Tanks, engines and powerful army vehicles enter the Coevorden center via the Bentheimer Bridge. Men, women, elderly, children: everyone is waving with red -white blue flags. Today they celebrate freedom.
Exactly 80 years ago, Coevorden was liberated. It was the first place in Drenthe where the Germans were driven away during the Second World War. In a short period thereafter, the rest of the province was also liberated.
It seems as if the whole of Coevorden came to the center of the city to view the spectacle. First there is a wreath laying by commissioner of the King Jetta Klijnsma and Mayor Renze Bergsma. Then come the flowers of the historical association and a flower arrangement on behalf of the Liberiaton route.
“It is a very special moment in history of course,” says Mayor Bergsma. “Coevorden is a strategic place. This is where the liberation of Coevorden, Van Drenthe and actually the north of the Netherlands. It is very cool that we can celebrate the start here.”
With the exhibition Lest we forgetIn other words ‘So that we do not forget’ The Stedelijk Museum Coevorden wants to consider the past, but also ensure that the eyes will remain open in the future. “We think it is important that we continue to realize that freedom is a privilege,” says museum director Evelien Wieling.
The top floor of the museum is set up in the context of 80 years of freedom. In the exhibition the story of the 1st Polish armored division is told. According to the museum, this division played an important role in the liberation of Southeast Drenthe. After these soldiers fought for the Netherlands, they could not return to their home country, Wieling says, because the regime in the Soviet Union did not want that. “It has long been an underexposed subject and we wanted to pay attention to that.”