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The Fields of Margraten foundation was founded on 1 January 2009 as a follow-up of the oral history project initiated by the Historical Society of Margraten (SHOM).

The oral history project, also known as ‘Fields of Margraten’, was launched in March 2008 when a film was made of the people who had been eyewitnesses of the construction of the American cemetery in Margraten.

The project is part of the national War Heritage program of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. The ministry supports the initiative as there is a sense of urgency to record the stories of the last eyewitnesses of WW II.

Between March 2008 and May 2009, some forty interviews were held focusing on the question: ‘What was the impact of the construction of the American cemetery on the inhabitants of Margraten so soon after the war?’.

As the project proceeded, contact was established with veterans who had helped with the construction of the cemetery in Margraten and who had worked as gravediggers there.

You can read more about this in the chapter on the American cemetery. The book entitled ‘From farmland to soldiers cemetery’ offers a more extensive historical outline. The interviews in the book were held in the local dialect and recorded in Limburg. The portrait gallery shows the pictures all the eyewitnesses that were interviewed.

Film-makers Eugenie Jansen and Albert Elings
hier een paar leuke VS foto’s en link naar website Ruim Kader Films
made the documentary entitled ‘Fields of Margraten’ based on the interviews with eyewitnesses of the construction of the American war cemetery and on the archives. The documentary will be presented shortly.

Film-makers Eugenie Jansen and Albert Elings
made the documentary entitled ‘Fields of Margraten’ based on the interviews with eyewitnesses of the construction of the American war cemetery and on the archives. We will inform you as soon as the DVD on the documentary and the project will be available (see 'contact')

On saterday september 12th 2009
the Dutch national news programma NOS reported on the project..


 

In November 1944 on the Plateau of Margraten, a beginning was made with the burials of more than twenty thousand victims of the Second World War. Most of them were Americans, but also Germans, Russians, Italians and many other nationalities. Over twenty hectares of farmland changed into a huge soldiers cemetery within a very short time. This book recounts what the construction of the cemetery meant to the local population, to the landowners, to the people who saw the transports of the dead pass by and to those who had to bury these thousands, for the most part young men.
The book contains 41 written portraits, little biographies of ordinary, but sometimes special people. These are the memories of men and women, white and black, from townspeople to officers and soldiers from the United States. Even a former German prisoner of war tells his story. They all have one thing in common: their memories of that time, more than sixty-five years ago. Memories that still haunt them and which were recorded on video in the Oral History Akkers van Margraten (Fields of Margraten). Meer.. 

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