We’ll be visiting the Netherlands soon.
One of the places on our must-visit list is the World War II Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands, just a few miles from the German border.
It is one of the many cemeteries in Europe and one of 25 cemeteries abroad where tens of thousands of Americans killed in World Wars I and II have their final resting place.
At just this one cemetery, 8,301 American heroes rest, their graves marked by long, silent curves of white marble crosses and Star of David headstones.
The cemetery is located in an area rich in history:
…near the famous Cologne-Boulogne highway built by the Romans and used by Caesar during his campaign in that area. The highway was also used by Charlemagne, Charles V, Napoleon, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. In May 1940 Hitler’s legions advanced over the route of the old Roman highway, overwhelming the Low Countries. In September 1944, German troops once more used the highway for their withdrawal from the countries occupied for four years.
As we observe Memorial Day in our country, the Dutch people also honor those Americans who died to liberate their country and Europe during World War II.
They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II.
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On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own.
The Post adds that each grave at the Margraten cemetery has been adopted by a Dutch, Belgian or German family, as well as “local schools, companies and military organizations,” and that more than 100 people are on the waiting list to adopt a grave.
Please read here Ian Shapira’s powerful story on the nearby (Margraten) battles at the end of World War II where thousands of Americans died. Read how the U.S. military picked a fruit orchard just outside Margraten to bury its fallen; how “[o]n the first day of digging, the sight of so many bodies made the men in the 611th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company ill;” how “[b]etween late 1944 and spring 1945, up to 500 bodies arrived each day, so many that the mayor went door to door asking villagers for help with the digging;” how “[r]ight from the start, Margraten embraced the Americans” and much more.
During the ceremony in Margraten on Sunday, attended by the Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, American Arthur Chotin, 70, “who had come from Annapolis, Md., to finally meet the couple caring for his father’s resting place,” spoke to the crowd gathered there.
Some of his words:
“Door het maken van deze doden deel van uw familie,” Chotin said in Dutch, before translating. “By making these dead part of your family, you have become part of our family. You have created a bond between us that will never be broken. So, from this day forward, from now until the end of time, hartelijk bedankt, a heartfelt thank you.”
I would like to add in my broken Dutch: Ook van mij, gepensioneerd van de Amerikaanse dienst, heel hartelijk bedankt.
I have written before how tremendously appreciative Europeans are for the sacrifices American troops made for them and how almost every little town where Americans served or died has a memorial or monument in their honor.
For more information on American military cemeteries and monuments abroad, please visit the American Battlefield Monuments Commission web site here.
Lead photo: The World War II Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands. Courtesy the American Battlefield Monuments Commission.
