Belgian War Graves Ottignies

The cemetery in Ottignies contains a collective grave of civilian victims of the First World War. It concerns EVRARD René, 19 years old; HARDY Arthur, 32 years old and GILBERT Jules, 41 years old. They were executed by the Germans on 20 August 1914. There is also the grave of two Belgian brothers who fell in the First World War. Gaston Thomaz de Bossiere (1876-1914) died in Tervate on October 23, 1914. His brother Etienne Thomaz de Bossiere (1886-1915) lived in San Francisco and left the USA to enlist as a war volunteer in the Belgian army. He made the crossing with the Lusitania ocean liner and died after the ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on 7 May 1915.

The cemetery in Ottignies also contains the graves of civilian victims of the Second World War.

There are, among others, the graves of FRANCOIS René, resistance fighter, executed in Schaerbeek on August 27, 19143 and HUYBERECHT Alphonse, priest, who was executed as a hostage on July 22, 1944.

The family grave SNAPPE-STAS contains two victims of bombing of the Second World War

There are still a number of war graves whose inscriptions are illegible.

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Source

• Text: Luc Van Waeyenberge
• Photos: Luc van Waeyenberge