Day 16: Rotterdam (Crosswijk) General War Cemetery

On Firday I decided to visit the Commonwealth War graves located in Rotterdam. It's at a very beautiful cemetery in Crosswijk. There were a mix of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Brits and Poles buried in the cemetery. Mostly they were soldiers in the air force who had died in crashes during the war. There are also some Dutch war graves from the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. The cemetery actually has a very interesting story. This is copied from the Commonweath War Graves Commission:
In May 1941, the local civil authorities set aside for Allied war casualties a plot in the immediate vicinity of the Dutch war graves. A number of British airmen were moved to this plot from other parts of the cemetery and from scattered graves in the surrounding countryside; and subsequent Allied casualties were buried there. These graves were constantly tended and provided with flowers by the people of Rotterdam, in contrast to the German graves which were ignored. The enraged Germans therefore caused them to be removed, in May 1943, to the remotest corner of the cemetery. They were fenced off by wooden hurdles, and even for a short time guarded by an armed sentry to keep away visitors.

Pictures are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/euphemeo/