Especially from 1944 onwards, the relative calm for residents changed. More often they saw German soldiers or men of the Ordnungspolizei, also known as Grüne Polizei because of their green uniform. Civilians were forced to do digging work for the German occupiers, as part of Organisation Todt. When the war came close, male residents were forced to dig tank trenches and foxholes. When the German troops capitulated, ammunition, weapons and vehicles were collected in Zoelen. Some of the vehicles were soon put to non-military use by fire brigades and construction and transport companies. After the liberation, the Orange town of Buren, nicknamed that way since Queen Wilhelmina was Countess of Buren, celebrated the passage of Canadian and Belgian troops.

The Netherlands

Disarming German troops. 

Inhabitants of Buren are welcoming Allied troops.

Digging trenches for the German occupier, as part of Organisation Todt.

The Second World War in Buren

On the Zoelenseweg on the municipal border between Zoelen and Tiel was a sign reading 'Jews unwelcome'. On 29 June 1941, three Jews defiantly allowed themselves to be photographed at the sign, the Tiel brothers Levie and Joop Bartels with Eric Sanders in their midst. Sanders was a Jewish friend from Amsterdam who was stationed in Tiel during mobilisation and billeted with the Bartels family. The text on and the shape of the sign still indicates a homemade sign. Later in 1941, as the occupying forces increasingly rigorously enforced the separation of Jewish and non-Jewish residents, small standard prohibition signs with the text 'Forbidden for Jews' appeared everywhere in public places.

Jews unwelcome

After the war, tolerance was sometimes soon forgotten. In Ammerzoden, in the Bommelerwaard area, shortly after the war, there was great commotion about a procession that the Catholic inhabitants wanted to hold, in which they would also cross a bit of the territory of neighbouring town Well. The Wellen people were largely Reformed and the reverend objected strongly.

Tolerance in the church in Kerk-Avezaath

Johan van Caspel wrote an article on the 'Cabaret in a pigsty' for the soldiers' magazine Front en Heem. Just outside Tiel was a German battery. The commander of the artillery was Steinbach. To offer the German soldiers in the Betuwe some entertainment, he took the initiative to organise a performance at the farm where he was staying. On foot and on bicycles, men from far and wide came to the performance. A hot meal and some drinks strengthened the front camaraderie. To be able to forget soldier life for a moment, as SS man Hendrik Spijkers described in his diary: '...Cellars, ruined farms, old bunkers of the Dutch army are the dwellings, but quite comfortably furnished with furniture from Kesteren. For their food the boys take care of themselves. Spähtrupps (reconnaissance patrols) fetch oil, bacon, flour, pickled fruit etc. from Opheusden which is more or less in No Man's Land...'. The performance was a remarkable undertaking so close behind the front in the final phase of the battle. A large photo album of the event was compiled by correspondents reporting on the battle in the Betuwe.

Performance in the pig barn

Allied units disarmed German soldiers. For example, German soldiers were disarmed at the De Hamsche Brug farm in Kerk-Avezaath. Ammunition and weapons are handed in. The disarming of the German troops was done by the Allied forces, not by the Internal Armed Forces who stepped out in many places starting May 5. Tons of war gear were thus collected. In Tiel, a large amount of confiscated ammunition was stored in an auction hall of the Septer company on Stationsstraat after the war. The dangerous stuff remained there much longer than the residents wished. On a meadow across from the farm De Hamsche Biezen in Kerk-Avezaath, war material was collected and sorted. Equipment pieces of the soldiers were piled up and the confiscated vehicles were neatly put together. Because there was a great lack of "rolling material" in the Netherlands, some of the vehicles were given all kinds of non-military functions, for example, with fire departments and construction and transport companies. On the Linge near Zoelen was a simple prisoner of war camp, where German troops stayed for a short time in tents, guarded by soldiers of the Piron Brigade, before being transported to central assembly points.

Disarming German troops

Dances and folk games were spontaneous expressions of relief and adherence to the House of Orange. On their march through the Netherlands to the cities of the west, Canadian troops, soldiers of the Belgian Brigade Piron and the Dutch Stoottroepers were received jubilantly as liberators. Soldiers of the Belgian Brigade Piron were welcomed and cheered as liberators in Buren. The photo shows a truck leaving the town via the bridge over the Korne River. In the background the flags in the Peperstraat and the tower of St. Lambert's Church. The "liberation" of Buren was done by soldiers of the Brigade Piron to which some tanks of a Canadian unit were added. Some German troops were in Buren still after their official surrender, sometimes until May 9th.

