Victims Rademakersbroek

In the early morning of March 2, 1945, 46 people were shot.

Apart from the victims killed by a bombardment, deportation or plane crash, 46 innocent people were shot at the Rademakersbroek in a corn field behind the Kraaijenbrink farm  towards the end of the war. Because the resistance group gathering together in the Bark (an old farm in the outskirts of de Heurne) executed  four German soldiers, (www.liberationroute.com/nl/pois/revenge-sparks-mass-execution) the occupiers took reprisal measures.

Out of the prison of Doetinchem 46 random prisoners were awakened to be transported to the Rademakersbroek (a street in the outskirts of Varsseveld) The youngest victim was 18 years old, the eldest 65 years old. Among them leaders of the Gelderland resistance. At 8 o’clock that morning the firing squad fires. The bodies were buried in a mass grave in Varsseveld, some time later. Because these men got a little note in the pockets of their jacket while leaving the prison to show their identity, the bodies later were re-cased to be buried in the place they lived before. Some are buried on the Cemetery of Honour in Loenen.

Victims Rademakersbroek