Today we finally piled into our rental car and began our tour of the battlefields of Flanders. Joe drove us all the way to the Vladslo German Military Cemetery northeast of Ypres and Diksmuide. Our goal was to finally see Kaethe Kollwitz's "Grieving Parents"--the monument she cast in honor of her son Peter, who died in October, 1914. We arrived early enough to beat the tour bus crowd.
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| Kollwitz: the Grieving Mother |
Kollwitz spent over a decade mourning her son before she finally settled on a design that suited her. She and her husband finally installed the memorial in 1932.
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| Kollwitz's Husband |
The cemetery contains the remains of over 25,000 German soldiers, many of them transferred in 1956. In 1918, there were 678 German military cemeteries in Belgium; in 1925 and once again in 1956, they were consolidated. At that time, Peter Kollwitz and his comrades were moved from Roogeveld to Vladslo--Kollwitz's statues went with them.
AND THEN...
We made our way to Ypres (Ipres to the Belgians, "Wipers" to the British). We visited the In Flanders' Fields Museum, and it was terrific. The museum is interactive and the displays fascinating. I'll add some more later. Finally, we drove to Hill 62. It's a site that includes the remnants of a British trench system from 1918. All of us wandered through it.
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| Yes. Overjoyed to finally be in a trench. |
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| The cratered landscape on Hill 62 |
