Hensden, Holland

By CHARLES LYNCH Reuter Correspondent

WITH ALLIED TROOPS IN HEUSDEN, Nov. 17. The Germans murdered, 135 men, women and children in this little town on the Maas River west of 's Hertogenbosch during the night of Sunday, Nov. 4.

They deliberately herded them into the town hall, and then blew up the ancient building, burying the victims in the rubble.

This little town, which is more than 1000 years old, is the Dutch "Lidice."

In Heusden today I checked every detail of this hideous crime. There is scarcely a family in the walled, moated town that has not lost a father, mother, brother or sister-and some families have been wiped out altogether.

Burgomaster Gerhard Steerners, appointed after the Germans left, showed me the list of the names of the victims, including 52 children under 10 years of age and many of them infants.

Blew Up Churches

I talked to Allied soldiers who helped remove the bodies from the wreckage of the town hall, I heard the story from several citizens of Heusden and visited the many graves of the victims in the Protestant and Catholic cemeteries of the town. At the same time as they blew up the town hall, the German also blew up both the Protestant and Catholic churches.

Here is what happened in Heusden on the night of November 5:

British troops were nearing the town. Many people has taken to their cellars. German troops, led by an officer went through the town telling the people "You should all go to the town hall. There you will be safe from British shells.

They also went to a convent where the nuns were taking refuge in cellars and advised them to join the townsfolk in the town hall. As a result of the German advice about 200

women and children huddled in the cellar of the town hall that Sunday night.

At 2 o'clock in the morning there was a tremendous roar and rumbling of toppling masonry and then silence except for the screams of the trapped and dying. The town hall of Heusden, built in 1596 and one of the finest in Europe, was in ruins and buried beneath it were 200 people. Sixty-five of them got out alive. The rest were killed.

When Allied Troops entered Heusden that Monday morning the townsfolk were standing numbly around the wreckage which held the bodies of so many of their friends and love ones.

On the wreckage of the town hall today there is a wreath sent by the British Army men who captured the town, "We appreciate that," said the burgomaster.

On the road near the wrecked town hall was the face of the old town clock, the work of some medieval master draftsman. A fouryear old child was playing with the hands and smiling.

He was one of those spared from the town hall massacre I asked the burgomaster: "Why did they do it?"

He replied: "Who can tell? It must be that they are sadists-animals."

Investigation Asked

In four days all of the bodies had been removed and buried.

Today-although the Germans are only 200 yards away across the river-methodical townsfolk are trying to clear up the wreckage of the town hall which extends for a block along the main street of the town.

The burgomaster showed me this list of names headed "Total people killed in the cellar of the town hall of Heusden." It contained such entries as "Conelia Roubos, born 9/11/38" and "Elly Jenny Van de Wal, born Heusdep, 8/10/43" and "Wilhelmas Klee, born 's Hertogenbosch, 12/22/41."

The Germans used dynamite to blow up the town hall and churches.

The burgomaster says the Germans will be made to pay for this atrocity. He says the town is going to ask for an Allied commission to investigate the entire affair. This commission will have before it the names of the German officers in charge of the troops who were in Heusden.

'Terrible Sight'

The Allied soldier who first saw the town hall on that Monday morning told me:

"It was a terrible sight. Near this door there was an old woman with her mouth open as if she had been screaming just when she was killed. I could see a woman with her baby on her lap both dead. The rest were buried but I could see some arms and legs in the wreckage.

"At that time we could not do anything because Jerries were in the town. But we were able to give a hand to clear up the mess and bury the dead."

The Germans still send patrols into Heusden at night and through binoculars this afternoon I was able to make out German soldiers walking about on the other side of the river.

They sent one mortar bomb into Heusden at noon today and killed a 12-year old child.

This must have been a beautiful town before the German demolitions. It was incorporated as a village in the year 893, has an earthenwall all around it in addittion to a moat The main industries are shipbuilding and brickmaking

Today the people are trying to get back to a semi balance of normal life although their town is still right in the front line.

Five per cent of the population has been wiped out in a single blow and the gaps must be terribly apparent to these Dutch burghers as they walk through the littered streets and politely tip their hats to us.

Death Marches

Bor Mines Death March

Zalman Teichman was one of six thousand Hungarian Jews from the Hungarian Army Labor Corps who were sent to work at the Bor copper mines near Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during 1943 and 1944. In September 1944 as the Germans retreated from the Balkans, he was part of the Death March of these Jews from Bor to southern Hungary, from where survivors were deported to concentration camps in Germany. His group of twenty-five hundred Jews were subjected to brutal executions during the forced evacuation: approximately fifteen hundred prisoners were shot, almost one thousand of them during the night of October 7-8, 1944 at Cservenka in Hungarian-occupied Yugoslavia. In this excerpt Teichman describes the brutal massacre.

