Parade honours liberators of Holland

Tens of thousands of people cheered and clapped Thursday as veterans marched through a small Dutch town where the German army surrendered to a Canadian commander 60 years ago.

People stood rows deep, lined rooftops and leaned out of windows along the route of the Liberation Day parade through Wageningen, marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany.

Dutch Prince Willem-Alexander and Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson watched the parade, which included Canadian, Dutch, Belgian, Polish, British and American veterans.

The veterans marched past the picturesque town's Hotel De Wereld, where the German surrender took place on May 5, 1945.

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On that date at around 4 p.m. local time, in the battered hotel's lobby, Col.-Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz formally surrendered the remaining 117,000 German troops in the Netherlands to Canadian Lt.-Gen. Charles Foulkes.

Two days later, on May 7, the formal German surrender of Europe took place at Rheims in France.

Canadian veteran Charles Bouchard stood guard outside the hotel during the surrender and helped distribute food to the starving Dutch people.

"The people were in very poor shape," said Bouchard. "I saw one woman that couldn't get up from her bed because she was nearly starved to death."

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Bouchard said returning to the Netherlands brings him a mixture of "joy and sadness."

"It's a joy to see the people, especially all the young people who remember our sacrifices so well," he said.

Rita Schlick, who was five years old on VE-Day, remembers Canadian soldiers dropping parachutes of food and sweets from planes to her Dutch village.

"Still, sometimes when I smell something, it's just like the smells of the sweets the soldiers dropped," said Schlick.

This year's events are expected to be one of the last large celebrations of the end of the war, as the number of living veterans dwindles.