80 WWII soldiers from Colorado are buried in a Dutch cemetery. One man is on a mission to preserve their legacy
DENVER — The marble walls at the entrance of the Netherlands American Cemetery are covered in the names of thousands of soldiers whose bodies were never found during World War II. Adrian Charbonnet cried the first time he read the names. A Dutch family next to him thought he might be related to one of the soldiers on the wall, but Charbonnet never served in the military, nor did his father; his relatives who did fight in WWII survived the war.
The realization that it could have easily been him on that wall if he were born in a different time moved him to tears.
“You can see a little bit of yourself in all of those names,” said Charbonnet.
Behind him, the still pond reflected a white obelisk overlooking the memorial grounds. When he saw the more than 8,000 white headstones lining the green field at the cemetery, he cried again, realizing just how much destruction and death had been caused not even a century ago.
After that experience, Charbonnet came back home to Colorado and started a project called Duty of Memory, which seeks to bring awareness to the Dutch cemetery and its traditions, and also to preserve the memories of the war, specifically for the 80 Coloradan soldiers buried there.
Eight months after he visited the cemetery, Charbonnet honored the Coloradan soldiers at the Colorado State Capitol in an exhibit that runs through Friday.
Charbonnet spent about $4,000 on supplies and printing. All around the Capitol foyer and the staircase rotunda, Charbonnet set up stands, sweating and wet from the cold Monday morning rain, before slipping into a suit jacket. It didn’t take long before visitors started to browse through the exhibit, including an impromptu appearance from Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
“This project is a powerful reminder that service and sacrifice are never forgotten, and we hope to help find more descendants here in Colorado so these families across the ocean can be connected,” Polis wrote on social media.
Outside of the town of Margraten in southern Netherlands, Dutch residents continue to care for the graves through an adoption program dating back to the founding of the cemetery.
“It’s not just about placing flowers and going to the cemetery,” said Charbonnet. “It is very much about keeping that soldier's memory alive.”
There is an effort to facilitate a connection between the Dutch gravesite adopters and the descendants of the soldiers. Charbonnet teamed up with Forever Promise, which itself is a collaboration between the Dutch adoption program and the Monuments Men and Women Foundation.
“There are 8,000 adopters that aren't in contact with the relatives of the boy that they're the adopter of, and that's what we wanted to change,” said Robert Edsel, founder of The Forever Promise and author of “The Monuments Men,” which George Clooney adapted into a feature film.
The foundation created a database that contains the names of the just over 10,000 soldiers either buried or honored at the cemetery and provides information such as birthplace, rank, and family history. Some of the names are identified with a badge stating that a connection was made between families and Dutch adopters. Of the 80 Coloradans, only 14 have a recorded connection, according to the database.
Just outside the Colorado Capitol stands a memorial statue for Major General Maurice Rose, one of the 80 Coloradans buried in the Netherlands.
Rose was the highest-ranking soldier killed in action in WWII and the highest-ranking Jewish general in the U.S. Army, according to Paul Shamon, co-founder of the Rose Monument Foundation, which commissioned the statue.
“They were going to move him to Arlington, and his wife changed her mind at the last minute and said, ‘I think he would have wanted to remain with his men,’” said Shamon.
General Rose died in Germany, but Americans were not buried there during the time of war, so his remains were brought to the Netherlands Cemetery.
“It’s the only American cemetery in the Netherlands, so they gathered all the Americans from the region and brought them here,” said Ton Hermes, chairman of the cemetery. He said at one point, there were over 18,000 buried soldiers, but after the war, families contacted the cemetery, and about 10,000 bodies were shipped back to the US.
“They all had to be disinterred to get them out of the ground. So for the people in Margaret and Lindbergh, it was terrible because of the smell of all the bodies,” said Hermes. It was shortly after this that the Dutch residents began adopting the graves and taking care of them. By 1946, all the graves were adopted.
“It doesn't matter if the soldier is [African-American] or Jewish or female or lieutenant or soldier, they are randomly buried in Margraten,” said Hermes. “The general is lying next to a private.”
Some graves remain in the family, passed down through generations. When there is no one to inherit the grave, the cemetery chooses someone from the waiting list, which at one point had about 1,000 people.
While the adoption program has been incredibly successful, the likelihood of finding the family of the soldier dwindles with each passing year.
“We’ve dealt with enough elderly WWII veterans over the years, and we just have a healthy respect for how fragile life can be as people get older,” said Edsel. He fears that those connections won’t be made, and thus, family legacies will be left forgotten to time. But he is thankful that there are people like Charbonnet who can help carry some of the efforts.
“I wish more Americans would do it. We're supportive of anybody who wants to work with us to help find relatives,” said Edsel. “Our goal is to finish what the Dutch started 81 years ago.”
Charbonnet shares similar fears: as the veterans of World War II pass on, so too could the pain — and lessons — from the war. After the exhibit at the Capitol is over, he plans on traveling with it throughout the state.
“My great-grandfather was in WWI, lost his leg. Uncle Ernie was in WWII, came back, and worked for NASA. My father was not in a war; I was not in a war. I don't know if that's the same for my youngest brother,” said Charbonnet.
“Responsibility isn't the term I'd ever use. It was more like, ‘I'll raise my hand.’ A kind of duty of memory of how to preserve what my grandparents' generation, my great grandparents' generation, went through, so that our children's generation doesn't have to go through it.”
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