13. Brussels: A Booking-Office
14. Malines After Bombardment
In one house they bound a bed-ridden man to his bed, and shot another man in the presence of 13 children who were in the house (d 29). In another house they burned a woman and two children (d 71); they burned the owner of a bicycle shop in his shop;[127] these four bodies were found, carbonised, by the Belgian troops. The Belgians also found a woman dead in the street, with four bayonet wounds in her body (d 36), and saw an Uhlan overtake a woman driving in a cart, thrust his lance through her body, and then shoot her in the chest with his carbine (d 80). In a farmhouse the farmer was found with his head cut off. His two sons, killed by bullet wounds, were lying beside him. His wife, whose left breast had been cut off, was still alive, and told how, when her eight-year-old son had gone up a ladder into the loft, the Germans had pulled away the ladder and set the building on fire.[128] Twenty-seven houses were burnt at Sempst, 200 sacked, 18 inhabitants killed, and 34 deported to Germany.
At Weerde 34 houses were burnt. As the Germans retreated they bayonetted two little girls standing in the road and tossed them into the flames of a burning house—their mother was standing by (d 85). At Eppeghem[129] 176 houses were burnt, 8 civilians killed, and 125 deported. The killing was done with the bayonet. A woman with child, whose stomach had been slashed open, died in the hospital at Malines. When the Germans returned to Eppeghem again, they used the remaining civilians as a screen. On August 28th they did the same at Elewyt,[130] not even exempting old men or women with child. We have the testimony of a Belgian priest who was driven in the screen, and of a Belgian soldier in the trenches against which the screen was driven. A hundred and thirty-three houses were burnt at Elewyt, and 10 civilians killed. The Belgian troops found the body of a man tied naked to a ring in a wall. His head was riddled with bullets, there was a bayonet wound in his chest, and he had been mutilated obscenely. A woman, also mutilated obscenely after violation, was lying dead on the ground. In another house a man and a woman were found, with bayonet wounds all over their bodies, on the floor. At Perck 180 houses (out of 243) were sacked and 5 civilians killed. At Bueken 50 houses were burnt, 30 sacked (out of 84), and 8 civilians killed. The victims were killed in a meadow in the sight of the women and children.[131] Among them was the parish priest.[132] “He was a man 75 or 80 years old. He could not walk fast enough. He was driven along with blows from rifle-butts and knocked down. He cried out: ‘I can go no further,’ and a soldier thrust a bayonet into his neck at the back—the blood flowed out in quantities. The old man begged to be shot, but the officer said: ‘That is too good for you.’ He was taken off behind a house and we heard shots. He did not return....” (d 97, cp. 98). At Vilvorde[133] 33 houses were burnt and 6 civilians killed. In the whole Canton of Vilvorde, in which all these places, except Malines, lay, 611 houses were burnt, 1,665 plundered, 90 civilians killed, and 177 deported to Germany.
The devastation spread through the whole zone of the German retreat. At Capelle-au-Bois[134] the Belgian troops found two girls hanging naked from a tree with their breasts cut off, and two women bayonetted in a house, caught as they were making preparations to flee. A woman told them how German soldiers had held her down by force, while other soldiers had violated her daughter successively in an adjoining room. Four civilians were killed at Capelle-au-Bois and 235 houses burnt. At Londerzeel[135] 18 houses were burnt and one civilian killed. He was a man who had tried to prevent the Germans from violating his two daughters. When the Germans re-entered Londerzeel they used the civilian population as a screen. At Ramsdonck, near Londerzeel, a woman and two children were shot by the Germans as they were flying for protection towards the Belgian lines.[136] At Wolverthem 10 houses were burnt and 5 people killed. At Meysse 3 houses were burnt and 350 sacked, 2 civilians killed and 29 deported. At Beyghem 32 houses were burnt. At Pont-Brûlé,[137] on Aug. 25th, the priest was imprisoned with 28 other civilian hostages in a room. The German soldiers compelled him to hold up his hands for hours, and struck him when he lowered them from fatigue. They compelled his fellow-prisoners to spit on him. They tore up his breviary and threw the fragments in his face. When he fainted they threw pails of water on him to revive him. As he was reviving he was shot. Fifty-eight houses were burnt in the commune of Pont-Brûlé-Grimbergen, 5 civilians shot, and 65 deported. These places lay in the Canton of Wolverthem, west of the river Senne, between Termonde, Malines, and Brussels. In the whole canton 426 houses were burnt, 1,292 plundered, 29 civilians killed, and 182 deported to Germany.
15. Malines: Ruins
