By: Diane Benjamin

249 years ago, the Declaration of Independence was ratified. Being born in this country is like winning the jackpot. Do people run to socialist countries or here?

Did you know there is a cemetery in the Netherlands where U.S. soldiers from World War II are buried? Did you know the citizens of the Netherlands have never forgotten who liberated them? Did you know each grave is adopted by a citizen in the Netherlands?

From this website: https://www.foreverpromise.org/about

Foundation for Adopting Graves American Cemetery Margraten (Stichting Adoptie Graven Amerikaanse Begraafplaats Margraten) was created in February 1945 to encourage Dutch citizens to express gratitude for their American liberators by adopting their graves. To qualify, volunteers agreed to regularly visit the adopted grave and remain in touch with the soldier’s next of kin in the United States where next of kin information was available. The campaign gained massive support. By the second postwar Memorial Day in 1946, 100 percent of the nearly 18,000 graves had been adopted, but next of kin information was available for only twenty percent of those buried. To this day, few Americans know about the Dutch grave adoption program. Some are not even aware that a family member is buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery.

Our government did not provide contact information to the Netherlands for each soldier buried there. The website contains a database with the names. Dutch citizens would love to have contact information for every family. The names of those who were not brought home after the war are in the database, you can scroll through the names.

See this page: https://www.foreverpromise.org/the-cemetery

Since public schools aren’t teaching real history, kids don’t learn what the people of the Netherlands never forgot.

At the end of World War II, Dutch leaders of the grave adoption program made an urgent appeal to American families with a loved one buried at Margraten: “Leave your boys with us; we will watch over them like our own, forever.“ 

This serene site features perfectly aligned headstones, a reflecting pool, and a chapel adorned with stunning mosaics depicting the theme of sacrifice. It is not only a place of remembrance but also a symbol of enduring gratitude from the Dutch people, who for eighty years have adopted every grave and name of those on the Walls of the Missing and continue to honor the fallen through commemorative events.

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Browse the website and read the stories. If you aren’t proud to be American it’s because forces in this country don’t want you to be.