AERSCHOT AND DISTRICT.
Period III., (September.)
It is unnecessary to describe with much particularity the events of the period beginning about Sept. 10. The Belgian soldiers, who had recaptured the place, found corpses of civilians who must have been murdered in Aerschot itself just as they found them in Sempst and the other villages on Aug. 25. Some of these bodies were found in wells and some had been burned alive in their houses.
The prisoners released by the Belgian Army from the church were almost starved.
HAECHT.—At Haecht several children had been murdered, one of 2 or 3 years of age was found nailed to the door of a farmhouse by its hands and feet—a crime which seems almost incredible, but the evidence for which we feel bound to accept. In the garden of this house was the body of a girl who had been shot in the forehead.
CAPELLE-AU-BOIS.—At Capelle-au-Bois two children were murdered in a cart and their corpses were seen by many witnesses at different stages of the cart's journey.
EPPEGHEM.—At Eppeghem the dead body of a child of 2 was seen pinned to the ground with a German lance. Same witness saw a mutilated woman alive near Weerde on the same day.
TREMELOO.—Belgian soldiers on patrol duty found a young girl naked on the ground, covered with scratches. She complained of having been violated. On the same day an old woman was seen kneeling by the body of her husband, and she told them that the Germans had shot him as he was trying to escape from the house.