CHRISTMAS EVE IN HOLLAND

Some years ago a friend of mine asked me to play my harp at her mother’s memorial service, which took place in an artist co-op, both her parents having been artists.  Her father, a surrealist Dutch painter had died the year before, and now her mother, an actress and singer was having her own memorial service.  I remember this service as being something of an ordeal because it lasted about two and a half hours, with every artist and performer in the building feeling they had to make a contribution. 

However, there was one thing that touched me deeply, and that was a reading from one of her mother’s memoirs. It chronicled their last Christmas Eve in Holland before the end of World War Two.  Just going by my memory, it would have read something like this.

Christmas Eve arrived and found us all cold and very hungry.  There was very little food in the house and every stick of furniture had been burned – it was our only source of heat and only means for cooking food.  The only thing we had not been able to bring ourselves to burn was the old piano that stood in the parlour.

Nevertheless, we did manage to find a few sticks of something that had not yet been burned, and we lit a small fire to boil water for a few cups of tea.  Somewhere we had scrounged up a tea-bag – possibly it had been saved for a special occasion.

I had a hard time getting my husband Henry out of bed.  Not only was he weak from lack of food, but the bed was the only place that was still reasonably warm.  However, after some prodding and nagging he grudgingly got dressed and came to the parlor to have his tea. 

How grateful we were that the old piano was still standing. We gathered around it and my sister began to play the old Christmas carols.  At first our voices were weak, but gradually we found the strength to sing them with the passion and enthusiasm that they deserved.  Despite our cold and our hunger, some of the magic of Christmas transformed and lifted our spirits that night.  Surely God would end this nightmare that we had been forced to live through.  Never before had I been so moved, singing the old carols that proclaimed peace on earth and love for all mankind.

And then suddenly, outside somewhere a grenade or bomb exploded.  We all dived onto the floor and covered our heads with our hands – there was no furniture to hide under.   All of us lay there shocked and terrified – except my sister.  As in a trance or daze, she had continued playing the piano, uninterrupted by the explosion.  When we recovered our senses, we all began to laugh hysterically.

Little did we know that the Canadian army had covered strategic territory that night, and that our liberators were only miles away.  Within a few months the war was over for us.   

  

I guess that story always moves me deeply, because my own parents lived through that war – except they were on the other side.  They were Germans, yet the horrors of the war were just as terrible for them.  I’m sure they too would have gathered around singing carols on Christmas Eve just like that Dutch family. 

How lucky our generation is, that we have never had to go through the nightmare of a world war.

Author is Angelica Ottwell (A member of Peterborough Storytellers)