6th candle: Two cousins born in a cave in Sept. 1944

Frans Wolters Sibbergroeve (Sibbe quarry), Frans Wolters Heidegroeve

Text on image at right: “Eighty years after liberation. Eighty years of freedom we cannot think away. Freedom is shared, from generation to generation and across borders. I pass that on to my children and grandchildren, that freedom must above all continue to exist for everyone in the whole world.
The cave child Frans Wolters
September 12, 1944”

   

Valkenburg 2019, 75 jaar bevrijd
p. 81 The cave child who was thought lost.

In an interview with the midwife Mrs. Rölkens-Mommers in July 1984, journalist Jan Schurgers gives the word to some cave children. The children given birth by her in the Heidegroeve were Jean Senden: Sept. 11; Marie Therese Rocks: Sept. 12; Frans Wolters: Sept. 12; Martien Evers: Sept. 13 and one more boy born to German parents.
On September 9, cousin Frans Wolters was also born. This one, however, in the Sibberg quarry. This and the fact that the Wolters family were “travelers” (itinerant merchants) and were not registered in Valkenburg but in The Hague, caused confusion for many years and Frans was recorded as ‘The cave child who was thought lost.’.

Note: Valkenburg 2019, 75 jaar bevrijd, ISBN: 978-90-9031938-4: p. 81 Het verloren gewaande grotkind. (The cave child who was thought lost.)

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