Remembrance Day Yorkton 2024: Yorkton veterans reflect on service and history [Video]

A member of the Royal Canadian Legion Yorkton Branch said his personal connection to Remembrance Day is through his family migrating to Canada after his father experienced the Dutch famine of 1944-45.

“My father is from Holland and was a young boy during World War II,” shared Allan Rundel, padre of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Yorkton’s branch.

“After D-Day, the Canadian soldiers were assigned to go to Holland, Belgium, to free them, but had to stop short in 1944 because of the winter. That winter of hunger was a very poignant part of my father’s life in remembrance. They had to eat tulip bulbs and other things, because the land had been flooded and a lot of the food stuff left.”

The Dutch famine – also known as the Dutch Hunger Winter – occurred when German forces placed an embargo on inland shipping – effectively cutting off the food supply …