Reprinted from Nathan Eck, "The March of Death from Serbia to Hungary (September 1944) and the Slaughter of Cservenka (Story of a Survivor)," Yad Vashem Studies. 2 (1958):261-94.

Two days before Rosh Hashana, on 16 September, 1944, all the companies are ordered on parade. We are told that at midnight all of us must be ready for marching. We were going home and would set out in the direction of Belgrade. A warning is given that no one should dare to try and stay behind, except if he is medically certified as unable to walk. We are told that we are to receive a loaf (550 grams) of bread and one can of meat each, and that we are to know that until Belgrade there would be no chance to get anything to eat.

We began to prepare. Many of us prepared trolleys. Finally the hour of midnight arrived. Everyone kept his haversack or bag with his necessities, slung it over his shoulder, and went to report to his company. ...

Our marching order was as follows: Armed Honveds [Hungarian soldiers] marched in front, followed by baptized Jews wearing white bands; after them marched a company of Jehovah's Witnesses and Hungarian Seventh-DayAdventists, about 200 men. These were followed by companies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 59, 62, 63, 64, 68, 103, 104, 81, 84. Then came the men from the Heidenau and Innsbruck camps a total of 3,000. The command of the transport was held by First Lieutenant Sandor Pataky, and Lieutenant Pal Johaz (may their names be cursed).

Finally, we began to march. There were so many people that the convoy stretched over 2 kilometres. At 7 o'clock in the morning we reached a staging area from which the people had been evacuated two days before and the camp had been burned. It was the prevailing practice that whenever a canp was evacuated, its huts were burned down. We rested until 11 o'clock.

We heard then that the road was blocked, and that partisans had occupied some of the villages we had to pass through. To clear the road for us the Germans sent a great number of trucks with machine guns, many soldiers and field guns. Thus we marched on as far as the village of Heidenau which we reached at night. There we were joined by another 600 Jews from the Heidenau and Innsbruck camps so that we now numbered 3,600 men.

It was the Eve of Rosh Hashana and the observant Jews began to pray as they were accustomed to do. We slept under the open sky. It was very cold and of course, no one had more than one blanket and we were all shivering. Finally, the morning came. The Jewish [i.e., religious Jews] people had already been praying for a long time, the shofar had also been blown. We had indeed one shofar.

We then went on and marched through Zhagubitsa. The hungry and thirsty people tried to get into houses and to ask for a slice of bread or a little water. The Serbians stood there with jars and bottles ready to give us water, but immediately an order was given that a Honved should take up position every 30 metres to ensure that no one left the ranks. The Serbians cried but they could not help us. As soon as one of us left the ranks he was shot at and the march went on.

On the way we found maize in the fields. During the rest period some young people ran out to fetch some maize, lit a fire and roasted it. An order was given that no one must leave the road. One of us accidentally turned aside to carry out his needs. He was immediately shot by Ensign Pal. The people buried him there; they dug the grave with their fingers because they had no working tools. The matter was immediately reported to the Lieutenant who answered: "Why didn't you shoot five?" This was the first victim on the road. He was a strong man, married (I do not want to mention him by name). We then reached the place where the road slopes upwards into the hills....

Thus we marched 35 to 40 kilometres a day between the large towns. As soon as we reached a town the Honveds surrounded us to prevent us getting some water or a piece of bread. Orders were given that every town must be crossed running. Imagine such a crowd of men running through a town, one falling over the other! Many of us were barefoot either because their feet were sore or because they had no shoes. One is walking with his shoes on and the other without; and the Honveds keep beating us. Quite a number fainted. What a pleasure this was! They kicked our heads with rifles until the blood was streaming down. One man I saw his head was already split while the soldiers still went on beating him: he had found a grove with dirty water running in it and was collecting it in a cup.

We used to sleep in fields under the open sky some 7–8 kms. from the towns, and the soldiers posted guards to prevent our escape. During the day there were opportunities

for getting away or staying behind. For instance, we used to walk until five o'clock and then sit down in the field to sleep. But the sick people who could not walk would arrive only at 11 or 12 o'clock at night and the next morning at 7 o'clock they would walk on with the whole convoy. Until we reached Belgrade, about 220 kms. from Bor, we were very short of water: People would trade their last slice of bread, their last cigarette....

