Liberation by Canadian troops in 1945 planted seed that grew into Dutchman's Prince George lumber mill
Nearly eight decades later, Brink’s memories remain vivid of seeing those friendly faces arrive in the final days of Second World War.
The Canadians came on May 12, 1945, right after the ‘hunger winter’ that brought brutal cold and starvation to parts of the country where food and fuel supplies were blocked by the retreating German army. An estimated 22,000 Dutch people starved to death until the famine was ended by food drops to the most affected towns.
As he writes in his autobiography, Against All Odds, “It was a life without luxuries, but it was bearable – after all, it was all I knew. What was infinitely more difficult was the worry generated by living under occupation. My mother was a lovely, generous soul, but the war had pried open a Pandora’s box of anxiety, which, not surprisingly, she passed on to us. Don’t stray too far. Please be quiet. Go to the root cellar and don’t make a sound.
Although he was so young, Brink saw things no child should have to see – a neighbour being shot in the head, a wagon hauling tarp-covered bodies with arms and legs dangling from the cart – and it left him damaged. “My dad would never talk about it and neither would my mom,” sad Brink. “He was gone from the family for five years and that meant their relationship was never the same again, because everybody had changed. If you have to go through survival and extreme circumstances where people are dying all around you then it changes you as an individual.
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