Memorial Executed Anhée

The municipal council of Anhée inaugurated a stela on September 2, 1990 at the place where the massacres of September 4, 1944 began.
This stela stands next to a wooden cross at the edge of the field and bears a plaque with the simple words:
"In memory of the victims of Nazism, brutally shot in Anhée on September 4, 1944".

The 1940-45 war was a brutal period for the village of Anhée on a human level.
As early as May 1940, five soldiers had died during the campaign, and about fifty others were deported to Germany. Three never returned. Two women had been killed in aerial bombardments on the routes of the flight. During the four years of the occupation, the population had known nothing but fear and deprivation.
But the most difficult was yet to come, the tragedy of September 4, 1944, the work of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
During the Allied landings on June 6, 1944, this division was one of the first deployed to the landing beaches. The annals report that this 12th SS Armored Division distinguished itself by its barbarism.

In August the German retreat through France and Belgium began. On September 3, the
12th SS Division crossed the Maas at the Yvoir bridge and took up position on the right bank between Godinne and Houx. They were ambushed by the resistance.
They were very seasoned SS men, but full of hateful resentment, who a day later stood in front of Anhée where they committed terrible atrocities.
As early as the morning of September 4, SS detachments entered the center of Anhée. They demanded food, robbed a jeweler and set his house on fire.
The Germans then marched through the Dorpsstraat where they brought the residents out of their hiding place or cellar. Several people fled in general panic as shots were fired in their direction. Several civilians were shot dead in cold blood and houses were set on fire.
The toll was heavy: thirteen men shot dead, four seriously injured, 73 buildings destroyed and 15 others damaged.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck