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Photo: © Al Hajem
Mayor Ahmed Marcouch. Photo: © Al Hajem
ARNHEM
The deep scars of war
TEXT: ARNE ADRIAENSSENS
The city of Arnhem is known as the
backdrop of Operation Market Garden,
the airborne mission which would
stop the Second World War but resulted
in an unseen bloodbath and defeat.
For its citizens, the battle was just the
prelude to a severe winter of famine
and uprooting.
In September 1944, the troops of Nazi
Germany stopped the Western forces on
their mission to resolve the war once and
for all. The Rijnbrug in Arnhem became the
battlefield for one of the most gruesome
passages in the already black book of the
Second World War: the battle of Arnhem.
Thousands of losses on both sides of the
river ended with the Brits and Poles waving
a white flag, prolonging the war for another
nine months. That is where the military
transcripts stop. For the city of Arnhem,
however, the worst had yet to come. “The
battle left Arnhem in ruins,” says Ahmed
Marcouch, mayor of Arnhem. “The city
never really was a target. It was just unfortunately
located on the route to the Ruhr
Area, where they wanted to defeat Hitler.
Arnhem paid the price for Europe’s liberty.
90 per cent of all buildings were destroyed
and the Nazis ordered our citizens to evacuate
the city immediately.”
Packing nothing but the bare essentials,
the villagers of Arnhem left. Most of them
expected to be back home soon, but it
would take until the armistice, nine months
later, for them to return. “People found
shelter but lived in close quarters, sometimes
even in a shed or a henhouse. The
long war made food and coal scarce, resulting
in a long winter of extreme famine
and frostbite, taking thousands of lives.”
With the liberation, the people of Arnhem
returned to their hometown. Yet, all they
found there was a collection of rubble and
bombshells. “While the Netherlands was
celebrating their regained freedom, people
here were collecting the junk. Even today,
75 years later, we still aren’t finished. The
scars of the war are still noticeable in the
streets and the people.”
Since 1945, Arnhem has always paid their
respects to the heroic veterans and the
suffering citizens. Initially, in a more traditional
memorial with the Polish and British
veterans and the involved ambassadors
present, and since 2014, during the annual
Bridge to Liberation Experience (20
September 2019), an evening of culture on
a floating stage on the Rhine. By walking
the liberation route, visiting an Airborne
museum or exploring the scars in the city
and its surrounding villages, you can immerse
yourself even more in the tragedies
that have been. “After 75 years, the people
of Arnhem are finally starting to come
to terms with their past and dare to dwell
on the traumas of the evacuation. This city
will carry the mark of its history for a long
time to come. You can get people out of
the war, yet, getting the war out of people
is harder to do.”
Web: www.airborne-herdenkingen.nl
Photo: Chiel Eijt
56 | Issue 62 | February 2019