Utrecht Homage to Annie Brouwer

It was around 1953 when the local government of Utrecht decided to renovate the wharfs
of the Nieuwe-gracht and Oudegracht.
Old gas lamps should be put back in the street scene.
They were carried on a “Collar Stone” (Kraagsteen or console) and decorated one by one with a sculpture.
More about it in a future chapter in this blog.

Today the loco-mayor unveiled a sculpture dedicated to the former Mayor of Utrecht Annie Brouwer-Korf, who was mayor between 2 July 2007 and 20 December 2007.
It was a present of the members of the local government in honour of her departure as mayor.

See "goodbye meeting" speeches, during a special meeting of the local government, here (page 9, last two paragraphs -alas in Dutch only).

The sculpture is created by Koos Boomstra who has successfully expressed Mrs. Brouwer as she was:
A bit severe lady by which quality she maintained in all kind of situations that came up in local politic. In the background a brewery scene, for Mrs. Brouwer's name means ''brewer".

In the past you could also find about 20 breweries in the neighbourhood of this part of the Oude Gracht.

The console is placed at Oude Gracht at the wharf 328.

on the pictures: taking away the red-white Utrecht flag, the sculpture with a.o. ginkgo leaves and platinum mayor chain, and Annie Brouwer between Koos Boomstra and loco-mayor Harm Janssen

Utrecht Truus

A name, written in daffodils, looks like a delayed Valentine’s present. However it is every-thing but that. (Catharijne-singel 81)

It is a homage of the Utrecht inhabitant Tommie Hendriks to Truus van Lier, a resistance hero in World War II.

In those days the NSB Head Chief Constable Kerlen was preparing a razzia in Utrecht and for that, and other crimes, Truus van Lier shot him in the Willemsplantsoen, the public garden across the water where the daffodils are planted.
This happened on 3 September 1943.

She was arrested and brought to concentration camp Sachsenhausen where she has been executed at 27 Oktober of the same year.

Truus was a cousin of Trui van Lier and both cousins played an important role in the resistance during the war.

Truus studied law in Utrecht but became a member of the resistance group CS-6 in Amsterdam (which may stand for Correlistraat 6 where the meetings were held) .

Trui saved during four years about 150 judish children in a kind of hiding (onderduik-) creche called Kindjeshaven.

And every year the daffodils come up and write the name of Truus till they wilt (verwelken), waiting for the next year.

Utrecht Marathon

Today was the tradi-tional Utrecht Marathon.

The run-ners pass here the buildings of the Utrecht Sterrewacht near the Singel.

The marathon was won by the Kenian William Kipchumba who left in an increasing temperature the other runners behind in a time of 2h09.41.

This meant a strong improvement of the old record on this (Utrecht) track