Background

The monument on Osdorperweg bears the names of resistance fighter Jan Kars and soldier Piet Bierman. The text on the pedestal reads: ‘Fallen for the fatherland’.

Conscript soldier Piet Bierman (1912) lives with his parents, brother and sisters at 565 Osdorperweg: the quiet narrow connecting road between the agricultural village of Sloten and Halfweg. These are exciting times. The Dutch army is mobilised and an attack by Nazi Germany on neutral Netherlands is imminent. On 9 May 1940, Jan receives a call to report directly to his unit, a machine gun company in Lisse. That night, Hitler’s armies cross the Dutch border. Piet’s regiment is sent by the army command to The Hague, where the royal family and the government reside. In Oegstgeest, the column is attacked by a German fighter plane. Piet and nine others are badly injured. That same day, he dies at the Military Hospital in Leiden and is buried three days later in Oegstgeest. In late 1977, Piet Bierman was interred at the Grebbeberg Military Field of Honour.

At Osdorperweg number 496 lives Jan Kars, born in 1919. He has eight siblings. Jan stands out because of his height and red hair. After finishing school, he works in a market garden. After military service, he joins the Royal Military Police in Oostburg, Zeeland. On 5 July 1940, the German occupying forces merged the Marechaussee with the police. The native Amsterdammer is deployed in western Zeeuws Vlaanderen to combat black market trade. Soon Jan becomes active in the resistance. He distributes illegal magazines and helps people in hiding. As a policeman, he allows two Jewish women to escape on their way to the Vught concentration camp. On 4 August 1944, the Amsterdam native participates in a raid on the Oostburg distribution office as a member of the De Vos partisan group. To escape arrest, he goes into hiding with a farmer in Zeeland.

In Autumn 1944, Canadian troops advance with great difficulty in western Zeeuws Vlaanderen. The German forces clustered around Oostburg are fanatically resisted. Oostburg are badly damaged by Allied air raids. On 20 October 1944, disaster strikes. At the end of the morning, Jan, farmer De Bruyne and Francien de Zeeuw, a woman of the resistance, march straight through the firing line on their way to the already liberated village of Waterlandkerkje. They want to warn the Canadians not to fire on their farm with about eighty fleeing civilians. However, a Canadian soldier mistook them for an approaching enemy and threw a hand grenade. Only Jan is hit by the shrapnel; he dies on the spot. In 1947, his remains were transferred to the cemetery near Sloten’s Reformed Church.

In 2008, the monument to resistance fighter Jan Kars and soldier Piet Bierman was refurbished after the Osdorperweg was resurfaced. A memorial tile was also added, commemorating American pilot Dover Chalmond Fleming Jr. On 8 October 1943, he took part in a major attack on Bremen, Germany, with his plane from England. Over the IJsselmeer, he was attacked by a German fighter plane and crashed. When the memorial tile was placed in 1979, it was thought that it was Fleming’s plane that crashed near Osdorperweg at the time. However, recent research revealed this to be incorrect. It was a German military plane. The commemorative tile has nevertheless remained in place with the text: ‘This tile commemorates an American pilot of the US Army Air Force (USAAF). On 8 October, his P-47 Thunderbolt was hit by a German fighter. He crashed near Amsterdam, went missing and was declared deceased. Pilot ‘2LT Dover Chalmond Jr (1917) – he died for our freedom.’