Four men did not return. Nothing in Den Oever reminds us of this anymore. That had to be different, Von Wolzogen Kühr thought. A monument will be unveiled this afternoon on his initiative.
There are more Wieringers who kept a diary during the war, but none is as detailed as that of Peet Stigter. Stigter was a striking appearance at Wieringen. He was a peel farmer, wore dirty and worn clothes and was illiterate. And yet he managed to keep a diary during the war years. Admittedly difficult to read, with language errors, self-invented words and points and commas in the wrong places. But still.
Paul von Wolzogen Kühr spent a year deciphering the diary. “Once I understood what it said, I couldn’t stop reading.” He developed the eight notebooks written in pencil into a book. He published it independently and almost all of the 1,400 copies have now been sold.
Idea after monument Rotterdam
The diary also gave Paul the idea to have a monument placed in Den Oever that commemorates the great raid in December 1944, during which Peet Stigter was also taken.
“A few years ago they unveiled a monument in Rotterdam for a major raid in which 60,000 people were taken away,” says Paul. “A huge number. 200 people were taken from Wieringen. Much less, but in relation to the number of inhabitants, that is comparable. So I thought: if a monument is possible there, it should also be possible here.”
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