Local Students Prepare for WWII Commemoration Tour with Ceremony at Meaford Hall
Students from Owen Sound and Meaford will honour local WWII soldiers during a European tour, beginning with a public tribute ceremony at Meaford Hall on April 23.
A group of high school students from Owen Sound District Secondary School and Georgian Bay Community School will travel to Europe next week to participate in events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands.
Departing Tuesday, April 29, the students will follow a “war and memory” tour that includes historically significant sites in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.
The itinerary includes visits to Paris, Versailles, Vimy Ridge, Ypres, and multiple locations throughout the Netherlands, including Amsterdam. A key highlight of the trip is their participation in the May 4 commemorative ceremony at Holten Canadian War Cemetery, where the students will help lay tulips at the graves of Canadian soldiers who died in the liberation effort.
In preparation for this journey, the students undertook a research project titled “In Their Steps / Through Their Eyes,” a collaborative initiative between the schools, the Meaford Museum, and the Billy Bishop Museum in Owen Sound.
Each student prepared a tribute to one of ten local servicemen from Grey County who lost their lives during the campaign to liberate the Netherlands in the Second World War.
These tributes will first be shared publicly at a ceremony at Meaford Hall on Wednesday, April 23, at 7 p.m. The event offers an opportunity for the community to hear the students’ work before they present the same tributes at cemeteries in Bergen-op-Zoom, Holten, and Groesbeek, where many of the fallen soldiers are buried.
The students will also visit the Rheinberg War Cemetery in Germany to honour three RCAF airmen from Grey County. The tour is not only intended to deepen students’ understanding of the war and its local impact, but also to connect them personally with the legacies of those who served.
The second component of the project, Through Their Eyes, will see students document their reflections and experiences during the tour, which will later be shared in a video format.
Their research will also support new exhibits at the Meaford Museum and the Billy Bishop Museum in Owen Sound, ensuring that the stories of these local servicemen are preserved and made accessible to future generations.