Three kms. before we got there, orders were changed; Rest period! We are not to go on marching for the rest of the day.... They waited until nightfall in order not to enter the town in the sight of the Serbians during the day, for it is easier to maintain order during the night and prevent us from getting in touch with the Serbians, and talking with them. However, we had barely entered the town, when the Serbians, young and old, spilled into the streets right and left. The Germans ordered their soldiers to help the Hungarians. But this did not seem enough; they brought up another 20 truckfuls of men to patrol the area between the Jews and the Serbian crowds, which they did yelling and shooting. The screaming cannot be imagined. I think that many Serbians were killed and wounded. The trucks would drive over the people without mercy. Thus we marched through the back alleys of the towns and crossed the bridge leading to the town of Zemun [Semlin, Yugoslavia]. There we were taken to a large exhibition area— a heap of ruins. The Jews of Serbia had been collected there when the Germans entered the country, and many of them had been slaughtered.

We stayed there for three days. We had hoped that in Belgrade we would certainly get something to eat. The people had run out of food by then, some of them even three days before that. We were waiting and hoping for food. Every minute, every second we would heap offers: "Who gives a slice of bread for cigarettes, for a shirt, for leather gloves, for a towel?" But no one had any bread left.

Suddenly we hear that a meal is being cooked. There was great rejoicing... At half past eleven everyone started to run to the kitchen with his mess-tin and waited there until 3 or 4 o'clock to get two decilitres of rotten maize gruel to drink. Sixty per cent of the people did not get even this.

The next morning was Yom Kippur. The Jews began to pray. Imagine the tears and the scenes of crying. One thought: I have been fasting for three or four days, I'll fast today as well. They prayed and cried with broken hearts and tired voices....

After the fast was over there were two decilitres of gruel for those who could get it. Those who did not, went on fasting or relieved their hunger with some weeds from the fields. The morning after Yom Kippur the Germans suddenly brought bread in exchange for gold or 3,000 dinars. This was a great deal of money, and who had money?

Before nightfall we heard that the next morning we would go on marching to Titel. We were each given 200 grams of bread, 20 grams of margarine, and 40 grams of sausage. As far as Titel, they said, we would not get anything else. We believed this. It was 95 kms. from Belgrade and Titel was the first town on Hungarian territory.

We got up at 3 o'clock in the morning and crossed Belgrade while it was still dark. In the morning, we really did not meet anyone. We reached the bridge, which was, of course, blown up, and we were taken across the Danube in boats. Many German trucks and stocks of ammunition were ferried across and we crossed with them in small boats. Finally we were forced to tow the heavy trucks with ropes from the water to the road, a very difficult task which earned us many beatings. We marched on until one kilometre before Panchevo. There we camped and slept under the open sky.

It rained throughout the night. We were tired and had to sleep in the mud. Half of the people no longer had any blankets; they were unable to carry them and had thrown them away. Above us there was the rain, beneath us was the watersoaked earth and it seemed as if we were all lying in the water. Many people remained standing erect throughout the night, although they were hungry. Towards evening several Serbians came; they felt sorry for us. They asked for permission to give us something to eat, but permission was denied. When one of us tried to approach them, fire would be opened. A Serbian came along in his carriage; he was the owner of a large estate. He saw the situation in which we were. He approached the lieutenant and asked him for permission to bring each of us a kilogram of bread at his own expense. He would take care of the baking, he said, and within three or four hours, everything would be ready. The Lieutenant answered: "Are we to give bread for the Jews, the Communists? Better give it to the dogs or throw it into the Danube. We will allow you to give it to the Seventh-Day-Adventists."...

We marched on and on, with rain pouring down all the time. Our luggage was soaked with water and had become three times heavier. The people were getting progressively weaker. At every staging period they re-examined their luggage and threw away whatever they did not need. Whenever we broke camp the place looked like a second-hand goods market. It was littered with cast-offs like underclothes, towels, brushes, soap, new sweaters, etc. Our march was very hard. Rain was falling all the time. Half the people were already walking barefoot and ragged, worse than Gypsies. The Germans marched with us for three days. Once I overheard a Honved asking a German: "What is the news? How many Jews have you shot today?" The German answered: "Not one." Said the Honved: "What kind of a German are you, don't you know about Hitler's order?"

