Thursday 1st December: Mechelen’s Diary – February 1941

Davids’ unit (as well as my own) was part of the follow-up force that assisted in the final stages of the pacification of the town of L., once the enemy troop line had been pushed back 10 kilometres beyond the city boundary. Residual combat forces had remained in the town to secure the essential bridges, thoroughfares and buildings. However, there was still much wild activity and looting, especially in respect of the local militias and irregular groupings that had either formed ‘spontaneously’ after the Slav retreat, or who had been drawn to the area after hearing of the town’s liberation.

The town was overhung with the smoke from many fires, and as we drove into the town along the winter-hardened road (there was very little snow still lying, fortunately) I could smell that there were buildings burning (there’s a very distinctive smell of burning timber, dust and hot roof tiles), and the chemical-rich smell of burning factories, and the smell of burning people. There were dead Slav soldiers still lying where they had fallen in the streets – a surprisingly large number, I thought. The ethnic Westerners were gathered in the streets in knots and larger groups – all ages, and men, women and children – all wrapped in their winter clothes and hats, and seemingly enjoying a kind of party atmosphere. They were helping themselves to the contents of the shops with names in Slavic script – food, clothing, pots and pans, samovars, anything they could carry. I remember seeing two young women push-pulling an upright piano balanced on a tiny cart along a cobbled street. They stopped to rest (they were sweating despite the cold), and our truck went past them. One of these girls was very attractive, her face made up prettily, and her black hair emerging in a crisp curve from under her woollen hat. On the cobble behind where she was standing there was a dead Slav soldier collapsed like a broken scarecrow, missing his head. The girls didn’t seem to notice that he was there. They held their piano steady with one hand each and waved to us with the other.

In the main square we had to wait while some policemen cleared a path for the trucks through the dense crowd. (I say ‘policemen’, but they were merely civilians in dark suits; they had improvised white cloth armbands bearing a small national flag emblem, and antique-looking rifles slung over their shoulders. They were shouting more than regular policemen would do, and gesticulating in an extravagant manner. I suspect that many of them were drunk.) The town’s real policemen – former Slav collaborators and hirelings – were all being held in their own jail, in the basement of the town bastion.

We arrived at the bastion – a squat structure in dirty yellow stone blackened with soot and bird shit – and had to wait again while a crowd was dispersed. In the courtyard there was a cordon of militiamen and, beyond them on the cobbles, perhaps fifty bodies of policemen who had apparently been beaten to death (there were bloodstained pickaxe handles and iron bars on the ground, which children were poking at – some of the older, braver children were picking these weapons up and wielding them in imitation of the adults who had done the brutal killing. It seemed improper to me that these children were here, and that there was a milling group of onlookers peering at the bodies: it was all woefully uncontrolled and ad hoc. Colonel Davids’ men, all the while, were standing around watching what was going on, but making no intervention of any kind – merely smoking cigarettes, talking to each other and pointing things out, and laughing.

While we stood looking, there was a commotion near one of the bastion’s internal gates: another squad of militiamen were making a group of what turned out to be collaborators run the gauntlet: the militiamen made a tunnel that the naked collaborators had to run through while punches and kicks rained in on them. I saw one man have his eye put out: he put his hand over it as it rested there on his bloody cheek, and held up his other arm to try and protect himself. These men too would have been killed in this orgy of mob violence if we had not intervened.

I approached one of Davids’ NCOs, a good man who I had fought with in Poland. I asked him where his Colonel was, and what orders his men had been given. It turned out that they had had no orders. The Colonel was inside the bastion with the militia commanders. I instructed my senior Lieutenant to clear the courtyard of all civilians, close the gate, and take the naked men into custody.

The bastion’s interior was very well-decorated, with much wood panelling and decorative plaster work. The corridors were carpeted, and elegant electric lights lined the walls. I found Colonel Davids in one of the upstairs rooms, drinking brandy with three militia leaders, one of whom was sitting with his boots on an enormous oak council table; he had a machine gun clutched against his chest. I asked Colonel Davids if he and I could speak together in private.

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