For four years, the municipality of Emmen takes off to study all cemeteries. Volunteers go in search of hidden heritage during that period. In the long term, the stories that are hiding behind the graves must become visible to everyone.
It is still a big question mark for the municipality. What history are the fourteen cemeteries within Emmen? Project leader Leonie Toussaint has picked up the glove and hopes to trap as many auxiliary forces as possible.
“We train people to appreciate digging on cultural -historical elements,” she explains. “Ultimately, we get a lot of information from that. Then we look at which graves are valuable to keep.”
Toussaint is thinking of finding traces of grave monuments, including used materials and engaged texts. And perhaps it is even possible to find out more about people and remarkable events. “That tells something about Emmen’s past. And we would like to tell that story.”
About the way in which there are no plans for yet. “We want to keep the special graves, but it is not the intention to flood with information boards.” Until the time comes, volunteers stroll for years as detectives about the burial locations. “It’s a big investigation,” Toussaint emphasizes.
The cemeteries in Emmer-Compascuum, Roswinkel, Nieuw-Weerdinge and Wolfsbergen are the first to be tackled.