From: Kees Vanderheyden (keesv@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sun Apr 11 1999 - 07:33:23 PDT
Dear friends I have memories, as a 11 year old child in Holland, of the song the Germand soldiers sang while marching in the streets. I have to admit they did impress us and they stuck in our heads. However we had patriotic versions of them and we used to sing the among ourselves to mock the ennemy when the soldiers were far away. I remember one with the name of another girl in them, Erika The german version went apparently like this : Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein Und das heisst Erika Heiss von hunderttausend kleinen Bienlein Wird unschwärmt Erika We had our version that roughly translated and as understood by little kids was ; Your blond girlfriend has a heart of barbed wire so its better she stay home We also parodied the Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles. We used to sing Deutschland Deutschland uber alles, Deutschland Deutschland is kaput. The british and canadian soldiers who liberated us sang, if I remember well, something about the Dancing Matilda and other songs I loved but have forgotten. Somehow song were an important part of the war for us kids, they accompanied our own games. Kees Vanderheyden