This weekend, Dutch officials will be in Venice to honor a brave World War II prisoner of war.

The military hero died more than 30 years ago, but a Sarasota County woman never gave up her quest to have him recognized.

For roughly 20 years, Nancy Leunissen performed the same ritual. At her home in Osprey, she sat on her computer and surfed through thousands of archived news reels, and one day, she found it.

“There he is!“ she exclaimed, as she pointed at a dangerously thin man in an old grainy film.

It was her father, when he was a young prisoner of war.

“I kept watching it and watching it and I said, ‘That’s my dad!’“ she said.

Her father, Charles Leunissen, was born in Indonesia and joined the Dutch Navy during World War II.

He was later captured by the Japanese and for three years, he was tortured in a POW camp.

“They actually took out all his teeth with pliers,” she said. “He never told us, he never told any of us. We never found out about this until after he died.“

“I think like many in his generation, they kept these things within and they didn’t share them,” said her brother, Marc Leunissen.

He later escaped, finished his service, emigrated to the US, and died in 1988. Eventually his records were lost and the Dutch government never formally recognized him for his time as a POW. 

Nancy says her father was happy to leave his horrible experience behind him.

“He always looked at the positive, he never looked at the negative. That’s what he told us, even when times were bad,” she recalled.

But Nancy was determined to get the recognition he rightly deserved.

After finding the video, she reached out to historians and officials at the Dutch embassy for help. 

Finally, this Sunday, a contingent of Dutch officials will posthumously present him with a medal.

For Nancy, it’s a chance to finally get to know her father and preserve his memory.

“It’s a story that should not be forgotten. It’s not taught in school anymore and people just don’t even realize. Even people my age, they don’t realize what happened there, and I want that story to be out there,” she said.

The Dutch officials will present the Mobilisation War Cross to the family at the American Legion at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

‘I’m so proud of him, I just can’t believe it,“ she said.

Nancy is not finished. Her uncle was a POW and her grandfather died after he was captured by the Japanese, so she’s getting them recognized too.