Essen (dpa / lnw) – With guided tours, lectures and hands-on activities, the German War Graves Commission wants to focus on war graves in North Rhine-Westphalia in September. “Peace cannot be taken for granted – the Ukraine war shows that in a frightening way,” said the NRW state chairman of the Volksbund, the SPD politician Thomas Kutschaty, on Wednesday when the program was presented.
The Second World War began on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. More than 330,000 people who died in the two world wars are buried in over 2,100 war cemeteries throughout North Rhine-Westphalia.
Kuschaty said the war in Ukraine obviously awakened memories in many older people of the post-war generation in Germany. The number of inquiries about the whereabouts of missing persons and relatives has increased noticeably in NRW and elsewhere.
The Volksbund is planning guided tours of large cemeteries in Essen and Dortmund, a “Hürtgen Forest March” at the site of a costly battle at the end of World War II in the Eifel, readings and a benefit concert by an army band to help preserve the graves.
