#Cemetery
British casualties and local heroes
Three planes came down in Aalten during the war. Two British and one German. Only rarely do crew members come out of a crash in one piece. The five equal headstones for the five perished British airmen are the memory of their sacrifice for our freedom.
Also buried in this cemetery are the 12 British servicemen of the ground forces who died in the liberation. Their lieutenant Andrew Duncan is commemorated on the information column; his body is buried in the Reichswald Forest Cemetery in Kleve. Also, at Berkenhove: the graves of local resistance heroes Uncle Jan (Wikkerink), Cees Ruizendaal and Joop der Weduwen lie.
After the capitulation, Cees Ruizendaal was employed by the police in Amsterdam. Because of the growing number of NSB members there, he applied for a transfer. In July 1942, he started as a constable in Aalten. Soon he also became leader of the Aalten knokploeg (KP) under the resistance name “Black Cees. On April 20, 1944 (Hitler's birthday), the KP-Aalten has the opportunity to obtain a large batch of weapons in Brabant. The operation is betrayed and Ruizendaal is killed in a firefight with the Germans.
This Aalten family doctor is the only one who manages to get through to the executioner of Rees. 'Rees' is a labor camp just across the border where Dutch people are obliged to enlist for German purposes. Only Der Weduwen is allowed to take sick people from the camp and care for them in Holland. Thus, he saved many sick and malnourished Dutchmen. In January 1945, he visited The Hague to alert the authorities to the poor conditions in the labor camps. On the way back, his car is shot at from the air. He does not survive.