In this bonus episode of the Mirror Falls series, host Tod Maffin interviews Licia Wagner, co‑author of Corrie and the Rose Accordion, about her family’s experiences during the German occupation of the Netherlands, the Canadian‑led liberation in 1945, and their subsequent immigration to Canada. Licia recounts how her parents, children during the war, witnessed bombings, the arrival of German soldiers, and the gradual tightening of Nazi oppression, including persecution of Jewish neighbours. She describes the moment of liberation when Canadian forces arrived, bringing chocolate and bubble‑gum, and how that event became a lasting source of gratitude in Dutch collective memory. Licia explains the post‑war hardships that prompted her parents to emigrate, the role of Canadian immigration sponsorship, their arrival in Quebec and Toronto, and the struggle to find work and basic food. She details how her father secured a garage job, the first taste of oranges, and the founding of a family business that now spans over 60 years. Throughout, she reflects on intergenerational trauma, the DNA‑borne memory of war, and how Dutch children today are taught to honour Canadian soldiers by maintaining gravesites. The interview ties personal narrative to broader themes of Canadian identity, immigrant resilience, and the enduring bond between the Netherlands and Canada.
Chapters
I hope you enjoyed episode 3 of Mirror Falls. If you haven't heard Hans's story with the scavenger hunt yet, you'll probably want to go back and listen to that. The character Hans Spiegel is based partially on my stepfather Hans. The story you heard—watching a neighbor bury guns, being put on a train to find food, being saved by his sister— those all really happened. Canadian forces were the main Allied liberators of the Netherlands in the Second World War. They fought through northern France and Belgium into the Netherlands, and engaged in heavy battles to reclaim the country village by village. The liberation was not done exclusively by Canadians— British, Polish, American, Belgian, Dutch, and Czechoslovak units also took part. The formal surrender of German forces in the Netherlands happened on May 5th, 1945, with Canadian commanders accepting it on behalf of the Allies. Licia Wagner's parents lived in the Netherlands during that time. She later wrote a book called Corrie and the Rose Accordion, all about that moment in history. She joins me now from her home in Brighton, Ontario. And Licia, like, you know, everyone who lived through that time, I know your parents had dozens of stories. Can you first tell me a bit about them?
They were children. Mom was 5 when it started and Pop was 8. Their childhood was so sorely affected and they didn't meet until a couple of years after the war. They both remember very clearly how that started. They came and bombed Rotterdam. My parents as children heard it. My mother went on the roof. She was pulled up onto the roof by her mother, my grandmother. They were dropping German soldiers by parachutes all over southern Holland. My mother saw them from the sky, and the sky was so dark with the planes that it almost blocked out the sun. One soldier landed on their roof where I was born and brought up later. He was German. My grandmother was German. Not knowing what was happening, she invited him in and fed him. But this is before we realized what was going to happen, right? And then Rotterdam's burning and everything, and there's mayhem. So at first, almost nothing changed. But it's like a slow noose, slow noose, slow noose. You start seeing more soldiers, and then there are these Nazis, and then special stormtroopers, and then slowly they start doing all of these limitations to the people. The Jewish neighbors suddenly could not go to work, they could not go to city hall, they're beaten up if they want this.
People were being shot, killed. And it was years before the liberation came. This is 5 years later.
And my mother hears a rumble, and she thought it was the Germans coming with tanks. And so she was so frightened, she ran off. And the other children ran towards the noise. My uncle, who by that time was about 12 or 13, he was the one that took charge of the family by stealing everything all the time. He ran there with a bunch of other boys, ran back, said, "No, it's not the Germans. It's not the Germans. They come to save us." And she ran out and there's these— she cried when she talked about it. I've got it on video. She said, "They came and they were throwing chocolate, but they were like animals." Imagine not eating and you're starving to death. They were scratching at each other to grab and bubble gum. And she ran with some of this to my grandmother. And my grandmother said, she says, "The war is over in Dachau." My grandmother didn't believe it. She was halfway in heaven. And my mother made her smell the chocolate and the bubble gum. And then she ran back out to see all these people jumping on, all these, on the tanks. And, you know, Oh my God, there's no wonder they think today that Canadians are heroes and super people. I'm sorry, it's so— it's— I know I wasn't in the war, but the trauma is in the DNA. I was brought up— we still talk about the war every day. And when I think about something my dad said, You know, people think the war is over. The war is never over. What did your parents do after the war? My mother at that time was going down the staircase from the attic. They were still living in this house that the Nazis put them in because there was no other place to go. And my father was helping bring a sack of coal. So he bumped into her. She fell in love with him. And he fell in love with her. My mother looked like Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe combined in one.
