Newtown massacre victims remembered in Peace Woods

US ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman and his wife joined Bastogne mayor Benoît Lutgen to plant 26 trees in honour of the victims of last Friday’s tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, the Embassy said in a press release. The mayor organised Tuesday’s ceremony in the Peace Woods of Bastogne, a site created in 1994 with 4,000 trees planted in honour of the almost 20,000 American soldiers who fought and died in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-1945. They were joined by 20 local children. Ambassador Gutman thanked the town for its emotional tribute to those who died in the shooting and highlighted the strong ties between Belgium and the US. “Bastogne never forgets – they don’t forget what happened here in that cold winter in 1944 and they won’t forget the tragic events of this past week in the United States,” he said. He also noted that he had “shared Belgium’s grief in Lommel, after the tragic bus accident, and in Hasselt, after the deaths at the Pukkelpop festival” and that he was “very moved to be here today as Mayor Lutgen and the people of Bastogne share America’s grief at the tragedy in Newtown”. The trees, he said, would be a living memory to those who had died. The ambassador spent a day in Bastogne on December 15 to commemorate the 68th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle fought on the western front in World War Two.