Opening of the Memorial Garden

Our Memorial Garden – so that we do not forget that so many people had to flee in the First World War, and that fleeing has happened in every age – was opened on Saturday 20 June 2015, World Refugee Day.

Marieke Demeester, secretary, and Jean-Claude Walle, vice-chair, gave opening speeches.

(You can read the speech here in Dutch under the series of photos – in French in the French part of our website.)

Piet Chielens, curator of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, sketched the place of the many refugees then and now.

Charles Ducal, Poet Laureate of Flanders, read his poem "Vluchtelingen" (Refugees). He unveiled the poem under the canopy.

Konrad Lux read his poem "Op zoek" (Searching), followed by the poem "Les Gens d'ici" by Emile Verhaeren, recited by Jean-Claude Walle.

(The poems can be read at Poems about fleeing, in Dutch.)

Choir members from Kemmel, Loker, Westouter and Wijtschate sang, among other things, the song Nooit brengt een Oorlog Vrede (Never Does a War Bring Peace), the closing song of the community play of the same name, which was performed nineteen times in 1978–1979.

More about this under OUR WORK, section Never Does a War Bring Peace.

Mayor Lewyllie referred to the core theme of the Memorial Garden and spoke about the flight of his four grandparents in the First World War.

Michel Vandeweghe, who worked with great zeal on building the canopy, the wall of posts and the first escape routes put up, presented this.

Then came the official opening: Mayor Lewyllie cut the green ribbon together with chair Trees Debouvere and Commissioner-General for the 14-18 commemoration Paul Breyne, followed by the poet Ducal, vice-chair Edith Lesaffre and secretary Marieke Demeester.

We have gathered here to open this Memorial Garden for Refugees. It is the realisation of a dream that our association has long cherished. To give a voice to the many refugees who, in the First World War, had to leave everything behind and set out, not knowing where to or how, and very uncertain about their future. We want to do that in a way that suits us: calmly, in silence, with our eyes not only on the past but also on today and tomorrow. For in this garden we also want to give a voice to all refugees who, whenever and wherever in the world, were or are on the run.

It is no coincidence that this garden is being laid out in Westouter. As early as October 1914 whole groups of refugees from the surrounding area arrived here, and this stream kept growing. Every day the village constable wrote the names of the newcomers in his notebook, page after page. Barns, attics, tents, hastily knocked-together huts, everything was full. Until April 1918, when everyone had to flee, the people of Westouter and the refugees, further into France.

We were very happy when we discovered this place and received permission from the owners to create the Memorial Garden here. The site had lain fallow for many years and was completely overgrown with weeds. It has now become an atmospheric garden thanks to the enthusiastic and sustained efforts of a few volunteers. Thank you, Michel, Jef, Piet and Geert. They weeded and planted, mowed and rolled the grass, built the wall of posts and the benches. And the result is something to be proud of!

The garden is not finished. Today is not an end point but a starting point. We are continuing to collect escape routes, and we hope that in this way we encourage people to go in search of their own family history.

Above all we hope that whoever comes here not only learns something about fleeing in the First World War but is also a little touched by the difficult situation in which refugees have to try to survive. Then and now. Here and elsewhere.

Finally I would like to give two short testimonies of people who lived through it.

Louise Parmentier was a young girl of nineteen when the war began. Her parents had already died, and Louise farmed in Wulvergem together with her younger brother and an uncle. They had to flee, but they did not want to go to France. Louise said: "I had three older brothers who were at the front and I wanted them to have a home when they came on leave. We were refugees in our own country for the whole war. We wandered from here to there. We had nothing left and we always bore the name 'refugee'. And that's a strange name."

Pulcherie Demeulenaere was a little girl of four when the war broke out. Her mother died in 1917, and then Pulcherie and her three-year-old little brother were able to go, through the American Red Cross, to Olten in Switzerland. There they were taken in by a host family. In 1919 the Belgian government brought all the children who had fled back to Belgium, but Pulcherie and her little brother Sylvain were allowed to return to their host family in Olten in 1920. They stayed there until 1924. Pulcherie said: "Those people in Olten were so good to us. I spent the happiest years of my childhood there."