Exactly 75 years after the German occupier had blown up the dike in two places, a memorial site was opened in the Wieringermeer for flooding the polder. An ascent has been made to ‘the hole in the dike’, the place where the Germans introduced the explosives.
The memorial was a fervent wish of Jef Kerckhoffs, who died last January. As a young boy, he witnessed the disaster in the Wieringermeer. “They had to flee. My mother was very pregnant at the time,” says his daughter Petra de Bruijckere NH News.
The Wieringermeer was then still a relatively new polder, drained fifteen years earlier. The residents felt like pioneers. But the Germans didn’t care about that. They blew up the dike and let the water pour in. Everything to prevent the Allies from using the flat polder as a landing site for paratroopers.
One had to see great disaster
The consequences were enormous, you can read on the liberation website of the NOS. 21,000 hectares of farmland were lost, along with 500 farms and three villages with a total population of 6,000.
Jef Kerckhoffs never let go of history. Years later, when he joined the Historisch Genootschap Wieringermeer, he suggested making a memorial: “He thought this should not be lost,” says his son Mark Kerckhoffs at the new vantage point on the dike. “This great disaster in the Wieringermeer had to be seen.”
A path now gradually ascends, up the old dike, to the point where the hole was made. Halfway through the route there are information boards about the nature reserve that has been created. There is a bird’s-eye view point at the location of the hole itself.
Tribute to pioneers
“Unfortunately, due to the corona crisis, we are not able to receive many people on site,” said Alderman Theo Meskers. “But the monument is there, the place of remembrance has been set up. And I invite everyone who has something to do with it to grab the bike or the car and visit it.”
Kerckhoffs’ daughter Petra says her father would consider it a tribute to the pioneers. “After all, they had built up the Wieringermeer. And that was all gone in one go.” She is convinced that her father “would have been very proud” of the end result. “I think it has become very beautiful.”
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