Sint-Oedenrode
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Template:Infobox Dutch municipality 2
Sint-Oedenrode is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands.
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Population centres
- Boskant
- Nijnsel
- Olland
- Sint-Oedenrode
History of the city of Sint-Oedenrode
Sint-Oedenrode was granted city status in 1232 by the Duke of Brabant (at that time Hendrik I of Brabant ).
During the Second World War Sint-Oedenrode suffered tremendous. In May 1940 the Germans invaded the Low Countries and France, and due to the retreat from the Peel-Raam Line by the Dutch Armed Forces skirmishes arouse in Sint-Oedenrode in an attempt to keep the enemy at bay. After the capitulation (15th May 1940, in Zeeland 2 days later) Sint-Oedenrode found itself under German occupation. There was a small Luftwaffe detachment providing a manned look-out (just like the Royal Observer Corps) for Allied planes which were undertaking operations against the Air Bases of Volkel and Eindhoven.
During the final months of occupation the mayor (appointed by the Queen) was sacked and replaced by an pro-German mayor. The reasons for the sacking where that the central Distribution Office was plundered from blanco distribution cards which were necessary to get coupons for males who where hiding for the Arbeitseinsatz (Compulsory labour in the German war industry) which were using fake names. Also the mayor tried to sabotage the Arbeitseinsatz.
In September 1944 the liberation of Sint-Oedenrode came during Operation Market-Garden envisaged by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. The US 101st Airborne Division liberated the Town of Sint-Oedenrode (the 'Market' part). They were followed by the British XXX Army Corps (the 'Garden' part).
The British left 150 comrades behind, the Americans 125. Twenty-two British soldiers are buried at the General Cemetery in Sint-Oedenrode. Most of the British are reburied at the Uden War Cemetery and some did find there final resting place in Mierlo. The Americans who where origianlly buried in Wolfswinkel (Son en Breugel) are reburied in Margraten or the US.
Where does the name 'Sint-Oedenrode' come from??
The following story is based on an popular belief (saga)
Sint-Oedenrode is named after a blind Scottish princess called Oda.
She drunk from an sacred well, after which she miracusly could see again. She became Catholic and wanted to devote her life to God. In an desperate attempt of not becoming Queen of her realm she decided to flee to the Continent. She started to travel from one place to another, wherever she could find silence for worshipping. Before she did come to the place called Rode, Oda prayed in Belgium, but time on time she was disrupted in her worshipping by crows, so she did flee from this place.
Eventually she arrived in the Netherlands in a little settlement called Rode (old Duch for an manmade open place in the woods). After she died in 726 A.D. the villagers where getting pilgrims from the whole region, and started to call the place Sint-Oda-Rode, which became Sint-Oedenrode in present day speaking.
External links
- Official Website (http://www.sint-oedenrode.nl)
- Map (http://www.plattegronden.nl/gemeentesintoedenrode/)