In May of this year, Mayor Geert van Rumund of Wageningen lit the liberation fire at exactly 5 o'clock on Saturday 5 May Square in his municipality. This moment marks the transition from commemorating on 4 May to celebrating on 5 May for the entire country.
Van Rumund received the liberation flame from the British Normandy veteran Raymond Lord. This nineties landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 and was involved in the liberation of various Dutch places.
Photocredit: ANP
World famous hotel in Wageningen
Hotel de Wereld (meaning Hotel The World) in Wageningen was the site of the capitulation of the German troops in the Netherlands on 5 and 6 May 1945, and the end of German occupation during World War II.
On 5 May 1945 German commander general Blaskowitz met with Canadian general Foulkes in Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen. There they negotiated the surrender document for all German forces in the Netherlands, which they signed the next day. The occupation of the Netherlands had come to an end.
Photocredit: Flickr FaceMePLS