Trudie Lee
For Calgary playwright David van Belle Liberation Days now premièring at Theatre Calgary is more than just a script he wrote. It tells a story — a story of Canadian heroism a story of Dutch liberation following the terror of the Second World War — that resonates with van Belle on a truly personal level. “Both of my parents were children during the war and were liberated by the Canadians” he says.
The decision to write the play took hold in 2007 when Theatre Calgary issued a call for proposals and it was developed as part of FUSE: The Enbridge New Play Development Program. In 2009 van Belle took a research trip to the Netherlands visiting war archives touring liberation museums and interviewing locals who had lived through the Second World War.
“Going through the archives it was interesting to find out how much tension there was between the Dutch population and the Canadians during the six months after liberation. All of a sudden there were 200000 young Canadian men with nothing to do. They had finished the war. They had all looked death in the eye. It made them want to cut loose a little bit which is understandable” says van Belle.
Liberation Days opens in the eastern Netherlands (the area of combat) in 1945 a couple of weeks after the war’s end. The story follows the romance between a young Canadian soldier Alex King (Byron Allen) and a “somewhat older Dutch woman” Emma de Bruijn (Lindsey Angell). “Part of the play is about love being a complicated thing during a time of liberation” says van Belle.
He adds that the play also explores “the immense change that overcame Holland during the aftermath of the war” noting that prior to the Second World War the Netherlands was a conservative country with sharp divisions between different religious and political groups. “The question the characters face is ‘Now that everything is broken down do we want to rebuild or build something new?’” explains van Belle.
The Dutch opted for “something new.”
Van Belle recounts the reaction of his own parents to the changes when they returned to the Netherlands in 1967 and stayed for a few years. “They went ‘What happened to this place?’” says van Belle. “I think the seeds for that change were sown during World War II” he adds positing the theory that Canadians played a role in planting those seeds.
Although five of the play’s seven characters are Dutch van Belle says Liberation Days is still a play about Canada. “It’s the dangerous sexy side of Canadians we don’t often think of” he says. “It’s unusual to see a play about Canada from an outsider’s perspective.”
He says the Dutch recognized that while 1940s Canada didn’t have any real connection to the Netherlands Canadians were still over there losing their lives for Dutch freedom.
In addition to the jubilation following the war and the heroism of the Canadian soldiers Liberation Days also acknowledges the darker side of that period: harassment of local women rape rampant drinking and a soaring black market for items like cigarettes.
Furthermore while some 7000 Canadians lost their lives during the liberation about 7000 babies were born to Dutch mothers by Canadian soldiers. (For those who find that incredulous a military historian reviewed van Belle’s script to ensure its accuracy.)
“Despite the dark things it’s one of our heroic stories” says van Belle adding that Dutch citizens still “love” Canadians and take immaculate care of the cemeteries of the Canadian soldiers who lost their lives fighting for liberation.
While the presence of so many Canadians in those postwar months was problematic for some it was an opportunity for others including the 150000 Dutch — van Belle’s parents among them — who emigrated to Canada postwar. “It gave them a chance to start over in a new land” he says.
Liberation Days runs until November 9 at Theatre Calgary.
