In the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of discussion among Dutch witches, pagans and heathens about the initiative of the “Nationaal Heksenmonument”, the national witch monument. I wrote a bit more about it here. In short, this project is meant to commemorate the people who died in the Netherlands during the periode of the witch craze and to make people conscious of the idea that this should never happen again.

One element of this larger project is laying flowers at the places where people were executed. This laying of flowers happened on June 3rd 2023, 12 o’clock in the afternoon, at several places in the Netherlands. I was at the event in Mierlo, which commemorated the people who died during a short but violent outbreak of the witch craze in the Peelland area in 1595. Almost all were women, none of them had any power. Most of them were strangled and burned, some were burned alive, some were tortured so severely that they died – because of the torture of by suicide. One was the “housewife” of the local pastor, one was a twelve years old girl, another one was a ninety years old woman who was probably demented (she could show no remorse and was burned alive). The instigators were not members of the Church, but were local landlords, driven by paranoia and greed.

I didn’t count heads, but I think there were about fifty people present at the ceremony (I saw many online posts of other places with about the same amounts of attendants). The history of what happened to these unfortunate people more than 500 years ago was told. Then, the short manifest of Dutch writer and witch Susan Smit was read aloud, while the people who died were named. Their names are:

Marie Baten

Lys Cuypers

Jenneken Gordtkens

Heyl Bellen

Catharina Boons, alias Lyncken Pastoirs

Judth van Dorren

Theun Eumans

Margriet Muls

Nees Gommers

Marie Ruijters

Marie van Mierlo

Heyl Geenen

Fye Hanen

Griet Mijnsheeren

Anneken Thijs

Jenneken Goessens

Heijlken Schavaerts

Henricxken Sevens

Heylken Thonis

Elizabeth Willemssen

Anna Ceelen

Hendricxken Delyen

Margriet Brycken

Heylken Brycken

Jenneken inde Camer

And some unnamed people. Over a dozen of other people were also arrested, but were released or were saved when higher authorities were alarmed and rushed in to stop the madness.

After the manifest and the naming of the victims, everyone laid white flowers on the ground – near the place where (most of) these people had died. After this ritual, interesting discussions started. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay, because of another appointment.

I do have contact with the organization however, and am planning on making another post about some of the discussions and critiques surrounding this project.

If you want to know more about the witch craze in Peelland and can read Dutch, I highly recommend the book Duivelskwartier by Johan Otten, which painstakingly reconstructs the happenings surrounding this black page in the history of this area.