Arnhem

The citizens of Arnhem, their peaceful town suddenly turned into a battlefield, were understandably in turmoil, unclear about what was happening in the streets not far from their homes. Were they about to be free, or weren’t they? Their emotions were taut, like violin strings that could either deliver the sweetest of music or snap apart. They didn’t know what to think or who to believe. A jubilant Heleen Kernkamp had watched as panicking German soldiers quit a requisitioned house just across the street from where she was staying. ‘In a tearing hurry, they loaded tables, desks, telephones and food into jeeps and drove away.’ The departure of black-uniformed SS troops, ‘who had been responsible for an incalculable amount of grief and misery’, brought the greatest relief and satisfaction. But, as a counterpoint to all this, there was the shelling and the bombing to contend with, getting nearer and nearer all the time, and the terrifying uncertainty about what was happening. The Klompe household where she was staying was filling up as neighbours and friends crowded in, seeking shelter together. The electricity and gas were cut off but the telephone kept ringing. ‘All the piecemeal fragments of news we heard only made us more and more excited and nervous. Nobody knew exactly what was going on except that, judging by the noise, there was heavy fighting. We could not leave or go outside, as we could hear bullets hitting trees, walls and streets.’

They wanted desperately to believe the friend who phoned from Oosterbeek to sing the first verse of the Wilhelmus and announce the liberation there. If the people were free in Oosterbeek, then could Arnhem’s deliverance be far behind? ‘We were all very deeply moved. This was tangible, it was really happening and we became greatly excited.’ Though it was late and the day had been exhausting, no one wanted to go to bed. ‘The constant shelling made us nervous, and we were much too tense and strung up. We all sat together in a big circle round a candle and talked over the events of the day. Suddenly a loud banging on the front door gave us a terrible fright.’

Years of instinct and discipline kicked in, and they all dashed upstairs to hide two young men in the house who were on the run. In their haste, they forgot one of the many cardinal rules of concealment – they failed to remove the young men’s chairs from the circle, and any SS or Gestapo officer entering on a raid would almost certainly have spotted that there were more seats than people and drawn the obvious, calamitous conclusion. As it was, the knock at the door was a false alarm, and they all joined the two men in the attic to stare out over the rooftops of Arnhem. It was ‘a truly fantastic’ sight, with enormous fires from buildings set alight by the Germans or by the bombing burning all over the town. ‘A stiff breeze was blowing sparks along our windows and the whole neighbourhood was lit up by a ghostly reddish glow, through which we could pick out people in the street. One group was sneaking from house to house and peering through windows. We thought that, in spite of everything that was going on, it must be the Germans still hunting out men in hiding. But we were afraid and none of us dared venture outside to check.’ The knock on the door, it transpired, was from someone in the town trying without success to get help for a casualty from the bombing, but the Klompes weren’t alone in being too scared to open up. The atmosphere had switched from hope to apprehension. ‘The fact that we were without light and power for the very first time produced in all of us a sensation of hopelessness. I tried to comfort one woman who was beside herself with terror, but the feeling of being trapped with no means of escape will remain with me for ever. It was one of the most terrible and nerve-wracking experiences of my life.’