The Dutchman's Suitcase

In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands. Thousands of young men were rounded up and sent to Germany to support the war economy as forced labourers. Peter Manshande from the small North-Holland town of Wognum was one of them. 

Soon after his 19th birthday, Peter received the notice that would derail his life for the next two and a half years – he had to go to Germany. Forced to work as a civilian mechanic and driver in a German military transport unit, he witnessed horrific sadism inflicted on political prisoners and other ‘undesirables’ imprisoned in SS-camps.

Hungry and scared, Peter experienced the ferocious Allied bombings of Hamburg, where under the command of German soldiers, he was forced to dig up the bodies of civilian casualties buried in the rubble.

Peter saved the memories of his experiences and hid them, locked away in his old wartime suitcase. One day, many years later, in a new life in Canada, his daughter asked him what was inside. He told her the story of the painful events that had haunted him for a lifetime.

This is Peter’s story.