Bruce Eekma was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to Calgary Canada in 1958 at the age of nineteen. He met Margaret, who had immigrated with her family at an early age also from the Netherlands, a few years later and they were married in 1962. They now have two Sons, two Granddaughters, and five Great-grandchildren. Bruce and Margaret still live in Calgary where they keep busy Baby-sitting their Great-grandchildren.
My first book "A Daughter's Search for her Father" and now my new revised book, because more information has become available, called "Finding Margaret's father leads to Nazi intrigue" is a true story of what happened to Margaret's biological Father. This story begins with Margaret, who spent most of her life searching for her father. For most people, this is no problem but for Margaret it seemed impossible. Margaret was born in Amsterdam the Netherlands, then immigrated, when she was three years old, to Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
After the Second World War, in May 1945, her mother met a Canadian soldier who was part of the liberation forces in the Netherlands. They married in the spring of 1946, when after his discharge, he traveled to Calgary, Alberta to arrange living quarters for his wife and children. Then in the fall of 1946 Margaret’s mother, including the two little girls, immigrated to join him.
In the spring of 1950, Margaret, her mother and sister, traveled to the Netherlands for a summer holiday. It was getting close to Christmas when a stranger called at their grandparent’s house in Den Hague and demanded to see Wilhelm Bauer’s wife. Because they didn’t know this man they never invited him in, only told him to go away. He became loud and swore that he would return, then left. After that incident her mother, maybe because she was afraid of what this man might do, wanted to leave the Netherlands. They departed from Liverpool England on December 30, 1950 on the R.M.S. “ASCANIA”, and arrived in Halifax, Canada on January 8, 1951. After that episode, her mother did not return to the Netherlands for over twenty-five years, and never saw her parents again.
Many years later after Margaret married Bruce Eekma they lived in a large apartment, which had a laundry room where the entire neighborhood would meet and do their wash. Margaret, while doing her laundry, was talking with a neighbor lady who mentioned that she was from the Netherlands, had married a Canadian soldier, and immigrated to Canada as a war bride. “What a coincidence”, Margaret told her, “My mother is also Dutch, who also came to Canada as a war bride.” This neighbor looked at Margaret and asked when she was born, to which she answered that it was on the 31st of August 1943. She told her that it was impossible for her to be a daughter of a Canadian soldier, because they didn’t arrive in the Netherlands until Liberation Day May 7, 1945. Margaret was shocked because she had never thought about this, always believing that he was her father.
A couple of months later, while visiting friends, Margaret mentioned what this neighbor had said about her father. To her surprise, they said that they were told by her aunt, who had immigrated to Canada after they returned from their holidays in the Netherlands, that the man Margaret thought was her dad, was not her real father. This news devastated her because now there were two people telling her that the man she called Dad, was maybe not her dad. They were saying that her mother, a person she loved, was keeping something as important as whom her father was, a secret.
The next day Margaret went to her parent’s house, who were on holidays, to search for some papers. She felt it was better to do this without her mother being there, plus she was afraid of what she might find. Margaret searched throughout their home but only found certificates and some pictures all dated after 1945. She told me that deep down she had hopes that there would be some clues, like a photo of herself and her Canadian father, or a wedding certificate with a date to confirm when they got married.
A weeks later she returned to the house with hopes that her mother would tell her that all these people were only telling her dirty rumors. Her biggest wish was that her mother would get mad at her aunt and demand to know why she was spreading these untruths. However, when she arrived at the house, her mother was furious with Margaret for going through her private papers and gave no explanation about her birth.
Not long after that, because Margaret felt sorry for having made her mother so angry, she returned to have a private discussion. She told me later that she’ll never forget the expression on her mother’s face when she asked about who her real father was. Her mother told her that he was a German by the name of Wilhelm Bauer, she called him Willie, and that Margaret had been conceived out of a loving relationship. If this had been publicly known after the war, Margaret’s mother might have been treated like many other Dutch girls who had children from German soldiers. Because after the war, as punishment, they had their heads shaven by gangs of men roaming the streets, who when the job was completed would dump a pail of human excrement onto their heads and parade them around town. Also, if Margaret would have stayed in the Netherlands, with the stigma of belonging to the enemy, she would have been considered “Born Wrong” (fout Geboren) a label which would have hampered her getting an education or job. But she was in Canada and spared all the unpleasantness that happened over there.
However, we were still curious and wanted know why Margaret's mother never wanted to talk about Wilhelm Bauer. We even contacted the German Red Cross, but with only a name and nothing else this was impossible. Then on a trip through Europe we found some documents and were astonished at what we found out.
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