In the United States, it is Memorial Day today, the day on which all soldiers killed in action are commemorated. A memorial is to be held on the Sunday before that at the American Cemetery in Margraten in Limburg (southern Netherlands). It was supposed to be a special event this year because the Netherlands celebrates 75 years of freedom, but that was canceled because of the corona measures. Now there was only very limited company on the vast field of white crosses. King Willem-Alexander was the first to lay a wreath.
The cemetery in Margraten has been in use since the autumn of 1944. Most of the 8301 American soldiers buried in the 26.5 ha cemetery, formerly arable lands, died during the liberation of Limburg, the Battle of the Bulge - which killed nearly 77,000 Americans - and during the battle in the Ruhr. The Americans did not want to bury their fallen on enemy territory and therefore received a piece of Dutch land on loan. Immediately after the war, the Limburgers wanted to give something back to their liberators. This led to the adoption project with regular contact between the Dutch and American survivors.
The clay soil, which was swampy due to the wet weather, made construction difficult. The gravediggers, besides German prisoners of war, mainly consisted of black soldiers, for whom there was no place in combat parts at the time. They had the ungrateful task of burying their white comrades, only to be confronted with racial segregation again when they returned home.
There was an almost endless stream of fresh corpses, sometimes as much as five hundred a day. At the peak, after the end of the war, nearly 18000 bodies were buried, including Germans, who would later be moved to the German military cemetery in Ysselsteyn.
In 1948, about ten thousand bodies were repatriated. Ultimately, 8301 Americans would be buried there permanently. One grave is empty nowadays, because a body was returned to the US in 2001. Because two unidentified Americans are buried in one grave, there are nevertheless as many graves as there are bodies in the cemetery.
In the 1950s, the cemetery was definitively decorated and each grave was given a white marble cross or Star of David. During this period, the memorials, containing a chapel, and the memorial wall, with the names of about 1700 missing, also rose.
To dispel a common misunderstanding: the cemetery is not an American territory. The Americans have received the area out of respect and as a tribute on "perpetual loan.".
The cemetery is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except December 25 and January 1. The sea of white crosses and the realization that the fallen have been part of the cradle of our freedom, leaves an indelible impression on many visitors.
" now! :lol: I guess there's no point in pitching that to LEGOs marketing department...
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