Mural Nijmegen 1945

On a wall in the corner Marikenstraat / Moenenstraat in Nijmegen is in memory of the Second World War, a wall text to see made ​​by Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon, who also wrote about World War I.

Louis Paul Boon was still very young in the First World War, yet enough impressions had lingered to write a book about it. He does this on the first fifty pages of "Shredded Youth Portrait" from 1975.
German soldiers and prisoners of war were stationed near the street where Louis Paul Boon and his family lived. While performing forced labor, prisoners would occasionally attempt to flee and as a child he witnessed two attempts: one successful and one in which the inmate was shot on the run while standing next to Louis Paul Boon.
In the Second World War, during the mobilization in September 1939, as Soldier Boon he had to go first to Gooik and then to Tessenderlo.
The outbreak of war in May 1940 brought an abrupt end to peace and Louis Paul Boon had to help defend the Albert Canal near Maastricht in Veldwezelt.
The first day he was captured and taken as a prisoner of war to Fallingbrush near Hanover. Four months later, in August 1940, he was allowed to go home. His experiences as a soldier are described in the first chronicles of "My Little War" from 1947.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Jimmy Hilgen