Belgian Piron Brigade enters Buren

During fighting on 10 March 1945, Lieutenant James Philip Sedgwick from Whixley Yorkshire was hit by enemy fire. He was buried in a field grave and later buried in Zoelen cemetery. Sedgwick has a Military Cross award which he received in 1944.On the back of the chapel in the cemetery is a plaque with the names of Zoelen residents who were World War II war dead.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/11169/Commonwealth-War-Graves-General-Cemetery-Zoelen.htm">TracesofWar.com</a>

Zoelen General Cemetery

On 16 June 1944 at 11pm, from RAF base Pocklington, the Halifax LW192 took off on a mission to bomb a synthetic oil plant at Sterkrade in the Ruhr area. The aircraft was part of a formation of 321 bombers, including 147 Lancasters, 162 Halifaxes and 12 Mosquitos. LW192 was shot down over the Netherlands by a German night fighter and subsequently crashed near Buurmalsen. All crew members died in the crash; they are all buried in the Buren General Cemetery. The raid was unsuccessful; only a few bombs were detonated near the factory. Damage was minimal and factory production suffered very little. A total of 31 bombers were lost, a major loss partly due to a heavy attack by Luftwaffe fighters stationed in the area.Sergeant (W.Op.Air) John Owen Booker, 1388994, 21 years old Pilot Officer (Pilot) Eric Frederick Braddock, 177675, 22 years Sergeant (Air Gnr.) Ernest Arthur Finch, 1894312, 21 years Sergeant (Air Bomber) Ronald Leslie Putt, 1585983, 20 years Sergeant (Nav.) Winston Alyerstone Reid, 1800815, 26 years Pilot Officer (Flt. Engr.) Enrico William Zaccheo, 177540, 32 years Sergeant (Air Gnr.) Gerald Hadfield, 1047949, 21 years<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/1614/Commonwealth-War-Graves-General-Cemetery-Buren.htm">TracesOfWar.com</a>

Buren General Cemetery

Fall Storch was de German code name for the flooding of the Betuwe area on 2 December 1944. On that day, German troops blew up the dike near Elden, resulting in the entire Lower Betuwe up to the - not yet completed - Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, between Rijswijk and Tiel, being flooded. The Liniedijk could not withstand the pressure of the rising water on 6 December and collapsed, flooding the area behind it, including the villages of Lienden and Maurik. This area was still in German hands; they were forced by the water to retreat there. On Sunday 10 December, Typhoons of the 193rd Squadron of the Royal Air Force attacked the already partly succumbed Line Dyke once more with so-called 1000-pounders. A new gap of some 100 metres was the result. The dyke along the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal now had to hold back the further rising water. With the efforts of many men from the area this dyke could be strengthened to the extent that it held.The Allies had to retreat in part, but held out. The German troops themselves also suffered greatly from the water. In the flooded country, it was very difficult to stay on the roads if the local situation was not known. Not only the soldiers suffered from the water, but also the inhabitants of the Lower Betuwe. Especially in Ingen and Maurik where thousands of evacuees from the surrounding villages that were in the front line took temporary shelter.The water caused a lot of trouble until April 1945, in the meantime transportation had to go via rowing boats, rafts and all kinds of wooden structures.

Plan Ooievaar

Near Beusichem, civilians were forced to do digging work for the occupying forces. As the violence of war approached, male residents were forced to dig tank trenches, trenches and foxholes. The men were accompanied by Germans from Organisation Todt, the semi-military service responsible for building compounds and defences for the army. The organisation was named after its founder Fritz Todt. One of the Germans in the picture is wearing a white armband with the letter OT. In Culemborg, the Dutch headquarters of the service was located in the building of the former seminary in the town from March 1944 to October 1944.

Organisation Todt

At the end of the 1930s, Fekko Ebbens moved from East-Groningen to Zoelen, where he married Johanna Smit. Ebbens became a fruit grower and the owner of De Wildt Farm just outside of the village, across the Amsterdam-Rijn Canal . During the war, Fekko provided a hiding place for Jews, stolen ration coupons and weapons, at the farm.Around the 12th October 1944, Peter Baker and Ted Bachenheimer, a British intelligence officer and an American paratrooper, were sent from the already liberated region of North Brabant, to set up Operation Windmill, an escape route for the allied Airborne soldiers that were stranded in and around Zoelen after the failure of Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem. The majority of the soldiers were hidden in the Veluwe region and the operation planned to take them through Amerongen, across the Lower Rhine River, and along numerous back roads to De Wildt Farm. From there, they would be taken across the River Waal at Echteld and on, into liberated territory in the south.On 16th October, the German Sicherheitsdienst (intelligence agency of the SS and Nazi party) appeared at De Wildt Farm. Ebbens and his wife, three Dutch refugees, a resistance fighter and the two allied officers were dragged out of bed just as a group of resistance fighters arrived with a shipment of weapons. Shots were fired, but the resistance fighters managed to get away. The Germans set fire to the farm out of revenge and the resistance's weapons store caught fire and blew up.Ted Bachenheimer managed to escape a few days later, but was soon recaptured. He was executed on 22nd October in ’t Harde. To spare his wife and the resistance fighter, Fekko Ebbens took full blame and was shot by a firing squad on 14th November, in Renswoude. Each of these deaths is commemorated by a small memorial at the scenes of the executions.