In April 1945, the regions of Salland and the Vechtdal were liberated. After Holten (8 April), Nijverdal, Hellendoorn, Lemele, and Ommen followed. This area was also home to labor camps Kamp Erika and Kamp Twilhaar, both of which were liberated by the Allies. Shortly after the Second World War, the Canadian War Cemetery in Holten was established, where many fallen liberators found their final resting place.Set out and discover the many remarkable stories on location. And don’t forget to enjoy the stunning surroundings, including the Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park.

The Netherlands

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Bridge re-built by citizens of Balkburg, the end poitn of the route.

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People of Lemele Town marching down the road with two captured Jerries in the front rank, Lemele, Holland, April 10, 1945.

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Former location of Kamp Twilhaar, in the Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park.

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Monument commemorating the Monument commemorating the crossing of the Schipbeek.

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Information Center of the Holten War Cemetery.

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In the Footsteps of the Canadians Through Salland and the Vechtdal

In the heat of battle, several soldiers of the French-Canadian battalion Le Regiment de Maisonneuve were already killed, and Sergeant Lalonde realised that quick action was necessary. Without orders, he crawled towards the German positions, exposed to enemy machine-gun fire. Once close enough, he stormed forward with determination, emptying his sten machine gun on the German defenders and taking out one German while wounding three more.Canadian soldier Private Leonard Turgotte, together with his comrades, reached a position 70 metres from the railway embankment near Holten. However, they came under heavy fire from German machine guns and 8.8 shells from farms in Neerdorp. Despite the intense fire, Turgotte grabbed a Bren machine gun and filled his pockets with magazines. Under enemy fire, he crawled to a strategic position, effectively shooting at the German positions. This laid the groundwork for targeted attacks on the farm with a flamethrower.Canadian tanks of the Fort Garry Horse regiment were deployed to break the German resistance. Some tanks approached the small viaduct, but the first tank fell victim to a shell from a German Pantzerfaust. Nevertheless, thanks to the deployment of flamethrowers, it became untenable for the Germans. They let themselves roll backwards off the embankment, looking for a safe escape route to the north.Although about 50 German SS soldiers tried a desperate counterattack, it was quickly repulsed. By 18:00, the action was over. Unfortunately, there were 18 Canadian casualties, two of whom were killed. The fallen soldiers were buried at Reijlink farm. As many as 40 German soldiers were made prisoners of war during this heroic action.

Heavy fighting for Holten

The first prisoners arrived at Camp Erika in Ommen on 19 June 1942. The camp population consisted mainly of convicts of the Dutch judiciary and economic offenders. The internees were brought to Camp Erika to relieve the overcrowded prisons. They had to perform hard labour in this Justizlager.Constant harassment, beatings and intimidation were daily occurrences and often these atrocities were accompanied by murder. The remoteness of the camp allowed the guards to abuse the prisoners unhindered and systematically. Forced labour, disease, malnutrition, beatings and outright murder took the lives of between 170 and 200 prisoners in Erika. When these atrocities came to light in 1943, it marked the end of Justizlager Erika.Subsequently, the penal camp was renamed to education and transit camp. Between 1943 and 1944, the camp housed people who had volunteered to work in Germany, people in hiding and 'anti-socials'. There was less mistreatment but still living conditions were so bad that internees died.&nbsp;In the autumn of 1944, Camp Erika again became a penal camp. Atrocities increased again, partly because of the presence of the Ordnungspolizei, the SS and the Sicherheidsdienst in the camp. This also increased the number of deaths among the prisoners, at least nine of whom were shot.Camp Erika was liberated on 11 April 1945, but had been evacuated a few days before because of the Canadian advance, with the prisoners having to walk all the way to labour camp De Pieterberg near Westerbork. That march took two days, via Balkbrug, Zuidwolde, and Hoogeveen, where they spent the night.Before the group of several hundred prisoners arrived in Westerbork, they were exposed to air raids by Allied planes and the cruel arbitrariness of nervous guards. At the slightest hint of trouble, the baton was struck and runaways risked a bullet.Yet during the confusion along the way, many managed to escape and less than half of the dead-tired men arrived at Westerbork, where even those who had survived the hardships were liberated a few days later.

Camp Erika

This reconnaissance took place at the Groene Jager in Den Ham on the Hammerweg. Reconnaissance vehicles of the "Manitoba Regiment" drove from Den Ham in the direction of Ommen. In that area, a Staghound vehicle was hit by a German Panzerfaust. At 19.11, it was reported that one of the reconnaissance vehicles had been destroyed by a Panzerfaust. Private Trooper Green tried to free the occupants from the Staghoud despite the fire, allowing three occupants to come out of the Staghoud alive but severely wounded. Two others in the vehicle, 24-year-old George Thomas Wilson and 22-year-old Gerald Wilfred Soanes, did not survive the attack. The other reconnaissance vehicles then retreated to the vicinity of Den Ham. As a result of the disabling of the reconnaissance car, Hotel Paping caught fire.

