Veterans' Crypt Zonnebeke

Shortly after the war, the municipality of Zonnebeke decided that it wanted to commemorate the village's own war dead in an original manner. The village authorities and the veterans' associations collected the sum of 3,278.08 francs and used the money to have a special brick crypt constructed in the municipal cemetery. It was opened in 1921. It contains the wooden coffins of eleven victims of the First World War, three of the Second World War and even one of a local man who died during the Belgian War of Independence in 1830!

All these casualties were first buried elsewhere and only brought to Zonnebeke later. The First World War victims mostly died during the Final Offensive in the autumn of 1918.

Above the crypt stand a number of the so-called 'hero crosses', which were erected on the graves of soldiers who supported the Flemish nationalist cause. However, recent research has shown that that not all the soldiers with such a cross had strong Flemish sympathies.

Vl. Toeristisch bezienswaardigheden