Remembrance Stone 10 May 1940 Putselaan Rotterdam

This Memorial commemorates four men of the Rotterdam convent of Saint Louis of Oudenbosch who fell that day. In the hall of the convent is also a plaque with their names.

Text on the stone:
IN MEMORY
10 MAY 1940

When the street fighting in the Putselaan ended, a bus from the Dutch Red Cross arrived. He took all the wounded, Germans and Dutch, civilians and soldiers, to the hospital. There, German military doctors and Dutch doctors worked side by side to tend to the wounded. And that's where the horrifying truth came to light. The bullets that the surgeon removed from the injured brothers turned out to be Dutch.

What had happened? In those first days of the war countless rumors circulated. One of the most persistent rumors was that German troops disguised themselves as nuns and fathers in order to raid the Netherlands unhindered. That rumor killed the brothers. The Dutch soldiers who had entrenched themselves in the Putselaan and at the Afrikaanderplein saw German soldiers in uniform force their way into the brother house and some time later brothers come out in their brother's clothing. So they thought that the Germans had dressed up as 'fathers'. That is why the brothers immediately came under fire. With fatal outcome for superior Lebuïnus Koppe and the brothers Libertus Merkies, Liberius Roset and Bellarimus Schuurmans. And many wounded among the brothers.

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Source

• Text: Dick de Bruijne & Fedor de Vries
• Photos: Dick de Bruijne