victims of the smooth glove of silence, because a member of the family had been "verkeerd". My grandfather has the distinction of being the chosen persona, as per the directive of Mussert, to found a local chapter of the NSB in Indonesia in the 1930's.
He moved his family back to Holland in 1938, where the gravest act, that we now know him to have been guilty of, is of becoming the "Verwaltungstreuhänder" to replace the Jewish owner of a company. He died in 1944, before the war ended, and would most certainly have been among those who would have served time in prison, had he survived.
I was born 17 years after he died and so never had the occasion of knowing the man personally. Everything was kept as a family secret from the following generations. Some in my family are looking into this matter now. My own motivation comes from a need to heal though knowing the truth.
Thanks for your reply.
My Dutch godfather was Jewish and a survivor of the Holocaust. He was taken in and hidden by a Dutch family, as were other members of his family. He said that after the war ended he went back to his house in Apeldoorn and the family made small talk and behaved as if nothing had happened. This was despite the fact that they had lost 2 family members to the concentration camps. He pretty much didn't talk about it much, but the few times he did he never revealed any great hatred for Germans as one would've expected. He was by nature a very compassionate and large-hearted man. ps: I do remember asking him once about his feelings towards Germans. He said "You can't blame a whole people for what some people did". I was amazed by the largeness of his spirit. Certainly in his place I wouldn't have been so idealistic.
When I grew up in England in the 50s and 60s the really dark stuff from the war was not discussed, not just within the family but in the country generally. We had family friends who had been concentration camp victims. My parents tried so hard to keep the facts fom us that I thought being in a concentration camp was something to be ashamed of. It was not until the 1970s that the true horror of the holocaust began to be discussed openly in the country.
Very insightful to read. Thanks for sharing, Simon!
It doesn't surprise me that the British chose Brexit. The holocaust was not long ago at all. I think deep down inside the British are very wary of Europe.
My mother was 12 during the hunger winter in Amsterdam. Her 3 brothers scrounged on the streets and lived from hand out to hand out.
On the other side of the world, my father was 15 when he was freed from a Japanese prison camp for women and children in 1945 in Java.
I and my 3 siblings grew up in Canada. We all carry emotional scars handed down to us.
I can understand. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you! Your shirt, tie and vest make you look like a university professor! I very much appreciate your History Hustle series. My father was almost killed in the Battle of the Bulge on December 30, 1944, in the vicinity of Bavigne, Luxembourg, and spent over two months in a field hospital. He had been a firefighter before the war, but was unable to return to that after the war ended, due to his war wound. Most people didn't notice that he was left with one shoulder lower than the other, and could not perform certain movements, but I always noticed! He rarely spoke of his experiences, and only when he saw that it was not just idle curiosity on my part, did he say anything. He definitely suffered from what is called post traumatic stress disorder, and the war changed him forever! I salute your country, the Dutch nation, an example which proves that it is often not those who can inflict the most, but those who can endure the most who will survive in the end.
Thanks for sharing your story on this.
My father came to Canada in 1928, he was 4 years old with his parents. I asked my Grandma why they immigrated to Canada and she said " for freedom". My mother was 19 years old when she came to Canada in 1948. She lived south of Amsterdam in Vinkeveen, German soldiers and ss would just walk in, the regular soldier were described by mom as scared little boys, the ss she will not talk about, she saw things that when he talks about she shivers. The worst one is the ghosts walking through town after the war, concentration camp victims, no one knew till they saw. Her family was large and the landlord would bring kids from the city for a " country holiday" Mom is 93 now and I video record her stories of childhood and the war years with her family. The one year at fireworks she disappeared at the end, the last big ones sounded like the german bombs. I could ramble on lol
Thanks for sharing this.
My great grand parents were arrested twice in 1942/3 in Rotterdam by the Nazis, released both times but shortly after the second time my great grandfather 'disappeared' no one knew what happened to him....
I Remember My Dad Telling Me About His Experiences During The War In The '60's When I Was A Child. He Was In The 101 Airborne Division & Of Course, I Didn't Realize That It Was "Just" 20 Years Ago For Him. It Is Because Of That, I Have Watched Many Documentaries & Tried To Learn As Much As I Can About The Conflict, Especially Wartime London. Thank You.
Thanks for sharing this.
You shouldn't have sold that mountain, it might come in useful one day.
