In a small village in the Netherlands, rows of white headstones mark the burial place of 1,355 Canadians killed during the Second World War. About 60 of the men are from Saskatchewan.

A volunteer at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery, where the men are buried, is now looking for the public's help to find out more about them.

Jan Braakman is looking for relatives of the soldiers, including those from the Prairies, to help piece together their stories.

"The relatives are getting old as well, and this might be the last chance we have to speak to them," Braakman said in an interview with CBC Radio's The Afternoon Edition.

According to Braakman, most of the soldiers buried at the cemetery fought in the eastern part of the Netherlands or the northern part of Germany between March and May 1945.

Canadian soldiers make up the vast majority of the 1,394 soldiers in the cemetery, along with 36 British soldiers, two Australians and one Belgian.

'These men did so much for our freedom'

Braakman, who is also a journalist and author, said the campaign to find out more about the soldiers started when a 91-year-old from Quebec helped provide information about one of their relatives, who is buried at the cemetery.

He said he is driven to learn about their lives because of their sacrifice and his own losses because of the war.

"These men did so much for our freedom and the least that I can do is keeping their memories alive," said Braakman.

His grandfather died in a concentration camp in Germany. Braakman said his grandmother was killed on the day before her village was liberated by Canadian soldiers.

A volunteer in the Netherlands is appealing to Canadian families to contact him with more information about the men buried in the Holten cemetery. (Submitted by Jan Braakman)

"The loss of two relatives who I never knew had a large impact on my family, so that's more a driver or a trigger to be interested in what happened during the war and what these people from overseas did for us," he said.

One of the Saskatchewan soldiers in Holten cemetery is Harrie Hekelaar, who came from Meskanaw, a small community north of Humboldt. He was originally buried in Bissendorf, Germany after he died in 1945.

Two years earlier he had married his wife, Frances Tanfield, in England. After his death, she wrote to authorities to ask if he could be moved and buried in Holten.

Being of Dutch origin, Hekelaar's parents were in the Netherlands.

"If this could be done for me it would bring me a little happiness in return for all the sorrow I had," wrote his widow.

She visited Saskatchewan, although the Department of Mines and Resources told her that Meskanaw "is a very small village in the bush country and that living conditions will be more or less of a primitive nature."

Saskatchewan soldier Harrie Hekelaar died in Germany, but was buried in the Netherlands after his English widow requested it. (Submitted by Jan Braakman)

But Braakman is hoping to find out more about some of the other soldiers buried along with Hekelaar in Holten. He asks anyone with information about any of the Canadian soldiers there to contact him through his website.

A full list of the Canadian soldiers buried at Holten, and where they were originally from, can be viewed here.

Full list of Saskatchewan soldiers buried at Holten: