Lifestyle
'He was not a pushover, but he did not deserve the criminals' graveyard'
Marcella Broeders discovered that Adriaan Smits, buried on Oosterhout’s former ‘criminals’ graveyard’, is her relative. Smits, who committed suicide in 1897 after struggling with poverty and alcoholism, was denied burial on the Catholic cemetery due to religious stigma. Broeders argues that while he was not innocent, he deserved better treatment than being interred anonymously without ceremony.
Ozetta summarises; the reporting is the newsroom's