Memorial Zwanenburg

In February 1945, the Germans carried out major raids on labor in Germany. This happened on February 19, among other things. The forced laborers were transported to Germany by train. One of these trains, full of men, came from the West. On 23 February this train ran through Enschede and eventually stopped along the Oosterstraat. The men on the train had been on the road for a few days and were hungry. The forced laborers thought they were already in Germany and so one of them decided to ask the Enschede spectators for food in German: "Wir haben seit stern nicht mehr gegessen" (translated: we haven't eaten anything since yesterday). The answer was: "This is Enschede!"

One of the guards responded by walking to the edge of the ditch and aiming his gun at the people in the street. Panic ensued and people ran away to the alleys between the houses. After this there was a few more shots in the air. Still, the people reappeared later. They had brought food such as bread and tobacco and threw it at the train. A gate was opened on the other side of the train near the Van Heek factories. It was very noisy in the train compartments and many ran out of the train into the factory site. The German guards were on the side of the Oosterstraat, so they didn't realize what was going on until late. This allowed many forced laborers to flee.
Alarmed now, the Germans ripped open the doors of the train and pushed through the compartments to the other side of the train. Shots and shouts rang out. Immediately afterwards the train started moving again and slowly went in the direction of Gronau.

The train also contained 300 men from Zwanenburg, a town in North Holland. As a thank you for the spontaneous help that the population of Enschede had offered, the population of Zwanenburg donated a memorial stone to the Enschede population on 25 January 1946. It has been placed in the facade of Enschede's town hall and can still be found here.

The inscription reads:
Zwanenburg thanks Enschede for the help that the population of this city provided to its kidnapped civilians on their way to Germany, 23 February 1945

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Source

• Text: Alex Ossel
• Photos: Fedor de Vries (1), Alex Ossel (2, 3, 4)