DALLAS (AP) — In the decades since June West Brandt’s older brother was killed in World War II, her kind and artistic sibling who loved to play boogie-woogie on…
In the decades since June West Brandt’s older brother was killed in World War II, her kind and artistic sibling who loved to play boogie-woogie on the piano has never been far from her mind. So she was delighted to discover he’s also being remembered by a Dutch couple who regularly visit a marker for him at a Netherlands cemetery.
“It’s wonderful for me to know that someone is there,” said Brandt, 93, who lives near Houston.
Her introduction over the summer to Lisa and Guido Meijers came by way of a new initiative aiming to increase the number of connections between the family members of those buried and remembered on the walls of the missing at the World War II cemetery and the Dutch people who have adopted each one.
The project was spurred on by “The Monuments Men” author Robert Edsel, whose newest book, “Remember Us,” tells the story of the adoption program at the Netherlands American Cemetery. His Dallas-based Monuments Men and Women Foundation teamed with the Dutch foundation responsible for the adoptions to create the Forever Promise Project, which has a searchable database of the names of U.S. service members buried and remembered at the cemetery.
“I’d like us to find and connect as many American families to their Dutch adopters as is possible,” Edsel said.
Ton Hermes, chairman of the Foundation for Adopting Graves American Cemetery Margraten, said that while each of the about 8,300 graves and 1,700 markers for the missing at the cemetery near the village of Margraten have adopters, only about 20% to 30% of them are in contact with the service member’s relatives.
