My father’s cousin, Kay vander Meer, was married on May 9, 1940, in the Netherlands. She and her new husband spent their wedding night in a town on the German border. When the Germans invaded in the early hours of May 10 and the fighting broke out, her groom, a member of the ill-equipped Dutch military, left her to join the battle. He never returned.
On April 11, 1945, in the town of Dronrijp, Friesland, Netherlands, the Nazis marched fourteen men along the streets to the edge of the Van Harinxma Canal. Twelve of these men were Resistance workers. The other two were suspected collaborators. They had been arrested in Leeuwarden, a larger city farther north, and transported to Dronrijp. In groups of three, the men were brought to the water’s edge and executed. They were shot in retaliation for the Dutch Resistance sabotaging railroad lines farther north near Leeuwarden, causing a Wehrmacht train to derail cars. The Germans were very nervous because Allied planes were in the air when they arrived in Dronrijp. Gerard de Jong, though wounded, survived by playing dead. Later, some of the town’s men, including Ynse Poslma and my dad’s cousin Johan Feitsma, found Gerard and took him to my Aunt Hiltje’s house where she nursed him. Dronrijp was liberated only days later. Every year while my aunt lived, Gerard visited her on her birthday. Even after she passed away, he brought flowers to her grave.
Days after Gerard’s rescue, the Germans fled most of the Frisian towns without a battle as the Canadians closed in. However, they congregated in and chose to fight for Pingjum. I fictionalized the battle for the bridge there that took place on April 15–16, 1945.
Nijmegen, Franeker, Leeuwarden, and Achlum are all real towns. Franeker does boast the famous Eisinga Planetarium.
The story of the execution became legend in our family. My father visited the site in 1978. As he showed us the slides he took, he told us the story. We couldn’t believe our family endured such trials during the war. Nor could we believe their bravery. I wrote this book to preserve the stories of people like Gerard, Ynse, Hiltje, Johan, and the many, many others who labored and gave their lives without fanfare so this generation could enjoy freedom. May we treasure it.
The author and Hillie Feitsma, the granddaughter of the
woman who was the inspiration for Snow on the Tulips.