Nah, don't think so, but who knows!
I guess the Netherlands is not a good place for mountain climbing.
Maybe for Après Ski videos with Snollebollekes 🤪
Indeed, it would be nice to set Ajax flag at the top!!!
Obi-Wan: I have the high ground!
I am an American, but I grew up in Heerlen in the 1950's. I live in the US, but I go back often, and I really experience the change in the Dutch People. In the 1950's they were just glad to be alive. They had pride in their culture. It was slow, but the economy was burgeoning. The Netherlands was rising from the horrors of the War and coming into the Modern Era.They viewed Americans with great gratitude. Now, I find the atmosphere is totally different, and I find that the youth know little about WW2. Further, they express a certainty that Germany would never invade again... Moreover, there is an ennui... an indifference or apathy toward Americans that sometimes borders on hostility. I also find that hostility is turned inward toward themselves as a people. If you understand them and the language, it's amazing sometimes to hear the anger the Dutch express toward each other. It's more than Directness. There is something going on within the Dutch culture now that you never saw in the 1950's, and it's destroying their culture. What's more, I think they know it.
Thank you for taking the time to write down your thoughts.
I think that this is the anti-western doctrines from the Universities. Call it Postmodernism, anti-western. In the US it can be critical race theory. It’s neo Marxism. Self hatred by any means is the creed.
@thedancingdutchman2874 I agree with you. Hopefully, recent changes in leadership will help start to change things.
my father was in the US Army Air Force. My mother was English. She was conscripted into war work and was in London during the Blitz. Most of what I know comes from letters and photos I found after they had passed.
Thanks for sharing this.
Love this video and your channel. It is helping me gain further insights into my parents and the things that happened in their life. My father who has passed away years ago used to sometimes talk about the war in a exciting and adventurous way when I was younger (he was in his teens during the war) and then as time went on he would often call out the BS that is portrayed in Hollywood movies.He served compulsory military service after the war. My mother sometimes talked however has recently talked more about her experiences during the war, some are good, some are bad and some are very funny. She is in her 90's. I have uncles who were in the resistance during the war however when I hear stories about what and how they continued in the months after the war I sometimes wonder if they and others like them were more opportunists or just like many, trying to survive the best way they could. Everyone wants their family or family members to be heroes however sometimes the reality is slightly different.
My parents like so many Dutch people emigrated in the 50's. Then they had to endure a whole new set of struggles and challenges to build a new life.
I really appreciate your channel. It's great to get insight and I love how you keep it real and grounded. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for your message. Hope you will like the future content.
Thank you for an excellent explanation covering this period when I was born. So often today people think that the war ended and everything was wonderful. In truth it was a difficult journey to get back to a new normal. Wonderful job! Ben Van Dyk
Thank you Ben!
First time I see a video about this topic, thank you and blessings!
You're welcome, thanks for watching.
Well done! Your narration is still getting better. Language wise, but also your approach and topics. I also like your humour. Thanks!
Cheers, Max! I did some experimenting in this video. Worked out alright I guess. Thanks.
He got most of it right. But Germany agreed to split Poland with Russia, which they did without immediately continuing the fight against each other. Second, sanctions by ' World Jewry ' had been imposed on Germany in 1933, on top of the ludicrous Versailles declaration, Germany only wanted to break the sanctions and regain all territories stolen from them at Versailles. Third Kristallnacht was a very minor incident , more like a protest, which was immediately stopped by Hitler as soon as he heard news of it.
Thank you did this episode. I always enjoy and learn much from your lessons.
Great!
Just watched your video for the first time today and was moved by your description of the negative effects on the children of people who were in your country during the times described - my father was in the First Canadian Army and was involved - I still have his pictures of his time spent in your country. YES the negative effects were very strong for these folks who participated and did affect the children and families in Canada.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you for adding captions to your shows! I'm deaf so this definitely improves the experience for me.
I do my best! Older vids don't have it most of the time but I try to make sure the new ones have!
My grandfather was a dock manager in Calcutta and died in 1943, partly due to war-related stress (Calcutta was a major transit hub for military supplies to Burma and China, most of which went through the docks).
My grandmother, my mother, and her sister then travelled to Australia, coincidentally on a Dutch cargo ship. My mother and aunt were then brought up by relatives. Losing her dad (and later her mum) at such a young age definitely affected my mum and aunty, no doubt about it.
