News
Through this page as well as through our social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, we will keep you up-to-date on the most recent developments. Thus if you are interested in learning more about the project The Faces of Margraten, please come back to this page or follow our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Share the story behind the photo
A picture is worth a thousand words. On the other hand, they do not tell the full story. That is why The Faces of Margraten tribute wants to tell more of these stories this upcoming May, as well as in the years to come. We ask for your help to do so! Do you have a soldier’s story that is worth to tell? Please share it with the tribute. Then we will share the story with the world so others may learn from it and be inspired to do good themselves. And above all, by sharing their stories, these men and women will not be forgotten.
5,000th photo found: a face for half of the soldiers
A face to every name. That is the mission that The Faces of Margraten tribute at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, the Netherlands set itself. The ongoing effort to locate the missing photos has proven itself to be successful. Recently, the 5,000th photo was found. This means that we can now give a face to half of the U.S. soldiers who either have found their final resting place or are memorialized in Margraten. The faces will be on display again from May 2-6, 2018, when the tribute will take place a third time. On September 10, the 5,000th photo was already presented to the cemetery.
Read more: 5,000th photo found: a face for half of the soldiers
Next The Faces of Margraten Planned for May 2018
As the end of World War II becomes more distant, ABMC cemeteries, in coordination with local organizations, create and host unique tributes to the men and women honored at these sites. To ensure the emotional impact and draw for visitors remain strong and events like this are not considered common-place, some events are not hosted annually. Additionally, due to the amount of resources necessary to conduct this type of event, volunteer hours and fiscal support can be best utilized when events are held biennially. The next Faces of Margraten is planned for May 2018. There will be no Faces of Margraten in 2017.
Finally a Memorial Page for all U.S. Soldiers in Margraten after Eight Years
Eight years after the first digital memorial page had been added to the Fields of Honor - Database, the memorial page for the last of over a 10,000 U.S. WWII soldiers who have been either buried in or are memorialized at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten was created mid-December. These digital memorials offer information about a soldiers' life and military service, and if available a personal photo of the soldier. This all makes the database, a project by the Foundation United Adopters American War Graves, the most comprehensive source of information on these soldiers. One can also find all photos that were on display at the cemetery during The Faces of Margraten in the database. As of now, there are 4,600 photos, about 500 more than were on display during the 2016 tribute.
The database was set up in 2008 by a group of grave adopters who seeked to digitally preserve the photos of and information and documentation on these soldiers, ensuring that the memory to these soldiers would be kept alive for future generation. Until then, there had been no comprehensive attempt to preserve this material and, above all, to centrally collect the information that was out there. Indeed, information could only be found in a large number of archives, in books, on websites, and in other sources. Moreover, much material was kept at home by grave adopters and soldiers' relatives. The database allows for sharing this material with whomever likes to learn more about these men and women and to preserve it in the form of a digital monument.
For eight years, volunteers have conducted research to collect this material and new information. In the process, contacts were established with thousands of grave adopters, soldiers' relatives, veterans, fellow researchers, and U.S. and Dutch media. Chairman Sebastiaan Vonk: "We should not underestimate two things. First of all, our volunteers have spent tens of thousands of hours on this project. Moreover, thousands of others have made valuable contributions to this database, be it a grave adopter who sent us a photo of a soldier that he had kept for years on his mantelpiece, or the High School teacher who remembered that there was a photo of a soldier in her school. Without those hours of work and these contributions, the database would not have been the digital monument that it is today. We are very grateful for everyone's commitment to honoring these men and women.
In addition, there now also is a memorial page for all of the 14,000 U.S. WWII soldiers who have been either buried in or memorialized at the American War Cemeteries Henri-Chapelle and Ardennes in Belgium. So in total, information on about 24,000 soldiers is available in the Fields of Honor - Database. A personal photo is available for about 9,000 of them. In the years to come, more records for these soldiers will be added.
Moreover, the foundation will expand its work to three other U.S. War Cemeteries, namely the American War Cemeteries Epinal and Lorraine in France, and the American War Cemetery Luxembourg. Chairman Vonk: "In cooperation with the local communities there, we want to make sure that these soldiers also get the respect that they deserve and that they will not be forgotten. After all, also these communities have started to adopt graves. Despite our differences in language and culture, the peoples of different European countries share a heartfelt gratitude for these liberators and also the world's hope for peace." The foundation works together with the French organization US Memory Est Grande France to organize The Faces of Epinal in 2017.
The Foundation United Adopters American War Graves is a group of Belgian and Dutch adopters of U.S. WWII graves. It is the foundation's mission to keep alive the memory to the American liberators who found their final resting place in various European countries after the end of World War II. The foundation observed its fifth anniversary this year. The foundation does not maintain any of the Adopt-A-Grave programs that are in existence and which is maintained by the Foundation for Adopting Graves American Cemetery Margraten in case of the Netherlands American Cemetery.
Request a Copy of a Soldier's Photo
Would you like to have a copy of a soldier's photo as has been used during The Faces of Margraten tribute? In September we temporarily offer the possibility to request your own copy of that photo. What's more, by requesting your own copy, you also support The Faces of Margraten tribute as the proceeds will be used to have new soldiers' photos printed for the 2018 tribute.
