Dutch siblings have fond memories of wartime dinners with Winnipeg soldiers

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This article was published 09/11/2023 (715 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Dutch family that hosted two Winnipeg soldiers for dinner every Sunday night for months during the Second World War is hoping to connect with them or their family.

Alfons Van Wijk, 81, and his 83-year-old sister, Rose Bakker, are hoping that either the soldiers are still alive, or they told their family members about the dinners they had with the family that had six young children.

Van Wijk was only two and Bakker was almost four at the time, so neither of the siblings remember much about the soldiers. The family left the Netherlands and moved to Canada in 1956.

“I remember them and I remember where they sat at the table,” Bakker said.

“One was named Bill. I remember that. And I remember we used to all laugh with the company at the table every Sunday night.”

They were just two of the more than 100,000 soldiers who fought to liberate the Netherlands from September 1944 to April 1945.

The First Canadian Army was a leader in that effort, an article about the campaign on the Veterans Affairs Canada website declares.

The country had been occupied by the Nazis for four years, and breaking the fascists’ grip helped maintain supply lines to the Allied forces pushing towards Germany.

Van Wijk said the two soldiers were stationed in Eindhoven, the city where his family lived, during the winter of 1944-45.

“Every Sunday during that winter (they) came to our house for dinner,” he said. “Many families in Eindhoven had a standing invitation for soldiers to join them for Sunday dinner.”

After the war ended, the grateful soldiers sent a thank-you gift —a pair of crystal glasses with a maple leaf etched on them.

“They always had a prominent place in any room,” Van Wijk said. “They were kept in a cabinet in the living room.

“They were never ever used; they were too valuable to us.”

His sister agreed.

“None of us could touch them,” she said. “They stayed behind glass.”

Beyond the pleasant company, the soldiers lucked out when it came to the menu, Bakker said.

“My mother was a head chef at a fancy hotel at the community we lived in,” she said.

“No matter what it was, my mother could make a feast.”

And she said her mother also knew how to prepare for war.

“She was born in Germany and had a tough time during the First World War,” Bakker said. “The Netherlands wasn’t affected by that war like she was, so she knew she had to get ready. She buried coal and her jewelry in the backyard and she stocked up on what we would need.

“The neighbours would come to her to boil water for tea and even the doctor knew he could come and wash his hands because she still had soap. She still had supplies when the war ended.”

Van Wijk said while it is 78 years since they last shared a meal with with the soldiers, he and his sister would delight in some sort of connection.

“I just want to find out how they did once they got home,” he said. “And to give them recognition and gratitude for their service.

“(But) we should have started looking a long time ago.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

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