On all war graves at the cemetery in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands a candlelight on Christmas Eve. That is the purpose of a group of volunteers. Last year the group met each other during Christmas Eve.
That lighting candles together fraternised, became quickly apparent.
Not all graves had a light
Separate they came, just like countless others, to light candles on the war graves. As all the candles they brought were lit, not every grave had a light burning and some of them had more than one.
There should be a light at every grave! They fully agreed on that. But how? The’re almost 1800 graves, a lot of candles to lit with a small group, not to mention the costs …
But if there is a will, there is a way, and though there is still plenty of commitment and help needed, every effort is made to ensure that this year on Christmas Eve, on all war graves at the Airborne cemetery in Oosterbeek a candle is burning during Christmas.
A particular grave
Ir is not gonna be an event. “No not at all.” the group says “That is certainly not the intention. There are many people who come for a particular grave(s) to light a candle, it should remain so. We just want at least one light on each grave. The lighting we do our self. ”
The group consists of ten people. Quite a job for ten people…..
“It is!. Therefore, we call on people to come help us. And people already did! We are very pleased with that! They can register via our Facebook page or email us at [email protected].”
“We like to start in the afternoon lighting the candles and after that, we are all gonna celebrate Christmas. On December 27th, we clean it all up. The manufacturer of the candlelight’s, Bolsius has developed new storm caps and if all goes well, they will burn the whole Christmas! Ain’t that marvellous!”
Sponsors
So the group needs volunteers to light the candles but they need the finance to do so too. The municipality of Renkum sympathised intermediately and makes sure that quite a lot of candles can be bought. They will also make sure that there will be containers after Christmas to clean up.
Also Renkum Nieuws, which Market Garden News is a part of, makes sure candles burn. Do you want to help the group and make all graves light up at Christmas?
You can make a donation to bankaccount: NL10INGB0006392722 to the name of: Stichting Renkum Leeft, with the mention: Donation Candlelights War Graves.
One light, with a storm cap costs 0.60 eurocent, you can light as many candles as you want.
