Nick+Haars

**Nick Haars.**
My "Uncle Nick" is the brother of my Grandmother (Adriana "Jeannie" Bell). Uncle Nick was born in The Netherlands and grew up in Rotterdam before his family moved to Den Haag before the outbreak of World War II. Nick describes his accounts of growing up as a teenage boy in The Netherlands before the war and he issues his perception of what is was like living in Holland during the war and being taken prisonner during the war. After World War II, Nick sister Billie Matheson moved to Canada after marrying a Canadian Soldier - Doug Matheson of Newcastle, New Brunswick. About one year after Billie had been in Canada, Nick and the rest of the Haars family moved to Canada and eventually settled in Chatham Head. Nick would eventually join the Canadian Armed Forces and end up stationed for sometime in Germany, the same place where he was a POW. In the following 9 segments - Nick describes his accounts of what war times are like, how bad it really was in Europe and why we should take greater appreciation for our freedom as Canadians.