My late father also served with the XII Manitoba Dragoons. He commanded B squadron and was there for the liberation of Leeuwarden. I have a photograph of him and the other Dragoons in front of the Justice Hall, taken after the fall of Germany. A dream trip of mine would be to visit Leeuwarden. They were closing in on Bremen, Germany at the time of the surrender.

If so then 2018 would be the year to go as Leeuwarden will be cultural capital of Europe then.

http://www.2018.nl/

Apart from the Resistance Museum hetismij mentioned, the Frisian archives (Tresoar) hold much material, as does the Fries Scheepvaart Museum in Sneek, about other Canadian regiments that were stationed in Friesland at war's end. For instance, the Perth Regiment was a big presence in Sneek, other regiments in Franeker (from which my mother has inherited her love of regimental pipe bands)

But I think you'll also find that as you uncover the story about Canadian regiments, you'll also uncover the story of Friesland in resistance, and for that the Resistance Museum is the place to go.

This is a five year old thread.

It is a five year old thread, but it is the kind of thing that makes the Internet and forums like this wonderful to me.

Through the kindness of strangers -- yourself included -- people made contact at multiple levels with their families and history and all of us learned more than most of us knew about Friesland.

My sister went to a lot of trouble to post online some pictures of a party at the officers' club at RAF Brize Norton when it was an American base in the 1050's. The daughter of the base commander saw his picture, and I was able to identify another officer who had been a hero in the Pacific in WWII. As that generation ends, anything we can identify and preserve about them for posterity is worthwhile, even if it is only grave sites.

Not to high jack this thread, but was Friesland the setting of the film "The Black Book" or was that elsewhere?

I know, hetismij, but the information in it is very valuable. And yes, Ackislander, I agree.
The setting of Black Book was the the area around Biesbosch, so the Merwede and Meuse rivers.

This film, De Overval, is the quintessential film about Frisian resistance, the raid on the Leeuwarden prison to free a number of resistance prisoners. Incidentally, its main actor, Rob de Vries, was both jewish and a resistance hero in his own right, so it was only fitting he got to play the lead character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKid2pxw6VI

It's in Dutch, no subtitles, sorry.