The Last Days of Corporal Matyola, Part 1: Beginning at the End

On a chilly April morning I became the first relative to visit the grave of Pvt Peter "Pinto" Matyola.

On November 19, 1944, a young man from New Jersey named Peter Matyola gave his life for his country on the fields of Germany.

On May 27, 1945, his sister Anna named her newborn son, my father, after her deceased brother.

I am named after both my father and my Great Uncle. Until relatively recently, though, I knew little about my more distant namesake except that he was killed during World War II and was buried somewhere in Europe.

On Wednesday, April 17, I had the opportunity to visit his grave at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, NL, on behalf of my entire family. I was the first relative to visit his grave.

Photo by the author

The Netherlands American Cemetery has a special program for visiting relatives. A representative from the cemetery met me at the visitor’s center and escorted me throughout my visit. She had me sign the guest book, set up the flags of the USA and the Netherlands at the grave site, and provided sand (from the beaches of Normandy) for me to rub into the headstone’s engraving, commemorating (for a short time) this visit.

The author rubbing sand from Normandy onto the headstone,

The flowers in front of the headstone did not come from the cemetery, but from a local family who has adopted Peter’s grave.

The original idea to adopt graves of the American liberators came up in February of 1945. To this effect the “Burger Comité Margraten” (Citizens Committee Margraten) was formed. The committee’s goal was to support the set-up of the American Cemetery with an extensive adoption campaign. The adopters were supposed to regularly visit the adopted grave and, in case this was appreciated, keep in touch with the next of kin in the U.S.

The campaign gained massive support. At the first Memorial Day in 1945 every grave was decorated with flowers. At the second Memorial Day one year later all graves (at the time an incredible amount of 18,764) had been adopted. Captain Shomon, the founder of the American Cemetery, praised the members of the committee for all the work they had done.

The author (left) and Jos Lemmens, representing the Dutch family that adopted Peter’s grave.

I had heard of the adoption program and reached out to the cemetery, whose staff put me in touch with Jos Lemmens, whose family had adopted Peter’s grave, prior to my visit. The more I learned about this program, though, the more touching I found it. From a 2015 Washington Post article:

They haven't forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II.

On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300¹ headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own.

For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers.

At the cemetery’s annual commemoration, 6,000 people poured onto the 65-acre burial grounds just a few miles from the German border, including scores of descendants of American war dead who had traveled here from all over the United States. They were eager to pay tribute to parents or grandparents who had died to defeat the Nazis. But they also wanted to thank the Dutch families who had been tending the graves of their loved ones, often passing the responsibility from one generation to the next.

Indeed, the Dutch have not forgotten. According to the video on the adoption web page, there is a local school named for Major General Maurice Ross, the highest-ranking U.S. soldier interred at Margraten. The school has adopted the General’s grave. Dutch students study the Second World War in grades 4 and 6. During my visit, there were some school-aged children present, listening to a teacher provide a short lesson in front of a battle map:

On behalf of my family- especially my father- I thanked Jos and all who care for and remember the sacrifices made by young men who were quite far from home. If you have the opportunity to visit one of these American Cemeteries in Europe, I highly recommend it. Take your children, show them. It is important.

The road that took me to his grave began several years ago with an ancestry.com subscription (which provided a picture of the grave) and gained steam a couple of years later when my parents, while cleaning out the home of a deceased relative (Peter’s sister Helen), found some pictures of Peter and a postcard sent from his basic training site. Pinto (as he signed his postcard) had a complicated journey from his enlistment on March 27, 1942, until that fateful day in November of 1944. I’ve been able to trace some, but not all, of his path. Much of what I found lacks detail. Still, in tracing the bits that I could, I learned quite a bit about the history of the U.S. Army in World War II. I will take you along for some of Peter’s journey soon, starting by taking a look at the days just prior to Pinto’s death.

Until next time, thanks for reading, subscribing, and spreading the word.

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All the Best,

PGR

1. This is fewer than the 18,764 graves cited as being present in 1946. After the war, families were given the option of having their loved one’s remains permanently interred in an American military cemetery on foreign soil, repatriation of the remains to the USA for interment in a private or national cemetery, or repatriation to the individual’s homeland. Although the majority chose repatriation, about 40% chose permanent interment in Europe. Repatriation began in 1947, so the 1946 count includes those whose remains would later be repatriated.