Hotel Paping on fire 

On Thursday evening, 5 April, Coevorden had been liberated by the Canadians. The following day, several Canadian armored vehicles drove from Coevorden to Dedemsvaart. They captured a number of German soldiers and then moved on to the grounds of the tram station.The residents of Dedemsvaart believed they had been liberated. Cheering, they poured into the streets, displayed the long-hidden Dutch tricolor, and began hunting down collaborators. Soon, a number of NSB members and Wehrmacht auxiliaries were arrested and locked up in a school near the tram station.It quickly became clear, however, that the celebrations had been premature. The Canadian armored vehicles were only part of a reconnaissance unit, which returned at seven in the evening to the main force in Gramsbergen, not far from Coevorden. They took the captured German soldiers with them. The detained NSB members remained in the school, guarded by two resistance fighters.The situation was far from safe, as Balkbrug was still occupied by German troops. When they heard that the Canadians had left and NSB members were being held prisoner, they wasted no time and carried out a raid on Dedemsvaart. After a short firefight, Dedemsvaart was once again in the hands of the German occupiers—the liberation had been short-lived.Around fifty people were rounded up in the tram building. Women and children were released, but about thirty men were taken to Café Leunge in Balkbrug. There, half were allowed to leave, while five others were placed before a firing squad. The squad consisted of Dutch members of the Grüne Polizei. They were ordered to execute their fellow countrymen. At first, they refused, but under pressure from their commander they were forced to fire. They shot so erratically that only one of the five men was killed. Amid the chaos, the others managed to escape, either by pretending to be dead or by fleeing.To prevent the same from happening with the next group of ten men, it was decided to execute them with a shot to the neck, one by one. Of these ten, one managed to escape and another was wounded but not killed. Ultimately, nine men—whose only “crime” was to have celebrated too soon the arrival of the liberators—lost their lives on the evening of Friday, 6 April.The following morning, Saturday 7 April, the residents of Balkbrug found the nine bodies lying in the street. The victims were ordinary civilians: fathers, neighbors, colleagues. The shock in the village was profound. In an outbuilding of Café Leunge, they were temporarily laid out on straw. That same morning, the Canadians returned and liberated Dedemsvaart for good. On their way to Balkbrug, however, they were confronted with two bridges over the Dedemsvaart Canal that had been blown up by the German occupiers, temporarily halting their advance.Thanks to the efforts of Balkbrug’s civilian population in the following days, an emergency bridge was built, initially guarded by members of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Domestic Armed Forces), and later by French paratroopers who had landed in the area as part of Operation Amherst. By then, the situation was relatively safe, as the German occupiers had retreated overnight after destroying the bridges, moving in the direction of De Wijk and Meppel.Meanwhile, work continued tirelessly to repair the blown-up canal bridge. Finally, on Wednesday 11 April, the bridge was restored, and with it came the liberation of Balkbrug. From the south, through Ommen, enormous convoys of vehicles crossed the repaired bridge, advancing northward to liberate Drenthe and Groningen.

Execution just before liberation 

War evacuee Johan Schot (1930) was a 'sickly' boy from The Hague who, thanks to the church, spent several summers on the Bartels family farm on the Slenke in Den Ham. He remained there throughout the last years of the war. He witnessed the dramatic events of Monday the 9th of April 1945. Sunday the 8th of April was a memorable day; everyone was celebrating as Den Ham had been liberated two days earlier. Still, it was a strange situation: "We lived a little to the north around 'De Groene Jager’, actually in no-man's land. The Germans were gone, but the Canadians had not yet arrived.On Monday', 'Uncle' Gait Bartels and Johan were working on the land as usual. The farm stood at a crossroad. Unexpectedly, a great convoy of heavily armed Germans arrives by bicycle at about 11.00 a.m. Suddenly there was also the rumble of tanks driving up the dirt road. Immediately afterwards, there was a fierce battle between the Germans and the Canadian Manitoba Dragoons. ‘Auntie’ Wilhelmina Bartels-Pastink, the wife of Gait Bartels, was hiding in a potato ditch. She wanted to free the frightened cattle, but was hit by a volley in the head and back and died outright. Not long after, the Germans surrendered. On Friday the 13th of April 1945, Wilhelmina Bartels-Pastink was buried in the cemetery in Daarle, the place where she was born 55 years earlier.

