The Netherlands / Cemetery
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Fifteen Allied pilots and fifteen resistance causalities found their final resting place at the Noorderbegraafplaats in Leeuwarden. Nearly 450 fallen German soldiers were also buried there during World War II. Their remains were transferred to the German war cemetery Ysselsteyn in 1958.
Shortly after the start of the occupation, the Noorderbegraafplaats on Leeuwarder Schapendijkje was put into use as a military field of honour. The first burial of German war dead took place on 9 August 1940. At the time of liberation, the Ehrenfriedhof cemetery held nearly 450 German soldiers, who were collectively transferred to the Kriegsgräberstätte Ysselsteyn near Venray in 1958.
The number of Allied soldiers given a final resting place in the cemetery from July 1941 onwards is much smaller. Today, thirteen Englishmen and two New Zealanders are buried under a row of distinctive white headstones in row 23 of the 2nd section. Originally, there were more Allied war graves. Two Americans and one Canadian were reburied at Margraten and Holten war cemeteries after the liberation.
In all the Allied war graves still present, aircraft crew members are buried. Of them, only David Kay Foster and Robert Stanley Ling were killed in the municipality of Leeuwarden. Their Mosquito fighter-bomber crashed at the airfield on 28 May 1944 after being shelled by anti-aircraft guns. The remaining airmen ended up in the Noorderbegraafplaats for a different reason. Albert Hayes, Len Townrow and Michael John Boyle were all transferred to Boniface Hospital badly injured and died there despite the good care of the German medical staff.
Years of investigation by the Missing Airmen Memorial Foundation (SMAMF) in collaboration with the Royal Air Force Salvage Service revealed the identities of the six fallen in the first grave. It is the crew of Wellington R1397. The aircraft crashed near Boazum on 25 July 1941 after an air raid on Emden and was the first aircraft to crash on the Frisian mainland. In 2015, two new headstones bearing the names of the crew were consecrated by an army priest in the presence of relatives. The old, unnamed, stone is still on display at the Fries Verzetsmuseum (Frisian Resistance museum).
Fifteen resistance fighters are also buried in the Noorderbegraafplaats, in a specially designated field of honour. The headstone reads:
"Fallen yn ‘e striid tsjin ûnrjocht en slavernij - dat wy yn frede foar rjocht en frijdom weitsje"
"Fallen in the fight against injustice and slavery, so that we may guard justice and freedom in peace."
Most notable are the three side-by-side monuments to brothers Mark, Klaas and Hyltje Wierda, who were shot near Dronrijp on 11 April 1945, a few days before the liberation.
The war graves at the Noorderbegraafplaats have been adopted by five Leeuwarden schools, which organise a commemoration every year on 15 April.
There is also a tragic war story behind the gravestones of the Jewish Suskind family (grave 03/-/24 /04). Secondary school teacher Willy Suskind took his own life, together with his wife and son, one day after the German invasion of the Netherlands.
At the very back of the cemetery, a special grave monument also recalls a war tragedy. The statue of a grieving woman is placed on the grave of Johanna Wilhelmina te Winkel and her infant son Hans, both victims of stray bombs on Julianastraat in 1942 (grave 04/1b/10).