Walking along the fire line

Nearly 800 metal plates in road surface as historical monument

De brandgrens van het bombardement op Nijmegen speelt een belangrijke rol bij de herdenking. Net als de afgelopen jaren. De brandgrens is gemarkeerd met bijna 800 metalen plaatjes met daarop de namen van de slachtoffers. Bregje Jaspers (38 jaar) nam het initiatief voor deze zichtbare herinnering.

On the eve of the bombing, the people of Nijmegen were still full of dreams and hopes for the future, a day later the city lay in ruins and many lives and dreams had been destroyed. "It's bizarre when you think about it, the bombing really gripped me," says Bregje Jaspers. She is a designer and from that role she was involved in an exhibition around the bombing 10 years ago. "I saw a lot of historical photos and was touched by how the city used to look and what happened. When I walked through the city I saw those images in front of me, while many people hardly know this history."

Names of victims

She was eager to change that. "Nijmegen is scarred by the devastation. Of course you can see it when you look up at the reconstruction buildings. But I also wanted to make it visible in another way," Jaspers says. In 2014, she created a walking booklet that takes readers along the fire frontier. Soon after, the idea of marking the fire line with round, metal plaques with the names of those who perished was born. There were nearly 800 victims. It is important for the bereaved to be named.

Jaspers: "In placing the plaques on the line of the fire line, we tried to take into account where someone died, although that was not always possible. Near the station, for example, there were many victims, but only ten plaques were allowed there. The names of the people who died there can be found elsewhere in the city on the fire line." The metal plaques along the fire line now form a historical monument (Fire line024), showing the city's wartime pain. It explains why the city looks the way it does today. Jaspers himself still walks along the route regularly. "Sometimes pictures disappear or come loose. We fix that as best we can, of course."

The accompanying booklet is full of stories about the dramatic day. More than 10,000 copies have already been distributed, The project was created entirely with donations.

Datum woensdag 21 februari
Plaats centrum Nijmegen, start Stevenskerk of Molenstraatkerk
Tijd 19.00 uur inloop, start om 19.30 uur, tot ongeveer 21.00 uur
Entree gratis