Waalsdorpervlakte
The Waalsdorpervlakte ( German Waalsdorper Senke ) is a depression in the dune area of the Meijendel nature reserve north of The Hague . During the Second World War , over 250 people were shot here by members of the German occupation . The Waalsdorpervlakte is one of the most important memorials of the Second World War in the Netherlands .
The place
The area was originally part of an extensive beach area and was given its current appearance as a dune landscape in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries through sand drifts. Semi- nomads from the late Bronze Age were the first residents to leave traces found by archaeologists . From Roman times and later in the Middle Ages, there were permanent settlements and agriculture in the valley. From the 18th century the Waalsdorpervlakte was used as a military training area.
The execution site
During the Second World War and the occupation by the Wehrmacht , the Waalsdorpervlakte served the Germans as a place of execution for Dutch resistance fighters . More than 250 resisters - the exact number is unknown - who were in the nearby Oranjehotel prison were executed here. The first, Ernst Cahn, alleged leader of the February strike , was executed on March 3, 1941 . Some executions were carried out in retaliation; other victims belonged to resistance groups such as De Geuzen , the Communist Partij van Nederland (CPN), the Ordedienst and the Oranjegarde or were employees of the underground newspapers Trouw and Vrij Nederland . On March 8, 1945 alone, 38 arbitrarily selected prisoners from the Oranjehotel prison were murdered here in retaliation after an attack on the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Hanns Albin Rauter . The bodies of those executed were also buried in the dunes; After the war ended, the remains were recovered, but not all of the dead had been found by 2009.
After the war, well-known Dutch collaborators and German war criminals were executed in the same location , such as Nazi propagandist Max Blokzijl on March 16, 1946 , Anton Mussert , leader of the NSB on May 7, 1946 , and Hanns Rauter on March 25, 1949 . On June 26, 1950, Antonius van der Waals was shot here as a security agent responsible for at least 83 victims. On March 21, 1952, two other war criminals, the German Artur Albrecht and the Dutch Andries Pieters , were executed in Waalsdorpervlakte ; these were the last executions of the death penalty in the Netherlands.
Place of memory
Today there is a memorial on Waalsdorpervlakte . As early as May 3, 1945, two days before the final surrender of the Germans in the Netherlands, some survivors of the resistance had erected four wooden crosses in memory of the dead, and another ( called Rauterkruis ) at the place where on March 8, 1945 the prisoners were executed in retaliation for the attack on Rauter. The next day, the first memorial service took place in the form of a silent march, attended by more than 30,000 people and broadcast on the radio.
At the end of the 1940s, the monument was expanded in the form of a wall with the following inscription:
Here vele landgenoten brought het offer van hun leven voor uw vrijheid. Betreed deze plaats met gepaste eerbied.
“ Here many compatriots sacrificed their lives for your freedom. Enter this place with due reverence. "
On April 30, 1959, a large Bourdon bell was erected on Waalsdorpervlakte , a gift from the citizens of The Hague to the municipality; Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy gave the speech at the inauguration . On the bell there is an inscription with a text by the justice professor Rudolph Cleveringa , who himself was imprisoned in the Oranjehotel and later in the Herzogenbusch concentration camp . Every year on May 4th, the national day of mourning ( Nationale Dodenherdenking ), a memorial service takes place there, during which the bell is rung. In 1980 the original wooden crosses were replaced by bronze ones; the five original crosses were brought to the Fries Verzetsmuseum in Leeuwarden and are on display there.
On 23 July 2014 the Dag van national rouw (national mourning), was between 15 and 15:55 in memory of the victims of the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine in the week before the Bourdonklok rung. They formed the largest group of Dutch war victims since World War II .
In 2018, there was a scandal before the memorial service on May 4th: The Erepeloton Waalsdorp Foundation had decided that obese people should not take part in the honor guard during the celebration. Since the celebration will be broadcast on television, it does not make a good impression if "buttons literally burst from the uniforms". After numerous protests against this “bizarre decision” - according to the Mayor of The Hague Pauline Krikke - it was withdrawn.
Web links
- Official website (Dutch)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erepeloton Waalsdorp. In: erepeloton.nl. Retrieved July 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Opgraving van de gefusilleerden op de Waalsdorpervlakte 1940 - 1945. Erepeloton Waalsdorp, accessed on 20 August 2017 (Dutch).
- ↑ The Hague, Waalsdorpervlakte. (No longer available online.) Nationaal Comitée 4 en 5 mei, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved September 28, 2014 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Yuri Visser: De Waalsdorpervlakte, een bijzondere herdenkingsplaats. Historiek, May 4, 2014, accessed September 28, 2014 (Dutch).
- ↑ Bourdonklok op geluid Waalsdorpervlakte. omroepwest.nl, July 23, 2014, accessed September 28, 2014 (Dutch).
- ↑ Daniel Boffey: 'It does not look good': Dutch military parade bans portly participants. In: theguardian.com. April 9, 2018, accessed November 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Julia Broos: Bestuur zwicht: Dikkerds tóch welkom in erewacht op 4 mei. In: ad.nl. April 8, 2018, accessed November 18, 2018 (Dutch).
Coordinates: 52 ° 6 ′ 56.2 " N , 4 ° 20 ′ 12.4" E