Three men were shot dead by the Germans during the great miners’ strike in the spring of 1943. The names of those three cow temples were added to the name gallery of the Memorial Chapel in Terwinselen on Tuesday.
The initiators had been planning to honor the trio for twenty years. Tuesday was finally the day. The nearly 1,100 names of miners who died during their work now also include the three names of those who faced the German firing squad. Only because they participated in the great strike in 1943.
Found later
The bodies of Reinier Savelsberg, Meinardus Tempelaars and Servaas Toussaint were only found in 1946, after one of the Germans who were at the execution pointed out the spot. They were tucked away in a mass grave. Three years earlier they were sentenced to death and the execution was carried out on the Wellsche Heide in North Limburg.
act of resistance
The strikes in April and May 1943 were one of the biggest acts of resistance during the Second World War. Shortly before that, the Germans had lost the battle for Stalingrad and Hitler increased the pressure in other areas. To keep the war industry going, they demanded that the coal mines in South Limburg start producing more.
Sentenced to death
The miners had to work extra shifts, but refused. Protests and even strikes followed. These expanded to other companies, for example the textile industry in Twente. The economy was flat and coal production plummeted in a short time. The Germans did not accept that and immediately sprang into action. To ‘set an example’, 15 strikers, including three miners, were sentenced to death. The execution helped, because on May 4 the strikers returned to work en masse, afraid that a similar fate would await them like the three randomly chosen miners.
added
The names of the three victims were unveiled in a solemn ceremony on Tuesday and added to the memorial chapel’s name gallery. Relatives, former miners, but also students were present. “Because it is distressing that this important piece of history is hardly given any attention in school books. That is why we have been maintaining this annual commemoration since 1985,” says history teacher Martin van der Weerden, who has researched this ‘forgotten’ piece of history.