War victim's body identified after almost 82 years
A war victim's body has been identified after nearly 82 years. The body of Petrus Albertus van Dieren was identified by The Salvage and Identification Service Royal Army (BIDKL), it was announced on Tuesday.
Van Dieren was executed by German forces on July 24, 1942, at the Waalsdorpervlakte in The Hague. He had been arrested a year earlier for involvement in robbing a distribution office and was sentenced to death.
His remains were found at a mass grave in the Waalsdorpervlakte after the war. DNA research from the the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI) proved it was Van Dieren's body after a relative of his handed in a DNA sample.
The BIKDL's research had shown that Van Dieren was one of the many unidentified Dutch men buried at the National Field of Honor in Loenen. The BIDKL, the War Graves Foundation, the NFI, and the National Expertise Center for Missing Persons (LOEP) started a project in 2018 to identify the 'hundred of Loenen.'
The BIDKL researched the human remains of 103 unknowns who are buried at the field. The goal is to identify them all.
Relatives of war victims who have not been identified yet can get in contact with the BIDKL to request their aid in identifying a victim. BIDKL specialists then let the relatives know whether anyone is eligible for a DNA sample.
