A petite woman stood up at the recent North Shore Veterans' Reunion, a microphone in one hand, a cane gripped firmly in the other.
She was there to thank the veterans for the liberation of Holland, her homeland, during the Second World War.
Jacqueline Ypma was born in Holland in 1926. The family lived in the country during the week and in Amsterdam on weekends, where their life was a round of museums, galleries and concerts; and, for Jacqueline, her Girl Guide troop. In May 1940, the Nazis invaded. Jacqueline was 13 years old.
With the occupation, Jacqueline, her sister Liesbet, and her parents and grandparents lived together in the country, sheltering a Jewish boy whose parents were hidden near by. (Most Dutch boys were also hidden. Otherwise, they would be shipped to Germany to fight or work).
As the war and the years dragged on, life under the Nazi boot was difficult and dangerous. The basics of life disappeared. There was no elastic for clothing or rubber for tires. Food was scarce. On weekends, Jacqueline and her sister joined other girls, carrying valuables into the farmlands to trade for food, riding for miles on bicycles with tires made from lengths of rubber garden hose clamped around the metal rims of their wheels.
"Holland was under political occupation by the Nazis; maybe worse than military occupation," Jacqueline remembers. "We were ordered to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler before our Guide meetings and hockey games could continue. We refused. No more Girl Guides. No more hockey."
Cinema-goers had to be in their seats a half hour before the feature started to watch Nazi propaganda films. No Dutch person went to the movies during the occupation.
"Whatever we could do to annoy the Nazis, we did," recalls Jacqueline. She wanted to do more. Against her parents' strict injunction, she carried messages for the resistance, riding all over town on her hose-tired bike. One day, Jacqueline was assigned to deliver a message to the head of the local resistance. At headquarters, she was ushered into an office where, at his desk, was her father.
"I handed the message to my father. He thanked me and did not say another word. Ice water was running through my veins and I remember nothing about getting home. I quit working for the resistance immediately," she says.
In September, 1944, the Allies liberated Holland as far as Arnhem. "We thought we would be next. But, I had the measles," she says. "It was so unfair, how could I celebrate when I had the measles?" There was no freedom for the rest of Holland and no celebration. The Ypmas opened their home to six friends from Arnhem. Then came the winter of 1944-1945. "Cold, cold, we were so cold and there was no food." It was the time of the Hongerwinter, the Dutch Famine.
Winter gave way to "the sweetest spring" as, on May 5, 1945, the Canadians liberated all of Holland. On that day, Jacqueline, 19 years old now, rode out into the country to thank the farmers who had supplied her family with food. Hurrying home to celebrate, Jacqueline grabbed onto the back of a truck but the garden hose tires on her bike gave way and she was flung onto the street.
Stiff and sore, Jacqueline could cheer but could not jitterbug, as she explained her accident to a group of French Canadian soldiers. The next morning, the soldiers arrived in a truck at Jacqueline's home and unloaded eight sets of real rubber bicycle tires.
In 1948, Jacqueline came to Canada. "It was my way of thanking the Canadians. And, I thought I might meet a rich, handsome Canadian. Instead, I met a poor Dutchman." Happily, Paul Tak was not so poor. They decided to make Canada their home, married and raised their children in West Vancouver.
Jacqueline married hotelman and aviator Frank Bernard in 1970. During their 33 years together, Jacqueline and Frank travelled extensively, to their farm on Vancouver Island and to Mexico in their Aztec twin-engine airplane but West Vancouver, where they owned the landmark Park Royal Hotel, was home. "I will always be grateful to Canada. There is nowhere I would rather be." Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore. Contact her at 778-279-2275.
