For 70 years, Andre Hissink has held a grudge against the Dutch government and has never shied away from talking about it.
Finally, this week, the persistence of the 102-year-old World War II veteran paid off: the Dutch king granted his wish for dual citizenship.
“I’m back to being Dutch, but still Canadian,” Hissink told CTV National News after a special citizenship ceremony at his retirement home in Perth, Ontario.
The Netherlands seeks to limit dual nationality, and to date the government warns its citizens that their right to a passport could be automatically revoked if they acquire another nationality. And seven decades ago, that’s exactly what happened to Hissink.
“I was very angry that I had my neck torn apart by the liberation of the Netherlands between 1940 and 1945,” Hissink said.
Born in the Dutch East Indies in June 1919, Hissink was eight years old when his family moved to the Netherlands. In 1939, while studying law at Utrecht University, he joined the Dutch army.
In 1940, after the Germans stormed the Netherlands, he escaped with HMS Keith and fought for the rest of the war with the 320 British Squadron of the British Army. He survived about three and a half years and 69 war flights as a bomber and sailing on a Bitch Mitchell over occupied Europe.
For 70 years, Andre Hissink has held a grudge against the Dutch government, but this week, the persistence of the 102-year-old World War II veteran has paid off: the Dutch king granted his wish for a rare dual citizenship .
His desire to regain Dutch citizenship, however, dates back to the 1950s when he emigrated to New Zealand to work. At the time, there was a shortage of jobs in the Netherlands and a job at the Air Department in Wellington was waiting for him. Hissink was told he had to become a New Zealander for the job, but that meant giving up his Dutch passport.
“I said that this is a good job and that I want it. They said that then you will lose your citizenship … and since then I am crazy about the Netherlands,” he said.
Surrounded on Thursday by friends and family, Dutch Ambassador to Canada Ines Coppoolse once again made Hissink a Dutch citizen. The rare exemption from the government’s dual nationality rules was “tailor-made” by Hissink and personally signed by King Willem-Alexander.
“You are Dutch and you will be Dutch again,” the ambassador said as she presided over the special Dutch-English bilingual citizenship ceremony. “You’ve always been Dutch at heart, so I’d be the last person to tell you what it’s like to be Dutch, because I should probably take lessons from you and not the other way around.”
“It has taken eighty years and you are giving it back to me, which I am absolutely grateful for. Deep down. “Believe me,” Hissink told Coppoolse as he presented his citizenship documents. “It was the country I went to war for and then tried to help build.”
Now, it is a country to which he belongs again, but not at the expense of his beloved Canadian citizenship.
Hissink, who moved to Canada to work decades ago and remembers fighting alongside brave Canadian soldiers during World War II, accepted Dutch citizenship on the condition that he could remain Canadian.
“Being a Canadian for seventy years. I will never be as old as Dutch, “he said.