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Fifty-seven years after the Liberation of the Netherlands, we commemorate the more than 7,000 Canadians who gave their lives for freedom. At the same time, the people of Canada and the Netherlands, take comfort in the knowledge that out of the anguish and horror of war there developed warm and powerful bonds of friendship which still endure.
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The foundations of a special relationship between our countries were established during those dark years of the Second World War. When the Netherlands was overrun by the Nazis in May 1940, Queen Wilhelmina sought refuge in England and, from there, headed her country's government-in-exile. But even Great Britain was a precarious haven, and in 1942, the Crown Princess Juliana was persuaded to leave for Canada where she made her wartime home. Here, on January 19, 1943, in a room in Ottawa's Civic Hospital specially decreed to be Dutch territory, her third daughter, Margriet, was born. The tiny princess captured the hearts of Canadians who claimed her as their own.
Sincere and profound ties of friendship and respect between Canada and the Netherlands exist to this day. The evidence may be seen in the tulips which bloom in Ottawa each spring; in the friendships made and maintained over the distance of time and miles; and in the care and attention bestowed by the Dutch people on the burial places of our war dead.
Even though the cost in lives was high, Canadians are proud to have been cast in the role of liberators. And the citizens of the Netherlands have not forgotten our sacrifice.
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