Revitalized Stratford Perth Museum exhibit details Perth Regiment’s liberation of Holland

Just in time for Remembrance Day, a new gallery in the Stratford Perth Museum’s Perth Up: A Retrospective of Duty and Valor exhibit is devoted to telling the story of Perth County soldiers as they fought to help liberate the Netherlands from the Nazis at the end of the Second World War.

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Visitors to the exhibit can now learn about the Perth Regiment’s actions in 1945 as it battled to liberate the final towns in the north of Holland, as well as the regiment’s extended post-war period in the town of Sneek and its final homecoming in January 1946 .

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“We’ve done a complete revitalization of the upstairs front room,” said museum assistant Kate Squissato, who worked on the new portion of the Perth Up exhibit with museum manager of exhibits and collection Micaela Fitzsimmons. “That room used to feature art by (Capt. John) “Duffy” Dent and kind of gave an overview of him and his military career, the art he created and the prints he made. We took all of that out and have now created this gallery that centers on the Perth Regiment as they fought in Holland to liberate the country.

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“It’s really an important story because the regiment was able to do quite a lot, particularly in some areas where the Canadian Army had been dug in for a long time. The Perth Regiment was known for being a really great unit that could come in and work with tanks, and they covered a lot of really great ground in about two months or so. They were really vital to the liberation of Delfzijl.”

The exhibit includes a wall-sized map of Holland showing the movements of the Perth Regiment, along with the movements of other Allied forces in the country. In March 1945, the regiment was secretly transported from Italy to Belgium, a staging area for the assault on German troops in Holland. From there, the Perth Regiment, along with other Canadian regiments, fought at Nijmegen and Driel in April and then continued on to Armhem, Doesburg and Zuider Zee.

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The Perths then tackled the more-than 40-kilometer distance to Harderwijk, where they took the town in a single afternoon. The regiment saw its final military action at Delfzijl.

“That battle kind of brought an end to the occupation of the Netherlands,” Squissato said. “What’s also important about the story is the regiment actually lived in Holland until December 1945, so they didn’t actually make it home until ’46. They stayed in one town called Sneek for months, and they became a really important part of the community and that relationship actually continues today. They’ve done several reunion trips and tours back to Holland and, specifically, Sneek.”

Interspersed with the movements of the Perth Regiment are related personal accounts drawn with permission from This Faithful Book: A Diary of World War Two in the Netherlands by Madzy Brender à Brendis, and translated by her daughter, Marianne Brandis. of what Holland was like from the perspective of the Dutch who had been living under German occupation.

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The personal accounts of soldiers from books like Stanley Scislowski’s Not All of Us Were Brave, Maj. Stafford Johnston’s The Fighting Perths and Capt. Bert Arrel’s War Diary, plus artwork by Capt. John “Duffy” Dent and numerous artifacts donated to the museum by soldiers and their families are also included in the exhibit.

“I did a lot of the research for this exhibit and I learned a lot. …In terms of the regiment, it was great to understand better how important they are to the community as well. They still have a huge presence – they’ve got a Facebook page, they’ve got a website – so knowing how important that story is and how special those stories are was really important to me as I was working through this exhibit,” Squissato said.

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“Their actions in Holland,” she added, “were really important, but I think that community aspect and their time in Sneek is one of the big things people will take away from this exhibit. I don’t think people realize how long troops were overseas after the end of the war. Having that perspective of, yes, May 1945 happened and the Germans surrendered, but a lot of these guys didn’t come home right away. The war itself was over, but they were still living overseas away from their families.”

This exhibit is presented in conjunction with the museum’s Veteran Banner Remembrance Project that feature banners honoring veterans in Stratford’s downtown core, as well as a complementary online database with stories about each veteran displayed on the banners.

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