This is a story about a little boy, his memories of a terrible war and his favorite kind of cookie, the Dutch Stroope Waffle.

Johann Bahlmann grew up as the youngest of six boys in Holland during World War II. Near the end of the war, during the winter of 1944-45, his parents, his next oldest brother, Wim, and 5-year-old Johann were near starvation at the family home in Rotterdam.

Two more brothers, Dirk and Chris, were in German concentration camps. Another was in hiding and the other was a cable splicer, a skill useful to the German military using the city’s port at the time.

Johann, nicknamed Jopie, started walking with his mother and brother Wim from their home to a relative’s farm in the north near Groningen.

“We walked for 14 days, begging for food from farmers along the way,” said Bahlmann, who now lives in Greenbank with his wife Angela.

“Sometimes they would say, ‘No we don’t have enough to share,’ other times they would look at me — I was pretty small then — and give us a little food. That was enough to keep us alive.”

Bahlmann recalls a reunion along the way with brother Dirk, who had been imprisoned in a concentration camp since 1942.

“Somehow he escaped, and was looking for us. He described us to farmers until he found out which way we were traveling,” Bahlmann said.

“We were so happy to see him, we hadn’t seen him for two years.”

It was quite a reunion, but very brief, because Dirk had to remain in hiding.

“I’ll never forget saying goodbye to him again,” Bahlmann remembered with emotion. “He just walked off into the fields, disappearing literally into the fog.”

The trio continued on to their relative’s farm and stayed until the end of the war. The Bahlmann family was reunited after the war in August 1945 at the family home.

Happier times began for the family after the war, and some of Bahlmann’s fondest memories are of the open air markets with vendors selling fruits, vegetables and his favorite treat, Dutch waffle cookies.

“Things were tough then, money was tight,” he said. As a boy, unable to afford the cookies, called stroope wafels, he settled for production leftovers, or snippers.

“I managed to have a few pennies of pocket money from time to time, and when I did I headed to the market for snippers. I couldn’t afford the cookie itself, none of us could, but the bakers bagged the snippers, selling them for a few cents.”

The “Stroopwafel” is an old Dutch tradition dating back to the 1800s. They were made with specially designed baking irons over an open fire. “Stroop” means syrup. After the cookie is heated, it is sliced into two thin layers and warm, caramel syrup is dribbled onto one layer before they are rejoined as one cookie. To savor properly, a stroope is placed like a lid on top of a coffee or tea cup, to warm up before eating.

Bahlmann has brought this taste of Holland, this pleasant childhood memory to Whidbey Island.

During a visit to Holland he bought an original “stroope wafel” iron that had been modernized and converted to gas. Then he and his family started experimenting with recipes.

“I was very fortunate to get help from people in Holland,” he said. “We tried several recipes before choosing one. During parties we served a variety of stroope to our guests and had them choose the one they liked best.”

By 1998, he had perfected a recipe. With his daughter Andrea — who is one of one the Bahlmann’s six children, he went into the cookie business. The “Jopie Stroopie” was a reality.

The Jopie Stroopie is actually made in Ontario, Canada, by a Dutch baker who uses the open fire method with a wheat flour milled in Canada that closely resembles the type used in Holland.

This year the Jopie Stroopie is available in several locations. Andrea Bahlmann recently signed a contract to distribute the Jopie Stroopie at the Southcenter and Spokane Nordstrom stores and Tully’s Coffee Shops. On Whidbey it is available at the Lighthouse Cafe in Freeland.

However, Bahlmann hopes to fire up his original iron and make Jopie Stroopies on site at the South Whidbey farmer’s markets.

“I want to make them fresh and available like they were when I was a child,” he said.

For more information about Jopie Stroopies, call 678-0839 or e-mail jbahlmann@coupeville.net.