Being bombed in India by the Japanese and then chased around the Southern Ocean by their submarines didn't help either.
Thanks for sharing this.
Absolutely brilliant!! I love the detailed reports you provide us with, coupled with the sarcasm. ALL students should be taught this in school for obvious reasons.
Very nice to read. Many thanks for watching and taking the time to write a reply!
Hi. My uncle survived The Normandy Invasion. He was relocated in New Guinea. ( Just north of Australia.)He survived the New Guinea campaign. He never talked about the war. 😊😉👍❤️💜🙏
He must have seen a lot. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, another highly informative video. I will look forward to more content from this channel.
Thank you, Christian. Much interesting stuff will be uploaded this Summer!
I wish I had you as a history teacher, as you make your subject come alive and not bored out your head ,sitting there and trying not to nod off.
Thanks, Stephen. Glad you found the channel.
I grew up after in a house with World War II parents, my father fought in the war as well as many of my uncles, they never talked about the war. My parents didn't start talking about the war until the late 1980s and 1990's
Thank you for sharing, John.
Can I proudly acknowledge the contribution of the 360 Royal Australian Air Force crew laid to rest in the Netherlands.
Thanks for sharing.
Great presentations freind so knowledgeable and put across in a very clear way thanks .
Most of my uncles and aunties were moved to "save" Friesland but the men were used as workforce in Germany. We lived in Ijmuiden which had a huge German naval base and steelplant including a huge unfinished u-boat bunker and this area was bombarded by the alies continuously so my family was forcefully moved out of the unsafe coastal area of the Ijmond. I remember growing up playing in the 100's of bunkers surrounding our town, school and beaches. Many of them still remain there. Another nice note: many of these bunkers were transferred into temporary homes and later holiday chalets which you could rent at the beach, that was in the 50's and 60's. Now, 2020, they are full of graffiti and bats. `Part of the uboat bunker is now a factory i believe and many of the bunkers were blown up and dismantled to make room for housing after the war which was absolute fun to see as a child. ;)
Interesting, thanks for sharing Nico!
Being forcefully moved to a safe area is more moral than being left in an unsafe area.
Canada here , very interesting video , my gr father fought the battle of the Atlantic protecting the convoys against uboats
Thanks for replying!
My Opa was part of the Dutch resistance and he was present at the Dam square when the Germans started shooting the civilians and supported caring for those injured
Thank you to your Opa for his service in the resistance. I was born in Enschede shortly after the war and my family immigrated to Canada in 1957. 🇳🇱❤️🇨🇦
My great aunts and dad's cousins were part of the occupation in Gelderland. The great aunts' mother was in Iowa and did not know if her daughters were dead or alive when she died in 1940. Dad visited his cousins and they did not want to discuss the occupation and only said "they took everything".
Thanks for sharing.
Both my parents were English, but my mother psychologically suffered from the War. She said that the Blitz really terrified everybody.
I can imagine. Thanks for sharing.
Always great! Thank you.
👍👍👍
subbed. This channel, together with Mark Felton, Forgotten weapons and various other channels are my daily favourites on youtube! (and my many books I have at home) btw, our dutch queen set foot in Eede first, instead of Aardenburg, (which is my hometown btw). There is still a small monument in Eede, together with a brencarrier as a reminder. I have known people who have actually seen Wilhelmina pass the border. The border was marked with flower. After that, she travelled 5 kilometres further into Aardenburg.
Thanks for the correction, Alex. And welcome on the channel. What kind of history are you most interested in.
@@HistoryHustle WWI, WWII, especially in The Netherlands. Operation Switchback is a battle that occurred here, but has not been widely documented over the world. I believe they're now making a movie about it, but I am not sure.
Could be. Thanks for letting us know. I actually have a playlist of WW2 in the Netherlands:
czcams.com/video/_IIsY664tE4/video.html
My father went through the war in the Netherlands. My grandparents and my aunts and one of my uncles eventually moved to Canada in 1951. My dad and his older brother were not allowed to emigrate at first due to reasons, I never completely got a clear answer to. Supposedly it was do to having to potentially serve in the army, but my dad said he doesn't know for sure if that is why or if it was just some bureaucratic thing. He was not yet 21 at the time, so he never actually saw the telegram saying he had to stay. His father did.
My dad occasionally tells some stories about the war. He was 8 when the invasion began. They lived in Blerick on the Maas. About a year later a bomb destroyed their home and they moved towards Tilburg, where they remained until they moved to Canada in 1951. Fortunately he is still alive and I can still get a story or two out of him.
His oldest sister, who was in her 20's during the war, wrote a diary, which I am hoping to get a copy of sometime from one of my cousins. I have seen a few excerpts.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you for these videos! My great grandparents came from the Netherlands to America after ww1 because they believed another war would come but with more chemical warfare than the previous. Very interesting to see what they would have had to experience if they chose to stay.
Thanks for sharing. Perhaps a wise choice to leave...
My nana got confused once during a powercut and thought it was WWII and it was a blackout during the Blitz and looked scared and cried. It makes me sad to think about it.
Sad to hear, thanks for sharing.
A significant number of Netherlanders emigrated to Canada and the United States after WWII. My understanding is that the Netherlands government encouraged emigration for many of the reasons that you mention in the video -- it is much easier to build sufficient housing in the NL if there are fewer people there. At the same time, for emigrants, the economic opportunities in Canada and the US post WWII were much greater than in post war Netherlands. It was a significant experience to have veterans of the BS and the Princess Irene Brigade talk about their experiences at my elementary school and high school in Michigan the 1970's and 1980's and on several occasions the ambassador or his/her representative would attend to give decorations to these veterans.
I didn't know this. Thanks for sharing.
Waarom hangt de vlag ondersteboven? haha.
Top video weer!
Oeps, tja, wat zal ik zeggen: het land lag op z'n kop!
I know my grandfather didn't like Germans for a long time after the war and that he didn't like to talk about the war. I know he knew someone who listened to the radio illegally during the war, but I don't know much else about him regarding the war. My grandmother was scared of planes for a long time, because an allied plane had crashed close to her grandparents house and her school got accidentally bombed by the allies, thus she was terrified of planes. Everytime a (propellor) plane would go over she would get scared for a second, but she got over it eventually. She has no problem talking about the war like my grandfather used to. My other two grandparents are from Brazil and I don't really know what they were doing during the war
Thanks for sharing, Joris!
Great narration and very interesting!
Thank you, Pat!
Dat was fascinerend en heel interessant. Bedankt voor deze video.
Ik zou graag iets van je willen zien over De Grote Honger toen de oorlog ten einde liep, als je zo'n onderwerp hebt, aub?
Dank voor je bericht. Wil nog uitgebreide video over de Hongerwinter maken maar ben nu op reis tm augustus 2024 in Zuid-Amerika.
You make a very important point about trauma and secondary trauma at the end.
I also, believe without the brave European resistance fighters the war would not have gone the way of the allies, I believe we owe a huge debt of gratitude to these unsung heroes.
Thanks for your response.
I was born in January 1946 in Haarlem. Not much said about the war in the family but there were some fragments. At a large family gathering I remember aunts and uncles discussing a relative and the conversation went something like "yes, he was in the NSB, but he never did anything bad". A cigar smoking relative told me that he swore off cigars until Hitler was defeated - and kept the promise. My father designed bridges for a living (Werkspoor) and was in high demand by the Germans because, somehow, a lot of bridges needed work 🙂. I have a bunch of pictures of bombed out bridges, BTW. He showed me where he hid from the Germans in a cubbyhole in an apartment building on the Javastraat in Amsterdam. For me playing around German bunkers and tank traps was a normal part of childhood. Anton Verhulst
Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks for your video. After the war so many Europeans migrated to Australia. I grew up with second generation victims. They were very damaged children & as teenagers many were violent and difficult to be with. We had no idea they were traumatised. Some of the adults who went through the war displayed erratic behaviour which led to some racism by Australians.
The Dutch were highly regarded & I went to school with many of them. Even had one as a girlfriend. Australians knew nothing about living in an occupied country & therefore were disparaging when immigrants did things differently
Decades down the track the post war immigrants are regarded as the builders of modern Australia. They worked on the Snowy River Hydroelectric Scheme which had workers from all over Europe.
Thanks for your reply, K M.
I lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years in the mid ‘70s. When I first arrived in 1972, unlike other countries, you didn’t see damaged buildings from the war. Such as the pride of the Dutch people. However, the stark line between new and old buildings in the Rotterdam Centruum were powerful reminders of what had happened. My first day there, I was taken to a restaurant in Rotterdam called de Pijp. They didn’t want to let me in at first, because I was wearing a windbreaker with a Fabacherbrau logo - a German-style Pilsner made in New Orleans by Jax. The owner’s family had lived in the part of Rotterdam bombed by the Germans in 1940, and he was the only survivor. 30 years later, Germans were still not allowed to enter.
A great vid. Thank-you
You're welcome, thanks for replying!
My father was 9 when the Netherlands was invaded, Friesland area, my Opa was in the Dutch army. Although he , my father, shared few details, he told us about being bombed, listening to the whistle of falling bombs, seeing the first German army arrivals; motorbikes with sidecars, while the residents hid (he watched though a gap in drawn curtains), before the bulk of the German army arrived.
Thanks for sharing this.
Dankejewel for a good presentation.
Thank you!
A lot of interesting information I didn't know. Thanks
You're welcome, Adrian!
My American parents before I was born lived and taught in the Netherlands several years in the '50's. Family friends from the Neth. visited us. In 1986 I flew to Neth. and Denmark (where I was born), to visit family friends. In the Neth in 1952 and just over the border from Delfzijl into Germany, there were still a few apartments with no roofs: just tarps and scrap wood frameworks for a 'roof.' They saw the Anne Frank Huis being worked on, not yet open. Each family friend had stories: Theo Steenbergen, Dutch & Indonesian told of being in a Japanese Internment Camp as a kid. Only food was plain boiled tapioca (no sugar, etc). He became an international businessman. A couple from Arnhem: an artillery shell streamed through their house -- punctured through folded layers of a bolt of cloth she'd bought to sew sheets. Early postwar she sewed the sheets: hand mending each of a hundred holes. Would've been a catchy museum piece. But she threw it out in the 60's when she could afford store bought sheets. One Delft blue saucer survived the war; became a treasure. Ed Egeter's parents paid to have him kept by a farm couple in Friesland. He developed a life long interest in languages there. (Became a teacher of several). He showed me the couple's grave. Teen Ed became restless on the farm; one day in mid-'44 he took a walk into town. Germans spotted him and stole him away to be slave labor in a factory. On the crammed train another prisoner told him: "They got your brother too." Ed had no brothers. He squirmed over to meet his 'brother': a medical student. The two hatched a plan to pose as doctors: Germans valued and needed doctors. "They'll feed us better." Taught by his new medical student friend, they doctored to patch up slave laborers and some Germans. Ed also translated for fellow prisoners. After the war Ed walked back to Friesland. Then he returned to the Amsterdam area.
Thanks for taking the time to write this down.
@@HistoryHustle You're very welcome. I've been very much appreciating your Netherlands' videos.
A fascinating yet unorthodox view of these horrible events.Thank you. As to psychological hurts , what a huge question ! My father was a youngster in Belgium during Nazi occupation, and I can't help but think that that had an impact on him.
Thanks for your reply, James!
Great channel. Learning a lot. Thanks.
Thanks for your reply, Andrew. Warm welcome to the channel!
You should have kept the mountain!! Great video!
Thanks, and it's alright. We still have our hills in Limburg, as well as the Grebbeberg.
History Hustle ski the mountains of the Netherlands!! Ha, ha!
Ski the mountains of the Netherlands!! Ha, ha, missed the chance. Maybe find a hill with those skis with wheels. Cross country Ski across the Netherlands!!!
Haha, the Dutch Alps!
The fighting on Tessel, never heard about that before, that was one very strange event, worth more digging into?
I had one video planned on location but the pandemic prevented it. Might be done in the future. Can't tell when.
@@HistoryHustle ok, good luck with that
An individual fate: I am German, born in February 1946; my aunt was a Catholic nun and trained nurse; her order sent her to a hospital near Amsterdam run by this Franciscan order; Because she was to spend her life there, she took Dutch citizenship; After Germany attacked the Netherlands, her hospital was converted into a German military hospital and she was forced to continue working there, among other things on the grounds that she was originally German; After the liberation of the Netherlands, she was accused of being a collaborator - as a Dutch citizen she had worked in a German military hospital - and she was sent to a former German and now Dutch concentration camp, where she died of typhus in 1946. As far as I know, she was never rehabilitated!
Sad to read. Thanks for sharing.
Interesting video.
