Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries, the world-renowned complementary practitioner, was just four years old when the Germans occupied his homeland of Holland. Although he doesn't remember what normal life was like before the war he knew that the adults around him were worried about the situation they found themselves in.

"I was at kindergarten but I can still remember how terribly worried people were and us children were aware that we were being sheltered," he recalls.

"I remember air raid alarms and in Primary 2 we unfortunately had a school mistress who was a Nazi sympathiser. She tried to teach us that Nazism was good and so we had to be very careful in what we said or she could have reported us to the Germans."

Van de Vries as a boy

Jan's family were in even more danger than most as his father was Jewish and his mother carried out work for the Dutch underground resistance. His father and older brother Nicolas were picked up by the SS in 1943 and taken away, witnessed by the young Jan.

"They were picked up because they refused to work for the Germans and they also knew they were working for the underground," explains Jan.

"They were taken to a camp in Holland and then deported to Germany. - Nicolas was near Buchenwald but we didn't know where my father was. I witnessed my father being taken away and it was a terrible ordeal. My mother stood up to it well because she was a very brave woman who stood up to the Germans and she had this tremendous faith that he would come back. He did come home but he was a broken man and his back was like a map from the beatings. He never overcame what had happened and when he died at 63 of cancer the surgeon reckoned it had started when he's been taken by the Germans.

"Nicolas actually did very well because he told the SS a lie - he told them he was the best chef in Holland and had trained to Cordon Bleu standard because he thought he'd be alright if he was near food. Nicolas came back in sound mind and healthy body and carrying a whole bundle of food coupons."

Jan's home was a safe house for the resistance and he often came home from school to find another refugee in hiding.

"My mother went about her resistance work very quietly," explains Jan. "She housed about eight people at a time and if anyone came to the door they'd hide under the floorboards.

"I remember in 1944 when I was eight a man rang the doorbell in the middle of the night. He'd been on a ship waiting to be transported to Buchenwald and had escaped. He'd known our address was safe and arrived wearing one clog and one shoe because that was all he could find to wear. He said the SS was after him and my mother told him it would be dangerous to take him in if that was the case. She took him in anyway but first she had to treat the scabies that covered him from head to toe so that the others wouldn't catch it. She'd just finished that when my aunt appeared to tell us the SS was in the street and they were turning over every house, looking everywhere. My mother told me to go on my knees and pray hard that we'd be safe and she did the same. That was one of the miracles that will stay with me all my days because we could hear the shouting and screaming in the street but they never touched our front door. She told me afterwards that she'd prayed for us to be in shelter and for nothing to overcome us.

"I once watched as a German soldier held a gun to my mother's head trying to get her to talk but she was always in control. She was a strong woman and people always felt protected when they were with her."

As the Allies worked their way through Holland the fighting was fierce and Jan witnessed a lot of fighting.

"I remember a big battle at the back of our house," he says. "The Germans were on one side of the road and the Allies on the other and they were shooting at each other. Our village was in the thick of Operation Market Garden but my mother had a premonition that there was going to be trouble and got everyone out of the house. We got everyone out in time but when I went back a few days later the house had been flattened. It was then that I made a promise to God that after this hell I would help people all my life."

It was while he was out searching and bartering for food that the young Jan first discovered healing herbs.

"I used to go round the farms trying to get milk and there was an Catholic monastery nearby," says Jan. "They had a herb garden and one old monk took me under his wing and told me all about the herbs and I still feel that monk has come with me through life."

Arnhem Oosterbeek was freed on April 17, 1945 and Jan remembers vividly when the Canadian and Scottish troops arrived.

"At the time the soldiers had no idea what it meant to us that they were there," he explains. "We went completely ballistic, hysterical almost with the relief that we were saved. I remember a Scottish fellow gave me a piece of chocolate which I took home to my mother because we'd learned that food from the Germans was often poisoned. My mother took it and broke it in two, telling me to taste and savour it. I was nine and I'd never had chocolate before and I'd never tasted anything so good in my life. I made up my mind there and then that I would enjoy chocolate all my life because I associated it with our freedom."

Another incident that affected his life was the shooting down of an RAF bomber over the village.

"In 1943 a bomber came over with six airmen but it was shot down and fell like a blazing furnace into the river," recalls Jan. "All six crew died and I vividly remember the bodies being dredged. Once they'd been buried I was asked by my school to look after the navigator's grave. His name was Charlie Young and he was from Edinburgh."

Charlie's family visited Jan and invited him to visit them in Edinburgh, an offer he took up in 1958, after graduating from university.

"I came to Scotland purely for a visit but it changed my life," says Jan.

"I popped into a flower shop and as I was leaving I had a premonition that something drastic was about to change in my life - I even had goose pimples! The next night I was invited to supper and I sat opposite the lady who was to become my wife.

"The war changed my life in so many ways," adds Jan. "I think I have a great empathy with people because of the war because I saw tremendous suffering and it urged me to help others but I probably owe my life to the veterans who cam to free my country."