And how did they get to Canada?
A friend of my father came over and said, "Hey, did you know that you could immigrate and the government is sponsoring people who want to immigrate, but there's no food, no housing, nothing in Holland. They need to get rid of people." And Australia, South Africa, and Canada were the options. And because of the Canadian soldiers, because Canada sent such amazing people, they said it's got to be a good land, it's got to be a land of milk and honey, you know, it's got to be golden opportunities, and if people are that nice, they would be nice to us. We hopped on a troop ship and We stopped at Quebec City and then we went on to Toronto. My Uncle Leo, by that time, was there. He met us at the train and we ended up living at Jameson Avenue. And what do you do?
You know, you land, you come in from a different country, traumatized with a couple of suitcases. Nothing lined up at this end, I presume.
Nothing at all. So you know what my dad did? Couldn't speak English, nobody did. He woke up the next morning, the first night, and he came back a few hours later saying he found a job with a Polish— I think it was a Polish man at a garage, and that man gave him an advance of money. And so he went shopping and came back with bread and oranges. We didn't have oranges in Holland when I was young. I saw one orange and that was At St. Nicholas Day, we didn't do Christmas, we did Sankt Nikolaus Tag. An orange, I remember the color orange. Anyways, he came back with oranges, bread, milk, even butter. It was like we were already so rich and we had nothing. And so he worked as an out-of-body man, and that's where it started. But today, we have a family business that I now manage that's over 60 years old. And you know what? We still cry. I still cry at the thought. I don't know how to say it without getting emotional. It's what makes you— it makes the kind of person you are. And that's why I even cry when Trump says things about Canada. I take it personally. And the thing, the uncanny thing is my great-grandmother was a Trump. Around the same family tree, a Trump.
It's remarkable to me some of the language that comes out of the US has come out in the last few months, especially about immigrants. In my experience, immigrants are harder working than I have ever been. We're workaholics.
And we could be as wealthy as you think, as you can imagine. But we're still careful, but we give the shirt off our backs because we know what suffering is, and you never forget that.
Do you still have family in the Netherlands? You must.
Oh yes, I have a lot of cousins.
Can you tell me about the relationship that they have with Canada?
The children today, you go to kindergarten, the equivalent of kindergarten, kloteschool in Holland, they're taught right from square one The Canadians saved Holland. The Canadians. And as part of their yearly chores, they all go to the Canadian gravesites, clean them up, and put flowers down. Children, school children, have to do that. And because they're so used to it, to them the war was yesterday. The war is still very much alive in Holland, and the love for Canadians is palpable because it's what Canadians did during the war.
You know, it's one thing to read about the liberation of the Netherlands in a history book or, uh, a story in a podcast, but it is quite another to hear it from someone who carries it and all of the trauma from the war in their family. Thank you so much for this. Thank you, Tod. Licia Wagner is co-author of Court Cory and the Rose Accordion. You can get it through most Canadian booksellers.
When you buy LG, you get so much more than just an appliance. You get more done, more cost savings, more peace of mind. And more control. Because LG appliances are designed to do more. Like washers and dryers with AI tech to take out the guesswork. Refrigerators that fit in tight spaces and keep food fresher, longer. Or ranges with precise induction cooking and easy cleanup built in. All with the style you want and reliability you can count on. So you can get more from your home every day. LG Appliances. So much more. Make life easier with LG. See the latest models and savings now at LG.com.