Many people working for the underground/resistance were often suspected of being collaborators but were unable to explain their actions. This happened in most of the occupied countries. I have read accounts of some being killed after the war too, very sad.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for your insights on the post WWII history of the Netherlands. Aside from having visited the Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam, I also visited the Corrie Ten Boom Huis in Haarlem. The docent in the latter spoke of how some of the local police and citizens were sympathetic to the Resistance and some to the nazis. That's what led to the eventual raid od the house that allowed a hiding place for Jews and Resistance. was hard to know whom to trust. Being a baby boomer Jew, I knew a lot of children of Holocaust survivors, and that's in the States. During childhood, parents didn’t talk about it, for the most part. There were lots of psychological problems. Interestingly enough, a therapist of mine told me od doing her postgraduate work at Yeshiva University in New York. They have a whole section, which she studied the psychology and treatment of children of Holocaust survivors. I thought you'd be interested in knowing that.
Thanks for your reply.
Thank-you, I learned a lot from this! Both my parents were in the Canadian Army, they married on Dec. 24, 1945 in Amsterdam. I have a better understanding now of what they experienced from my own research. I think both my parents also suffered trauma during the war, unfortunately they did not receive any psychological help consequently my siblings and I received no help either. War is a terrible thing and should be outlawed!
I agree. Thanks for your reply. Best of luck!
8:00 pure comnedy gold! I did not expect to find humour here but that was amazing. Well done, sir!
Many thanks 👍
My father escaped from a factory in Hanover. He had to go into hiding for the balance of the war. He was also on Dam square, when the shooting started. He lost many friends, some Jewish men he had known sin being a little boy. I was born in 1941 in Amsterdam. We moved to Canada in 1951, I know my parents where deeply affected by their experiences of WW11. To this day, I have a visceral distrust of Germans.
Thanks for sharing this.
My mother always told me about her experiences during the war how she survived by cycling from Sheveninge to Drente to work for food. Farmers which helped her became family after the war and visited us in DenHaag and later in South Africa these were just awesome and very hardworking people.
I see you read Antony Beevor. Great historical author. I've read his Stalingrad, Battle of Berlin, Battle of the Bulge books. Sobering, horrifying, very well written.
I did 👍
Another objective, pure lesson from Stefan. I just realized that I'm a third and second generation victim of WW l and WW ll. I lived with my WW l North German grandparents so often. Opa died when I was 23 and Oma, when I was 36. My mother was a victim too. I grew up in the U.S. with many second generation victims from all different nationalities and with many Jewish kids whose grandparents were mostly from Russia and Poland. I believe that in many ways it made me smarter and stronger. Most Americans would never understand the experience of the children or grandchildren of parents or grandparents of war. And many Americans could only see the war through U.S. eyes if their fathers or grandparents fought overseas. But their stories matter too. I hate nationalism!
Very interesting to read your reply, Albert. Thanks for sharing this!
@@HistoryHustle The way you teach history from all perspectives has helped me, even though I've have the proclivity for objectivity. There is a purity in the way you teach. You do not do the good-guy-bad-guy standard propaganda that each nation or group believes in. You see the evil in kangaroo court injustice, vigilantism and you see each person as an individual. Most professors and teachers of history, teach with selectivity of topic and with slanted anger.
Appreciate your response 👍
@@HistoryHustle BTW, what does a black heart mean, in your words? I looked it up on Google and there are different interpretations. It confuses me. I know what a red heart means.
Your comment got a ❤ from History Hustle!
39 minutes ago
In Dutch we don't have a meaning for 'zwart hart'. We do have one for 'hart van steen' (heart of stone) which means being a very cold and harsh person.
Sir, you are an exceptional commicator and teacher. Thank you, an Irishman, Seattle Pacific North West.
I realy like what you are doing /heiko Andris a german citizen who lives in France since 35 years and who loves history/wirklich gute Reportagen
Thanks, Heiko.
dutch immigrants told me they were only allowed to bring $100 guilders per family to come to canada, passage was free but dutch government charged them a fee. that is why most immigrants never returned to Netherlands
I see. Haven't read much about this topic.
Excellent history lesson.
👍
my parents live under the German occupation of Denmark from 1940-45, my mother told many stories from the war, my father wasnt so happy about it
I was born in Amsterdam Feb/47
My parents never discussed the war. We Immigranted to America in 1958. I think my parents were running away and looking for a fresh start.