Day 4

Today was more of a relaxed day, we actually only went to two places!

Our first stop was the Nationaal Bevrijdingsmuseum in Groesbeek. The drive there took us thru some beautiful landscapes; rolling hills and little pockets of forests (it’s hard to believe that this area was once full of fighting and death in WWII many years ago). Once inside the museum, we assumed that we would be walking around on a ‘self-guided’ tour of the place. We were right, but before that, we were treated to an introduction on what happened in the area of Groesbeek. An older man showed us a film about “Operation Marketplace”; he was young during the time of the war, but as he grew older he visited many of the museums and cemeteries in the area to familiarize him with all that had happened during the war. He now volunteers at the museum – teaching people about what went on during the war, specifically at Groesbeek. After listening to him and watching the video, we walked around the museum – and did a lot of reading and looking at artifacts from the war. The museum went thru the days leading up to, during and the re-building after the war. It was very, very interesting; I learned a ton that day. I think that it’s one thing to learn these things in school, to read about them, watch videos on them – but an entirely different thing to be on the land where it all took place. Make sure you take a peek at the website, take note of the parachute-looking building. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this (or any inside the museum of course, that wasn't allowed) - but the parachute building was the Rhine war Honorary Dome with Roll of Honor (containing the names of all Allied soldiers who died between D-Day and 8 May 1945).

The only picture taken at the museum!

After the museum, we went to the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery. We walked around the 2,331 Canadian graves and just over 250 others from various countries. We also walked thru the Groesbeen Memorial area, names listed on the walls that have no known graves. I haven’t seen anything like this cemetery – gravestones all the same size, colour and spacing apart from each other. All except 3 of them…in the middle of the cemetery are three gravestones much closer together than the rest. We all thought it was odd at the time – but it really wasn’t until now that I actually looked it up on the internet. Here is the link, I’m not sure really if it gives a clear answer, but it’s the most information I could find about it – if anyone else knows more about this, please fill us all in! Overall these museums and cemeteries were a reminder for us the freedom that we have now. It's so easy to take for granted the free country we live in, we need to remember that these things come at a cost - the men and women who fought for us all.

Here are the 3 headstones close together

After the cemetery we had to do some grocery shopping before heading back to de Verrekijker. Ok, so I did say we only did 2 things, but I suppose 3 now if you count the grocery store, which was quite fun as well. Picking out all this delicious “Holland food” to eat, trying our hardest to understand what was inside of some of these packages too (to me, if it looked good on the picture, it was good enough to eat!). Sunday would be a family day, Mom’s side of the family would be joining us for the afternoon and Dad’s sister) – so we had to get some soups and buns and other yummy things to eat for the family! But more about that tomorrow…