Yesterday I didn’t even bother to get dressed; I just spent the entire day at the computer, planning my itinerary for the Netherlands and doing so much research that my head is still spinning. I managed to get a 12k run in before bed, make my monthly phone call to the folks (who are leaving for the Dominican tomorrow morning… will wonders never cease??), and that was Sunday down the drain.
Apparently my great-uncle lives in a town called Veenvouden in Friesland. I don’t know how much about it, or even the population, but it is situated along the train tracks so it is definitely connected to the main urban areas (approximately 2.5 hours / 35 Euros from Amsterdam by train). A daytime excursion from there to Leuwaarden or Groningen would be quite feasible. I suspect that my dad would be delighted if I also made it to Workum (an old shipping village 2km inland along the Ijselmeer, where my family name is said to have originated) and took oodles of pictures, but I’m not sure we can—or would want to—hit every rural area in that vast marshland (!) When I delicately queried my father on the paucity of hostels and other accommodations in northern Friesland, he said: “That’s because it’s basically a muddy backwater”.
Straight from the horse’s mouth!
I read a lot about the history of the Netherlands (specifically, water management, wartime reparations, and architectural and agricultural developments), as well as the cultural significance of its various regions… and there is much more to learn. I knew that my grandparents had come to Canada on emigrant ships in the early 1950’s, and that the Dutch government was encouraging emigration at the time… but for reasons unfathomable until now. As I read through pages of Dutch history, I began to get a sense of the devastation of WWII and the despair that many citizens must have felt after the bombs finally stopped raining on their beloved country. Reading about the destruction of the city of Arnhem was especially saddening, as was how Nazi Germany used the Netherlands’ ports and cities to help wage their horrific monstrosities against humankind. At that time, my paternal grandparents were active in the underground, and my maternal grandparents managed to survive the occupation in Meedenblik (where my grandfather was once stopped and questioned by German soldiers who thought he was using Morse code to signal to the Allies, when in reality he was testing his bicycle light).
The terror of the German occupation, the massive destruction of history and infrastructure with Allied bombs, and the economic devastation which loomed over a people not quite recovered from the ravages of the Great Depression… when my grandparents looked around at the country they knew and loved, that crazy country of polders reclaimed from the sea with dijks, and saw it had been raped and pillaged by careless and inhumane warriors, and that the future seemed dismal… perhaps I can understand their choice to take their young families to Canada for the chance at a better life.
It was saddening, I just can’t explain.
