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Dutch War Graves General Cemetery Gramsbergen

Gramsbergen General Cemetery contains a collective grave of four Dutch members of the resistance.
These are the graves of:

Jan Hulter, 06-04-1945
Samuel Siebe Mellema, 05-04-1945
Albert Jan Kappert, 05-04-1945
Roelof Zweers, 07-05-1945.

Jan Hulter and Samuel Siebe Mellema were involved in an attack on a Luftwaffe listening post near Ane on April 5, 1945. Mellema was fatally wounded, Hulter was seriously injured and died the next day.

Albert Jan Kappert was on his way to guard a bridge over the Vecht to prevent it from being blown up by the Germans to stop the approaching Canadians. On the way he is spotted by a German patrol. They find a stengun at Kappert, after which he is shot on the spot.

Roelof Zweers was killed in an explosion in Wijhe on Monday 7 May 1945, two days after the German capitulation. It soon became apparent that the explosion had taken place in a building on the site of the former floor tarpaulin factory on Enkweg, south of the built-up area. The offices of the Dutch National Armed Forces (N.B.S.) were located in this building. The rest of the building was used by the Military Authority and served, among other things, as a storage place for furniture.
Zweers and others were busy unloading a car with about 16 landmines, of which the ignitions had not been removed and which had not been packed in the appropriate boxes, but were loose on the car. Moments later, the explosion took place. What exactly happened is unknown.

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Source

  • Text: Fedor de Vries + Ron Manten
  • Photos: Arjan Vrieze (1, 2, 5), Cor Blok (3, 4)