Putte is part of the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

municipality of

Woensdrecht Woensdrecht () is a municipality (named after the village) in the southern Netherlands. Woensdrecht is the home of the Woensdrecht Air Base, which is located to the north-east of the village of Woensdrecht and to the north-west of Huijbergen. ...

, and had 3751 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008. The village lies on and extends over the border between the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, the Belgian part being

Putte, Kapellen Putte is a village on the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. The village is marked by the borders that run through it. The Dutch part is in Woensdrecht, North Brabant. The Belgian part is mostly the municipality of Kapellen and a small ...

History

The village was first mentioned in 1277 as Pitte and means

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. Putte developed around the 14th century which is located in Belgium, but whose park is mainly in the Netherlands. In 1839, the border was defined and the village started to develop along the border road. In 1648, at the Peace of Münster, the border between the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

and the

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

was drawn through the village of Putte. The Catholic St Dionysius Church was built in 1865. The church was destroyed in 1940 by war. In 1950, the tower was rebuilt. The church was rebuilt in 1953 at a distance from the tower. The Moretusbosch is a forest which used to belong to Castle Ravenhof, and contains

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A '' regular hexagon'' has ...

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

tea house. Putte was home to 671 people in 1840. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the border was sealed off and the

Wire of Death The Wire of Death ( nl, Dodendraad, german: Todesdraht, french: Fil De La Mort) was a lethal electric fence created by the German military to control the Dutch–Belgian frontier after the occupation of Belgium during the First World War. Ter ...

was constructed to prevent refugees from entering the Netherlands. The former municipality (which merged with several other communities to form the municipality of

in 1997) covered 18,56 sq. kilometres, of which much is forest and moorland.

Notable people

Putte is the burial place of the 17th century Antwerp painter Jacob Jordaens who, as a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

, could not be buried in his

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

hometown. A Jordaens monument stands on the place of the former Protestant cemetery. The village also has three extensive

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

cemeteries with many graves of

Belgian Jews The history of the Jews in Belgium goes back to the 1st century CE until today. The Jewish community numbered 66,000 on the eve of the Second World War but, after the war and The Holocaust, is now less than half that number. Today, Belgium ...

. The noted artist

Marguerite Wildenhain Marguerite Wildenhain, née Marguerite Friedlaender and alternative spelling ''Friedländer'' (October 11, 1896 – February 24, 1985), was an American Bauhaus-trained ceramic artist, educator and author. After immigrating to the United States in ...

, who was forced to leave her teaching post in Germany because of her Jewish ancestry, came to Putte in 1933. She and her husband Franz established in the town a pottery shop called ''Het Kruikje'' (Little Jug) - which existed until the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, when Wildenhain was able to find refuge in the US.

Gallery

File:Stabroek Ravenhof 22.JPG, Tea house Ravenhof File:Grenspaal 262 België-Nederland 2.jpg, Border pole #262 File:Overzicht kerktoren - Putte - 20002601 - RCE.jpg, Street view

References

External links

* {{commons category-inline Belgium–Netherlands border crossings Municipalities of the Netherlands disestablished in 1997 Populated places in North Brabant Former municipalities of North Brabant Woensdrecht

History

Notable people

Gallery

See also

References

External links