Book about 80 years of commemoration: ‘Remembering – Zeist – Celebrating’

May 8, 2024 at 4:40 PM

Commemorations

ZEIST He participated in a large number of commemorations of the dead and celebrations of the liberation in an active role. As a committed Zeister resident and as a board member and former chairman of the 4 and 5 May committee in Zeist, Gerard van Voorden is the ideal person to compile an encyclopedia of almost 80 years of commemoration and celebration. On the day of the 79th National Remembrance Day, he presented the sturdy book to two mayors of Zeist: current mayor Joyce Langenacker and her predecessor Koos Janssen.

Later that day, Mayor Langenacker would give the Remembrance Day speech for the first time in Zeist, Koos Janssen has done so many times in the same place. He was the first, according to the book, to speak his words at the monument for the fallen of sculptor Dirk J. Wolbers, in the Walkart Park. That was in 2006, in the first year that Janssen was mayor of Zeist. Until then, there had been a silent procession to the monument for years, led by the Jonathan drum fanfare, and a wreath laying ceremony. Then everyone went to church, usually the church of the Moravian Church, for a meeting with music and speeches, which started with two minutes of silence.

The book has become “an almanac about remembering and celebrating in Zeist,” says the author. Van Voorden brought together a large number of speeches that were given on Remembrance Day. “The special thing lies not only in the fact that hardly one action and no speech is left unmentioned, but above all it provides insight into how the residents of Zeist have become increasingly aware over the years of what ‘peace and freedom’ means. people did, do and continue to do”.

The commemoration started in Zeist on June 29, 1945, Prince Bernard’s birthday, as can be seen from ‘Remembering – Zeist – Celebrating’. Even then in the Walkart Park, near a simple wooden cross. From 1946 onwards it was commemorated on May 4. That year, money was raised for the current monument to the fallen, which was not unveiled until 1951. Zeist now has almost twenty monuments that commemorate the suffering and victims of the Second World War. The book describes them and the author also pays attention to the many memorial stones that have been placed in recent years at places where special events took place during the war.