8. German paratrooper graves between the Zanddijk and the Tweede Tol

A photograph of the same German paratrooper graves as in the previous photo’s. The names on the two crosses on the left are visible. On the far left lies Gefreiter Karl Kunz, who was killed on 11 May 1940 as part of the Ersatzkompanie Moll. To his right lies Jäger August Braun of the 4th Company, FJR 1. He was killed immediately upon landing by Dutch fire.¹

The graves were created on Sunday, 12 May 1940, according to the testimony of Lenie de Jong, who lived at the Berkenhof farm during those May days.

She writes about this:
“On that same day we saw a few flat farm wagons passing by on the dike, carrying several bodies of German soldiers. The wagons came from the direction of the Schenkeldijk and travelled westward, pulled by two horses. It turned out that these dead Germans were being buried on a piece of land belonging to my father, which we called ‘de Kes’—a plot that had probably once been a terp, and on which a very old house had stood a few years earlier before my father demolished it. Apparently, the Germans considered this elevated piece of land a suitable burial site and gave their fallen a temporary resting place there. We believe that the remains were exhumed again after about six weeks, and during that time each grave had a cross (with a name and date of birth + date of death).”

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