Violin play at the grave of Franz Svacina  
The talented violin player Franz Svacina (28-09-1923 / 9-10-1944) from Hamburg is buried on the German war cemetery in Ysselsteyn. Franz left behind a violin, which is hand over on the 4th of Mai in Hamburg, to Myrthe Kater from Venray. She will play a piece of music at the grave of Franz Svacina, on the 9th of October 2010 15:00 pm, the date of death of Franz Svacina. A cousin of Franz will also be there. More about this you’ll find at archive/press.

Living peace sign on the German cemetery
Tuesday the 21. of September was the International Day of Peace. The Gesamtschule Kierspe made a living peace sign on the cemetery, specially for this day. You will also find this picture on the website from War Child.
www.warchild.nl/21september

 Transfer of 2740 red hands to the government to stop the use of child soldiers!
From 6. to 15. of January 2010, 537 students of several primary schools from our region, visited the German military cemetery. They participated in the interactive exhibition `Child Solders´ and got a guidance tour on the German military cemetery. On this cemetery 1375 child soldiers are buried, who have died during the WOII. These child soldiers were indicated with a red hand at their grave. 
After the exhibition, all students stamped a red hand onto a piece of paper to that show that the usage of child soldiers must stop! 632 hands have been gathered by these children. We also gathered red hands in Venray on the 13. of July, the 1375 red hands of the child soldiers who are buried on the German military cemetery in Ysselsteyn and of several groups which have sent us the collected red hands. This brings it to the number of 2740 hands!
On the 12. of February 2010, all these hands will be handed over to a Member of the Dutch Parliament (PvdA) Lia Roefs and a member of the German Paliament (Abgeordneter der Landestages von Nordrhein-Westfalen) sir Norbert Killewald (SPD). The transfer is accompanied in a theatrical and musical manner by primary school children.
All over the world several projects/action are organised to collect red hands. These red hands will be handed over annually on the 12. of February (international saves hand Day) to the governments of different countries or to the UN. We all want to move the governments to do something about the protocol child soldiers and that the fight against the use of child soldiers gets the highest priority.
We want everyone to continue this action! Organise a red hand action and collect as many red hands as possible. We gladly will help you further with the organisation, if you like. You can send us the collected hands, so that we can hand over even more red hands next year!
With thanks to Thetru Venray for making and paying the red hands which stood at the graves of the child soldiers on our cemetery during the exhibition.

1400 Red hands on the German military cemetery
From 18th December 2009 till 17th January 2010 you’ll see almost 1400 red hands on the German military cemetery in Ysselsteyn. At each grave of a child soldier (a soldier under 18 years old) a red hand is placed.    
They have died during the 2nd World War as a child soldier. A few of them have died on their 18th anniversary. At a number of unknown soldiers there is also placed a red hand. There are 166 unknown soldiers, of which we know for certain that they died as child soldiers. For this reason graves of the unknown soldiers have been randomly selected and a red hand has been placed.
The red hands have a symbolic meaning: stop the use of child soldiers!
These 1400 red hands will play an important role at the hand transfer on 12 February 2010. This project belongs to the exhibition ‘child soldiers’ at the YMC, which will be visited by school classes from the 6th till the 15th of January 2010.
For more information about child soldiers see: www.redhandday.org