The first days went by. On the third day when we were about to reach Titel, the Germans remembered that the Jews would soon cross the Hungarian frontier while they

themselves would stay behind. They still had a chance to do with the Jews as they pleased. Should they let this opportunity go by? So they began to shoot at us as if they were at a fair. When somebody stopped to adjust his shoes or walked aside to do his needs, he was immediately shot. When it was suggested, once, that a doctor should stay behind with the wounded man, the German said: I will be his doctor, and immediately fired another bullet into him. It was said that until Titel 70-80 people were killed in this manner. I myself saw how two men of my company were killed in this manner. One of them was from Ungvar; he was not very strong. He had never known that he was a Jew until he was reminded of it by the Germans in the labour camp. Thus we crossed the bridge and reached Titel.... Many were taken ill, about 200; of those who were not strong enough to march together with the whole transport and usually arrived four or five hours later, none of them unfortunately appeared. . . . I also had a brother-in-law among those who stayed behind; I searched for him all the time but unfortunately could not find him....

We thought that in "holy" Hungary we would finally get something to eat, but we were mistaken. We did not get anything. Thus we marched on to Ujvidek [Novi Sad]. On the way there the Honveds went completely mad. No one could stay behind. They beat us murderously with their weapons and said: “On Hungarian soil no one will be allowed to get away. Whoever wanted to slip away could have stayed in Serbia."

The soldiers showed indescribable inhumanity. The more tired the people were the more they would force them to hurry and they would allow them to rest only every 14 or 15 kms. The people could no longer walk, and the Honveds beat them murderously. Once I saw that a man felt weak and had to stay behind. A friend of his stayed with him because he had fainted and could no longer talk. The man was crying and tried to make his friend stand up. Suddenly a Honved appeared and shouted: "Are you going to go on?" The man kissed his sick friend and took leave of him. Then the Honved landed a blow of his rifle butt on the head of the man so that he also stayed behind. . . .

At Ujvidek we were taken to an area near the railway station which had been destroyed by bombs. There we were kept in strict confinement for three days. In some way, by stealth, 10 kgs. of bread were secured and distributed among 500 people. One young boy, a native of Ujvidek, stayed there and is still alive. One of us was given one kg. of bread by a Serbian. He was immediately surrounded by the men of his company and everyone implored him to give him a piece. He did not know what to do so he tossed the loaf in the air. Everyone tried to catch it. They fought until blood was flowing. It was a shocking spectacle.

On the third day we were told that we were going to leave. We were all very glad because on the way there was

always a chance of finding a cob of corn, or some vegetable but in our empty backyard there was nothing. We would boil water with straw so that we could put something warm to our mouth.

On the march we were given 150 grams of bread. We crossed a town on the way to Sombor. The Serbians, I say, may God bless them for what they did for us all the time, saw that we were not allowed to leave the ranks, so they threw down to us from the second and third floors of their houses, bread, cigarettes, nuts and apples. Our men would catch them, or at least those who were quick enough. One Serbian woman was standing, holding a loaf of bread in her hand. She was waiting for someone to come and get it. One man left the ranks and was noticed by a Honved, but the latter was not inhuman and only fired into the air. By the side of the road Hungarian soldiers and officers were standing, showing their pleasure at our ragged appearance which was a thousand times worse than that of Gypsies. When that Honved fired into the air, an ensign from the group that was watching us said: "Why do you fire into the air? You have got bullets in order to shoot at Jews, especially when they disobey orders." Thus with great hardship we reached Szenttamas.

The next morning we marched on. The great German withdrawal had already begun then. All day long, masses of German trucks with arms and foodstuffs were passing by, all day long the drivers would blow their horns because we were blocking the road and seriously holding them up. The civilian population, the Swabians who were living there would ride past us on carts, because the area was full of Swabians [ethnic Germans, or Volksdeutsche, whose families had lived in the region for generations]. They left behind great quantities of poultry-chickens and geese. Several Jews caught some of them, a chicken or a goose. They thought that when the rest period came they could fry the birds. They also took over a cart and pushed it. Obviously, the Germans who passed by were displeased when they saw Jews carrying their property.

Finally we reached the small town of Cservenka, 35 kms. from Sombor. In the evening we were taken to the fields. Where to? To the brick factory. No need to say how the Swabians of Cservenka looked at us. When we entered the fields our men would pick up small potatoes and eat them. Some others kept them to boil them in the evening in the brick factory. When they tried to light a fire the Honveds shouted that they should put it out. We lay down on the wet and cold ground without boiling any food. In the morning everyone picked up his belongings and we went on marching as before. Suddenly an order was given to stop. This was on Friday, Succot. We are staying until further orders. No one liked this turn of events but we had no choice.

