Today, May 5, is the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. The Dutch have a big party to celebrate every five years. But every single year they commemorate the war and occupation on May 4 with solemn memorials across the country attended by huge crowds. It’s not that the Dutch weren’t happy or grateful to be liberated. In fact, Dutch families still tend the graves of Allied soldiers who died in the battles to liberate the Netherlands. It’s just that the catastrophe of five years of occupation outweighs the joy of ending that occupation.

The Dutch had a hard war, but none of the military destruction, forced removals, or deportations was as traumatic for the population as whole as the last winter of the war.  After the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944, they pushed on to liberate Paris at the end of August 1944 and Brussels in early September 1944. The Allies continued north into the Netherlands but stopped at the natural barrier of the major rivers that divide the southern third of the country from the northern two-thirds. After the debacle of the failure of Operation Market Garden (the bridge too far of the movie of the same name), Allied command turned away from the northern two-thirds of the Netherlands to push into Germany. This military defeat left most of the Netherlands and the majority of the population under the control of a vengeful German occupation authority. The shortest version of the story is that the occupation authorities decided that they would not release any food from the warehouses to punish the Dutch for their support of the Allies. They deliberately created an artificial famine known as The Hunger Winter. When Canadian soldiers arrived in Dutch villages at the end of April, beginning of May 1945, many people were too weak to even crawl out of their houses. At least 22,000 starved to death and millions more were affected in less immediately final ways.

My own family lived in the southern city of Maastricht. They were more than happy to be liberated by, and then occupied by, the American Army in September 1944. But as soon as possible after the liberation of the rest of the country seven months later, my grandfather and my aunt put some food in a bag and rode their bikes north to search out the aunts, uncles and cousins. It’s not surprising that the country isn’t partying today, although they will be next year.