Southwark erected a plaque on the corner of Nunhead Lane and Peckham Rye to honour 24 victims killed in the Second World War by a German V-2 rocket. The missile landed outside a corset factory and most of the victims were young women.
Meanwhile Southwark is busy destroying the memorials and graves of WW2 victims in Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries, maybe these very same civilian casualties, to sell ‘new’ burial plots over the graves.
Victims get a public plaque and Southwark Council appears to honour them. But when families come visit their loved ones’ grave, will someone else be buried in their place, their memorial gone?
The summer of 1944 saw dozens of V-1 and V-2 missiles rain down on Nunhead and Peckham killing 80 residents in total. Most are buried locally.
Most families don’t know what is happening to relatives’ graves as Southwark has never consulted families on policy agreed in 2012.
Southwark has since cleared hundreds of memorials and cut down acres of woods to mound over thousands of graves including dozens WW1 and WW2 CWGC war graves.
The Council is now applying to Parliament to dig up thousands more – including possibly those of the 1944 V1 and V2 rocket victims.
If Southwark really wanted to honour the dead, they would leave them to rest in peace and not dig up or mound over their graves.
FOCC is campaigning to preserve the graves, heritage and woods of the Camberwell Cemeteries and make them nature reserves.
