Remembrance Monument Civil Murder Lebbeke

In their advance to Dendermonde, the German troops were particularly wary of so-called "franc-tireurs", civilians who shot at them from their homes.
This often led to inhuman reprisals at the slightest suspicion.
This is also the case here in the Kazeirekens district in Lebbeke.
After a German soldier was shot at from a house, the Germans captured several young men. They had to dig their own graves and were gruesomely murdered afterwards. The news illustrated the arbitrary brutality of the German army and made headlines around the world. According to the death certificates of the civil registry, some died
September 4, 1914, thirteen civilians in this mass murder.

In 2014, during the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Great War, Lebbeken resident Wilfried Jacops was commissioned by the municipal council to create a set of reaching hands in polyester. The statue has since adorned the roundabout at the administrative center.
As an additional assignment he made a smaller but similar copy in bluestone.
That statue ended up in the public library for four years and since 2018 it has been part of the World War I memorial site in Hof-ter-Varentstraat.

On the pedestal hangs a memorial plaque with the names of the victims:

"September 1914-1918
Commemoration of civilian murder
Kazeirekes-Vellekens

Verhulst Octaaf - Verhulst Ferdinand - Verhulst Leopold
Van Extergem Pieter - Hofman Gustaaf - Hofman Philemon
Bovyn Arthur - Keppens Henri - Lissens Kamiel - Siccard Jozef
Van den Berghe Petrus - Vercauteren Eugeen - Veldeman Emiel"

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck