VALKENBURG 2024 – 80 years free

Liberation celebration St. Nicholas and Barabara church

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Parish priest H. Jansen [2]

Sexton Harry van Ogtrop, hidden in a confessional, could inform hiders and resistance fighters where they could best hide.

On the vaults and in the tower at one time 5 young men stayed, I read in the mentioned annals.
The sexton provided the necessary food.
(See elsewhere in this church)

Exactly in these September days - 80 years ago - the bridges over the Geul were blown up. 2 Hotels collapsed; roofs of surrounding houses and church destroyed. And virtually all stained glass windows were destroyed.
In those same parish annals, Reverend Ad Welters describes those terrible September days. Realistically but also with sadness that soldiers died on both sides.

But then came the moment we celebrate now - September 2024.
80 years ago, the thousands of Valkenburgers - hidden for days in safe caves - met the liberating daylight.
It was celebration.
Freedom and peace were exuberantly celebrated.

To conclude:
The parish annals offer much information about these days.
We handle them with care.
Those who write are those who remain.

Another personal note:
I celebrate these days with mixed feelings. When the war and shelter period ended here, tens of thousands of Central and North Limburgers had to go into the very shelters. The region I come from remained frontline territory when the Battle of Arnhem failed.
The right (eastern) bank of the Maas was shot into rubble. Tens of thousands were transported as evacuees by freight trains to the northern provinces of the Netherlands under deplorable conditions. Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland.

Me and many others had to postpone the 80-year liberation for a while.
I myself was liberated in Zuid-Laren in Drenthe on April 13, 1945.

But back to the present.
Valkenburg: experience the liberation!
This church building and its parish also share in that joy.

Remembering, commemorating, listening to stories, giving thanks - that keeps us going for a hopefully war-free future.

H. Jansen
Parish priest