Search tips


First search generally, then specifically. Example: don’t look for “François Van Damme”, but try “Van Damme” first and filter the search.
The person you are looking for does not appear? Try another spelling. Example: don’t only try “Vanwymelbeke”, but also “Van Wymelbeke” or “Vanwijmelbeke”.
Attention: the War Dead Register only lists Belgian fallen soldiers.  
The War Dead Register provides basic personal information (name, first name, date and place of birth, etc.) and does not contain military files (giving a complete overview of the military career). According to date of birth the files are kept either by the Royal Military Museum or by the Defence archives service. The files safeguarded at the Military Museum can be consulted on site (Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels). The files kept up till now by Defence are currently transferred to the General State Archives.
The date on which they will be once again available has not yet been determined.   

 

Archives of the Royal Military Museum 

Documentation Centre 
Parc du Cinquantenaire 3
1000 Brussels
E-mail : cdoc.klm-mra@warheritage.be   
Website: www.warheritage.be

Cemetery details

Where?
Mechelsesteenweg, 2500 Lier
 
View on map

History

After the German attack on the Antwerp stronghold and the enemy offensive targeting the Mechelen-Lier sector, many fallen soldiers get a mere field grave. A situation not only unworthy of those who gave their lives, but also presenting public health hazards. A solution is urgently required. The Lier city council therefore buys a piece of land along the Mechelsesteenweg in 1915. Headed by Lier native Jef Van Boeckel eighteen workers search the surroundings and the first reburial in the cemetery soon follows. Casualties are found in no less than 65 temporary graves (including one with 25 victims) and their bodies are transferred to the new cemetery. The British killed in the defence of Antwerp are also given a temporary resting place in Lier. War of course claims victims on both sides, and German soldiers are interred in the cemetery as well.
When the graveyard is redesigned and obtains its final layout in 1925, new graves (for bodies resting in Duffel, Berlaar and Sint-Katelijne-Waver) are added, but in accordance with the Government’s decision concerning the possibility of reburial by family members, dozens of Belgian victims are also transferred to their former places of residence. The British casualties are moved to the Antwerp Schoonselhof cemetery at that point in time. 

 

Casualties

450 Belgians First World War (137 unidentified) – 41 British and Canadians Second World War

 

Description

On the street side the 1.1-acre cemetery is bordered by a brick wall, endowed with bluestone pillars and coping stones. A double gate in the middle of the wall gives access to the cemetery. In the rear of the cemetery a monument by the German artist Georg Kolbe honours the German graves, which are however dug up in 1956. The identified German casualties get a final resting place in Vladslo and the unknown soldiers are buried in the collective grave in Langemark.
Today the military cemetery counts 450 graves of Belgian First World War soldiers, 137 of whom are unknown. 32 British and 9 Canadian soldiers, killed during the fighting in September 1944, also rest here.