'Give Every Stone a Story': over 500 to go for the Holten Canadian cemetery

“Give every stone a story”. This was our ambition when the information Center Canadian Cemetery was opened eight years ago. The volunteers of the research team, together with a few thousand pupils from the provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel, are well on their way now. We now know the stories of over 800 soldiers. The question remains: will all of the other life-stories ever be told? Time is short.

The Holten Canadian cemetery has 1394 graves. In every grave lies a person who was loved. A person who was more than the fallen soldier; someone who had a life before the war. We think it is important to tell that story. It gives a face to the sheer numbers. Between half September 1944 and May 1945 about 13.000 soldiers of the allied forces lost their lives during fights in the Netherlands, each with a unique story of their own. Henk Vincent makes it clear from the start: ”We will not be able to retrieve and tell all of the 500 or so remaining stories”.

Archives

Henk Vincent is one of the founders of the Information Center Canadian Cemetery in Holten, and an active member of their research team. His conclusions are not solely based on the fact that there are thirteen anonymous graves on the field of honour.”Our research was brought to a peak in 2014/15. The then Canadian Pm , Mr. Stephen Harper, came to Holten with a huge box full of information about the Canadian servicemen of the Second World War. When, only a short time later, the Canadian government also opened a number of archives on-line, our research was accelerated once more. “We have now processed most of the available information. It is becoming increasingly difficult to retrieve new stories, but we will keep on trying’’, Vincent says.

1394 graves in Holten

The three large Canadian fields of honour in the Netherlands hopeto bundle the stories of all the fallen soldiers in one on-line database. Accessible for the public and to be completed by the public in Holland, and even more so, in Canada. The joint project was given the name Faces to Graves””, a face to each grave. Vincent, with a smile on his face: “Groesbeek and Bergen op Zoom sort of followed the lead of Holten. We have been at it the longest and have gained the necessary experience. In Groesbeek and Bergen op Zoom they will turn it into a school project, just like we did”.

By now, thousands of pupis from towns like Zutphen, Apeldoorn, Zwolle and from the Twente area have gone deeply into the life-stories of soldiers. With the help of war diaries and service-files it is not hard to find out where and when the men were born and how their careers went.

 

Peers

The work of some of these high school pupils results in the most wonderful school research projects, and can be part of our database right away. In other cases the result is more superficial. But Vincent has seen that every teen, without exception, finds this subject interesting material to work with. “The pupils who choose to make this into their school research project are indeed only a couple of years younger than the boys and young men that lie here. They are practically peers. In these cases such a personal story hits hard”.

Goosebumps

The memory of the unexpected meeting between himself and a younger brother of one of the fallen soldiers still gives him goose flesh. It was one of these moments when he knew, or rather, felt that this is what his work is all about.A man in his late seventies came here to the information desk and told us that his brother was supposed to lie here. When his older brother died in Europe, this man was a little boy of four or five years old. To make things even worse, their parental home was completely destroyed by fire in 1948; there was not a single bit of information about his brother left. By pressing one button I could show the man a photo of his brother’s face. He had never seen that face before.He became even more emotional when he got to see the telegram that informed the mother of her son’s death, his older brother. There and then he turned into his five-year-old self and started to cry.

The Holten Information Center Canadian Cemetery is on the eve of a major extension. In November the center will probably close its doors for the period of one month, to rearrange the present exhibition space. After this, we will start the building of an annex, with an experience room. The present office space will be converted into an experience center.

To make this experience even more forceful, we plan to animate some soldiers holographically, and thus engage the visitor in the stories. Then you can stand in their boots, so to speak. You won’t get it more true to life than that”.


Original text: https://www.destentor.nl/rijssen-holten/geef-elke-steen-een-verhaal-holten-heeft-op-canadese-begraafplaats-nog-ruim-500-te-gaan