During his first Holy Mass in Reuver, the pastor preached: “There is only one Führer, and that is Christ.” These words cost him dearly. He was betrayed, deported by the Germans to the Dachau concentration camp, and murdered on September 14, 1942, in the euthanasia center/NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim (Austria).

On August 30, 1944, resistance fighters Ben Verstappen, Hubert Ummels, and Rinus Pereira were shot dead in Belfeld by the German Sicherheitsdienst. They were part of a fighting squad that operated from a hideout in Belfeld and provided shelter to people in hiding.

Cor Janssen, not a resistance fighter himself, was also shot dead in Beesel on October 7, 1944. He refused to provide information about others to the Sicherheitsdienst.

Henk Gommans was shot dead in Belfeld on the same day. He was not a member of the fighting squad, but performed other tasks for the resistance.

The monument for these war victims was maintained by the local community. In 1957, it was renovated by the War Graves Foundation, after which the foundation permanently took over the monument in August 1984. The existing grave monument was demolished and replaced by the individual white gravestones. The War Graves Foundation has been responsible for the maintenance of the graves ever since.