description
Object description
Belgian civilian in Brussels, Belgium, 1940-1944
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Belgian Congo and Brussels, Belgium, 1924-1940: family; education. Recollections of period as civilian living in Brussels, Belgium, 1940-1944: start of German invasion, 10/5/1940; reasons for refugees taking to roads, 5/1940; effect on morale of King Leopold III staying in Belgium and why he abdicated after Second World War; increase in price of bread; reaction to arrival of German troops in Brussels; German issue of documents to civilians, 1940; saving book by German writer Heinrich Heine from book burning; escaping being sent to Germany as forced labourer; story of how a RAF bombing raid destroyed her papers and prevented her working on German airfield; German marching and singing in streets; German removal of side arms from belts in cafes; story of dealing with drunken German soldier.
REEL 2 Continues: fear of curfew enforcement; story of being caught in round up after German soldier was murdered in Place du Nord and being escorted home by German officer; behaviour of German female military personnel on trams; description of German searches of civilians; incident when Belgian civilian concealed gun in his scarf; connections of relatives with L'Armee Secrete and character of Jennie Fashon; food shortages; how Colorado Beetle destroyed potato crop; story of journey to Aalst to buy potatoes and how Belgian blackshirts of Rexist Party clubbed woman to death who refused to give up her potatoes; eating weevil infested Quaker Oats; scavenging by Brussel's poor for waste food; Germans' pouring petrol onto waste food.
REEL 3 Continues: problem of meat supply; expedition to collect food from farmers and search by Germans and Belgian blackshirts of Rexist Party; problems with clothing supply; incident of clothes robbery; use of wooden soles on shoes; relatives listening to BBC; Liberation Day in Brussels, 3/9/1944; German panic and burning of dome of Palais de Justice; appearance of L'Armee Secrete; ecstatic welcome for British troops in Brussels; treatment of collaborators on liberation; lack of bombing in Brussels; accuracy of RAF bombing; treatment of Jewish civilians; her belief that Germans could not win Second World War and that Germans would not break through during Ardennes Offensive, 12/1944; German V1 Flying Bomb which fell near her home, late 1944; Flemish-Walloon unity during Second World War; VE Day in Grand Place, 8/5/1945; attitude towards Germans.
