Brant Theatre Workshops debuted its play Herinnering at the Canadian Military Heritage Museum in Brantford on Saturday, June 6, 2026.
The play, written by Brantford-based playwright Vincent Ball with music by Will Veldhuis-Prinzen, was originally scheduled to be performed during last month’s Tulips and Maples Festival but was cancelled due to cold weather.
Saturday’s play centred around Dutch Hunger Winter and the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian soldiers in the mid 1940s.
The story, which takes place in Brantford, follows Johanna and Hendrikus, as they teach their daughter Wilhelmina about their experience while preparing a special dinner of tulip bulb soup.
Ball explained back in May, “During the Hunger Winter, people would have had meals like tulip soup or tulip stew for sustenance because that’s how bad it was, and that’s what the play centres around. We took what the recipe might have been at that time and while the parents are making the meal, they’re talking about their wartime experiences and starting to share about other things too.”
As the play gets underway, the couple have their daughter pick out whatever she can from the green bin including a head of cabbage, potato and carrot peelings, and the scraps of an onion.
They combine the ingredients with tulip bulbs, foraged nettles and sugar beets, explaining to their daughter that not long ago, a meal like that would feed a whole village and that she should be grateful she’s never had to experience what it means to go hungry.
While making dinner, the couple share the realities of wartime life, touching on the onderduikers (those who went underground to hide from the Nazis), the Dutch resistance movement, those forced into labour camps, and the joy and relief that followed liberation.
With dinner finally prepared, Hendrikus recalls being skin and bone by the end of the war. He goes on to describe the feeling of suddenly hearing that Canadian soldiers had arrived in his village, and the relief felt by all.
“May 5, 1945, it was a glorious day,” said Hendrikus. “The first Canadian I ever met was a soldier. He gave me a chocolate bar and it was my first taste of freedom in five years… it was delicious.”
In the end, the pair take their daughter to the Canadian Heritage Museum to learn about the liberation of the Netherlands by Canadian soldiers, and to see a play about the Hunger Winter – A play called Herinnering; We will always remember.
Following the performance, Ball explained that the play was inspired by an article he had written for the paper in 2005 about Robert and Margaret Anes and their experiences.
“That’s when I got introduced to the Hunger Winter and the chocolate bar being the symbol of liberation,” he said.
The performance held special significance as the couple’s daughter, Wendy Anes Hirschegger, was in attendance.
She later told the Brant Beacon she loved the play, saying she recognized some of her parents’ stories.
“Vincent had interviewed my parents about the Hunger Winter and he actually had some of those stories in there; the one about the cabbage and the chocolate bar,” said Anes Hirschegger. “That story has always been a source of pride for us.
Anes Hirschegger went on to say that she had intended to see the play while attending the Tulips and Maples Festival, but didn’t know it was inspired, in part, by her parents. After finding out, she was determined to see it and was happy with what she saw.
“I loved the play, I was sobbing through the whole thing,” she said. “We have no idea what it’s like to have to have lived through that.”
Ball, who had just seen the play for the first time, said he was happy with how it turned out.
“I loved it. It was fairly emotional for me to see it. I thought the actors and Peter did a great job with the sound and the music, and every scene was really well done,” he said. “And I think the museum was the perfect environment for this kind of thing too, and I’d love to see more wartime-themed plays performed here.”
The playwright added that he still couldn’t believe that the Anes’ daughter was there.
“That blew me away because that’s where it all began,” said Ball.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