The tragic death of 'auntie'

In the winter of 1944-1945, everyone living in the area between Almelo, Nijverdal, Deventer and Zutphen was familiar with the sound of sputtering rockets. They were flying bombs, equipped with jet engines, popularly known as the V1 and V2. The Germans had called this new weapon ‘Vergeltungswaffe 1' in retaliation for the invasion of Normandy and all the losses that arose thereafter.German engineers developed the weapon under considerable pressure from Hitler. They were built by using countless slave labourers, first in Peenemunde on the German north coast and later in abandoned mines in northern France. Under inhumane conditions, slave labourers saw the opportunity to sabotage the production of these unmanned jet aircraft. No wonder that during their launch or flight, a lot often went wrong.And on the night of 25th-26th of March 1945, just days before liberation, unfortunately things go terribly wrong above Rijssen. A V1 fired from Almelo crashes down on the Huttenwal in the centre of the Rijssen in the middle of the night, perhaps due to sabotage. As a result, nine people are killed.To make matters worse, as the flames are being extinguished, a British plane nosedives towards the conflagration and drops its high explosive bombs. Another 14 people are killed, including five fire fighters. There are many wounded. The sadness and dismay is great.

Unguided missiles

In the winter of 1944-1945, the Almelo-Zwolle railway line in Nijverdal has been the target of American bombers a number of times. The German V1 and V2 rocket installations in the municipality of Hellendoorn are also an important target for air strikes. Through this bombardment, the Allies attempt to block supply routes to and from Germany. Residents near the railway tracks in Nijverdal have moved as far away as possible or relocated elsewhere.On the 22nd of March 1945, it is at last a beautiful sunny spring day and people in Nijverdal are glad that - just before Easter - they can again hang out their washing, do some gardening or scrub the floors. That afternoon, Auguste Lidolf and his son Eugène are planting cherry seeds. The Lidolf family moved from France to Nijverdal. Auguste is a mechanic operating the machines the Nederlandsche Stoom Blekerij purchased in France. His wife Louise is not at home that afternoon.According to eyewitnesses, shortly after four o'clock, six planes suddenly fly low over the area. Above the village centre, they bank sharply and people can see the pilots in the cockpits. At the same time, they drop their bombs. Someone said they looked like Easter eggs. It was, after all, the week before Easter. But these Easter eggs had a devastating effect.Later, it turned out that during this mistake bombardment, Nijverdal was subjected to three bombardments, during which 72 people lose their lives and dozens are wounded. Father and son Auguste and Eugène are also killed and would never see France again.

They looked like Easter eggs

Au printemps 1945, après cinq années d'oppression, les troupes canadiennes ont été les principales responsables de la libération du nord et de l'est des Pays-Bas. Au cours des opérations de libération, de nombreux libérateurs canadiens ont payé le prix ultime. Ils sont commémorés ici.Lors de votre visite au centre d'information adjacent, vous pourrez vous familiariser avec l'histoire du cimetière, la libération du nord et de l'est des Pays-Bas et en apprendre davantage sur la vie de ceux qui sont tombés au combat. Des histoires personnelles, des anecdotes et des photos, souvent obtenues auprès de parents, permettent d'entretenir la mémoire de ceux qui sont morts. Des films et des documentaires uniques, contenant de nombreuses séquences, présentent l'histoire et les particularités du cimetière militaire. Les visiteurs peuvent découvrir des histoires poignantes sur les libérateurs tombés au combat et sur les opérations de libération.Le centre est gratuit pour tous et constitue une source d'information qui permet d'approfondir la visite du cimetière.

The 'Canadian War Cemetery Holten' on the Holterberg is one of the most impressive reminders of the Second World War. In the spring of 1945, after five years of oppression, Canadian troops were principally responsible for the liberation of northern and eastern Netherlands. During the liberation operations, many Canadian liberators paid the ultimate price. In an historic setting, 1,394 military have found their final resting place at the Canadian Military Cemetery.

During your visit to the adjacent Information Centre, you can gain an insight into the history of the cemetery, the liberation of northern and eastern Netherlands and learn more about the lives of the fallen. Based on personal stories, anecdotes and photos, often obtained from relatives, the memory of those who died is kept alive. Unique films and documentaries with much authentic footage show you the history and specifics of the war cemetery and you will discover poignant stories of fallen liberators and liberation operations.
The centre is free for everyone and is a source of information in providing more depth to a visit to the cemetery.

Cimetière de guerre canadien, Holten

In Nijverdal Memory Museum, visitors can experience the Second World War step by step, from the rise of National Socialism in Germany, up to and including the liberation of the Netherlands. As a visitor, you experience the difference between war and peace with your own senses. NB: the museum is currently closed for renovation. It should be reopened in May 2019. Visit the website for more information.

A museum about war and peace
In Nijverdal Memory Museum, visitors can experience the Second World War step by step, from the rise of National Socialism in Germany, up to and including the liberation of the Netherlands. As a visitor, you experience the difference between war and peace with your own senses.

NB: the museum is currently closed for renovation. It should be reopened in May 2019. Visit the website for more information.