Then we saw the Honveds and the officers collecting the belongings of Jewish youngsters and leaving us. We asked them what the matter was. They said they did not

know anything but that this was the order they received, and we should not worry. "Don't worry" made us worry even more and we wanted to leave the brick factory. The gate was guarded so that none of the Jews should be able to leave. Thus we were left alone for ten minutes. Then the notorious German murderers, the SS, appeared. About 200 of them entered with a great show of impertinence holding whips and leading dogs. They would march around, kicking and shouting "Platz, Platz". We began to fear the worst. The Germans immediately began to find faults "that this one was not clean, that these were the cursed Jews, etc." They would find something wrong with everyone of us, as, for instance, that he had not shaved or some other unimportant things, and they would beat us up for it. . . .

The men were in such a weak and exhausted state that they sat down: no one had enough strength to walk or to talk. They were only sighing and cursing themselves, wishing for a quick death, because they could no longer bear all this. Some thought that we were going to be shot dead there and then but it was hard to believe it. One of them said: "The air is full of gunpowder." He was immediately rebuked by twenty people who said "Aren't you ashamed of saying a thing like this? Would the Germans think of something like this at a time when the Russians are only 20 kilometres away?" In this vein the subject was discussed throughout Friday.

Throughout that day the men of the SS were firing into the air as if on target practice or for pleasure. Their purpose was to get the neighbourhood used to the sound of firing so that when they were shooting in earnest it should not be conspicuous....

Saturday morning, when the people got up, the loud shouts of the SS men were heard, ordering all of us to coume out. . . . Afterwards they began to torture us, to make us run from one place to another and tire us out. When one fell down, all those behind him were held up and were treated to blows. They were yelling, crying and cursing the day they were born. The scenes cannot be described. For a whole hour we were chased around in this manner until we were out of breath. Then we were pushed into a small attic of an area of 10 by 5 metres where bricks are usually placed for drying. 400-500 persons crowded into this space, jostling against each other, without air and unable to move. It was forbidden to utter a sound or even a sigh. Whoever made himself heard had his head beaten with a rifle butt by an SS-man until his blood flowed. Many fainted but no one noticed it. The people lost their nerves and not one paid any attention to his affairs. A dead body was for us just a block of wood or a brick....

After an hour they left us in peace. 15 to 20 persons remained there as if they were dead. Later attempts were made to revive them; some of them were still alive and some others expired, and everyone went back to his own

affairs. At two o'clock in the afternoon another order came: Up, outside, form ranks! The SS-men are going inside to see if anybody is hiding. Many did not have enough strength to stand up. But when the blows came raining down on their heads they were forced to go out. When the whole crowd was standing, the SS-men yelled out the command that each company should form rows of ten, each company separately. We were afraid that every tenth man would be killed. The SS-men went raving mad, worse than beasts of the jungle, and went on beating us.

One SS-man called out "I need fifty strong men, volunteers." But who still felt healthy? Who had enough strength left to go to work? Nobody volunteered. So the SS-man himself came up, picked out strong, healthy-looking men one by one until he had fifty, and took them to an unknown place. We then again heard the shouted command of an SSman: All non-Jews come to me! The baptized Jews, wearing the white arm-bands stepped forward and were returned with the words: "You are half-Jews too." They meant the Seventh-Day-Adventists and removed them from the ranks. It was then that the people began to believe in earnest but they wanted it to be over and done with quickly because their nerves could no longer stand it. Thus we stood in ranks of ten from 3 o'clock till 9 P.M. Imagine, it was forbidden to sit down; we had to stand "at ease" for six hours. And this after 80 percent of us had not eaten anything for four or five days. At 9 o'clock we were told that we would go to sleep. Our joy was great and we all lay down. After 9 o'clock one of those fifty men came back, fell down on his blanket and broke into tears. We asked him: why are you crying so much. He answered that he had worked very hard. He did not want to disclose the bad news that ammunition, bullets, had been brought up. At half past ten at night-it was the Hoshana Rabba night—we heard screams and sighs and firing and every heart stopped beating. . . .

Voices were heard from afar. Suddenly they come closer to us and shout: “Get up! Outside!" Everyone starts running. Many of us were naked, or clad only in shirts because they had been sleeping. No one, of course, was wearing shoes; who still had shoes left? Those who still had their shoes, did not take them off during the night; they were the only ones who were still wearing shoes. I still had my shoes.

They looked into every corner with electric torches and whenever they found one who had not left, they split his head with their rifle butts. When everyone was outside the atrocities of the morning began anew. About a thousand people were made to run until they were out of breath. For a full hour they made them run, then pushed them for half an hour into a narrow space, then called them out again and crowded them into another narrow space worse than the one before. 700-800 people crammed into such a small space! The men were standing practically glued to each others' feet, bellies or backs. The suffering was terrible.