At Louvain
Several people who had been killed at Louvain by the Germans had been buried by them on the square in front of the railway station. The Kölnische Zeitung had the assurance to deny the fact. But search was made, and the bodies of these victims of German barbarism were discovered. The following account of the exhumation was given by the Tijd of Amsterdam, above the signature of a journalist who took part in the work in the presence of several Belgians, Colonel Lubbert, German commandant of Louvain, and his aide-de-camp.
“Fortunately a fresh wind was blowing on that day, as the stench which came out of the open tomb was unbreatheable. The objects found on the bodies were immediately thrust into a sack, which was duly numbered. Twenty bodies were disinterred after frightful labour; twenty bodies jammed into a hole not more than four square metres in extent!
“We had to take infinite care not to collect legs or arms belonging to other bodies, so much were the limbs jumbled together.
“Emotion overwhelmed us all, but the German Colonel Lubbert could not refrain from saying to the burgomaster, ‘How such an event could have taken place is incomprehensible when you think how educated and cultivated our people are.’ And the aide-de-camp added, ‘I am glad I was not at Louvain during these tragic moments!’ Words which have their value, and which show that plain people in Germany now regret the indescribable act ordered by their leaders, in contempt of the laws of the most elementary humanity!
“Professor Maldague, who was among the wretched prisoners callously picked out one after another for slaughter, and who had miraculously escaped death, could not control the profound emotion which overwhelmed him. On that fatal day the crowd of people were forbidden to look at the atrocities committed by civilised Germany, but a woman who happened to be near Professor Maldague ventured nevertheless, and saw that the victims marked out for expiation were compelled to lie face downwards on the paving-stones. Then they were killed by shots in the nape of the neck, the back or the head.
“The majority of the victims consequently lay with skulls fractured, not merely as a result of shots, but of blows from the butt-end of rifles. Even that was not enough. All the bodies which were recovered—the medical reports assure us on this point—had been pierced through with bayonet thrusts. Some had their legs and arms broken. Two bodies only had no wound. A post-mortem examination of them will be made to discover the causes of death.
“Mme. Van Ertrijck then recognised at the edge of the pit her husband, aged sixty years, the well-known cigar manufacturer, and her son, aged twenty-seven years; then appeared the bodies of a Belgian soldier, who could not be identified, and of a young lad not fifteen years old. The following victims were afterwards identified: Charles Munkemer, husband of Amélie Marant, born 1885; Edgard Bicquet, brewer at Boort-Meerbeek, whose family, known throughout Louvain, lives in the Rue de la Station; the retired Belgian Major Eickhorn, aged sixty years, inventor of short-range cartridges; A. Van de Gaer, O. Candries, Mme. A. Bruyninckx, née Aug. Mariën; Mme. Perilleux, aged about sixty years. But on turning over the ground we discovered a second tomb, which contained seven other corpses concealed under thirty centimetres of earth.
“On the next day the melancholy task was resumed. In quite a small pit two more bodies were brought to light: that of Henri Decorte, an artisan of Kessel-Loo, and that of M. Van Bladel, curé of Hérent. There was not a sound when the wretched priest’s tall form was disinterred. R. P. Claes merely gasped, ‘The curé of Hérent!’ The poor man was seventy-one years old” (see the Temps of 5th February, 1915).