On 10 May 1940, Hitler proclaimed the word Danzig over the radio – the code word for his troops to begin the invasion of Western Europe – thus sending his forces into Holland and Belgium, en route to France. On the same day, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Aircraft continued to rumble overhead, unceasingly, one after another. Their shadows rippled across my face and arms. Sun, shadow. Sun, shadow. Menacing, dark, in formation – a monster.
The sun illuminated the heavy iron crosses adorning the aircrafts’ wings, the planes’ metallic bodies glinted grey against the clouds. The low growl of their engines shattered the peaceful sky, threatening and belligerent.
I could not believe what I was seeing. My father had warned me. My aunt had warned me. People in the street had said it was a certitude. Yet I had refused to believe them. But there it was, the German air force, blotting the Belgian sky, invading my country, invading my soul. Why was this happening? What did these people want with the park, my horse, and with my thumbnail-size country? There was no longer any distance between me and the war, between me and the encroaching monster. Hitler’s forces were invading Belgium.
Run! I thought.
At first, in the Royal Park, everyone remained immobile and stared up into the sky as if transfixed by something almost beautiful. Then an old woman lifted her small arm, pointed upward and said, ‘Le Boche’. She repeated the word again, this time with a shrillness to her words: ‘Le Boche! Le Boche!’ The sound sent chills through my body.
The people in the park began to run in all directions. I looked for my sergeant and Charlotte, but they were gone. Mothers pushed their baby carriages with force and determination. Girls abandoned their jump ropes. Boys looked up into the sky as their fathers dragged them from the grass.
As the sky swarmed with German planes, a balloon vendor released his yellow, red, and green balloons, which floated upward as if on a mission to chase them away.
Looking up overhead I was reminded of the flying monkeys in the film The Wizard of Oz; how they had grabbed Dorothy and Toto at the command of the Wicked Witch of the West. I stood, not understanding, the cobblestones under my feet and the shadows of the planes cutting across my body.
I clutched at my arms and shoulders and whispered, ‘My arms! My arms!’ My childhood fear of resembling my father crept up on me once again, released from my subconscious by the sinister portent I was witnessing. ‘I don’t want to look like my father. I don’t want my arms to dangle uselessly at my side,’ I muttered to myself.
That is when I heard the sergeant’s voice echoing in my ears, ‘Go home, Simone! Go home!’ and I too began to run.
I didn’t know then that Hitler’s army had invaded Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium simultaneously. I didn’t know that Hitler would soon clear a passage through the Ardennes, a region of thick forest and rough terrain, and surprise the Belgian army. I had no inkling that the SS, Hitler’s elite paramilitary force, planned to capture and shoot my father because he had blown up bridges and cut telegraph lines to slow the German advance.
All I knew was the moaning of those horrible planes flying over me as I ran, trying to escape the noise and confusion, trying to get home. I understood that Germany and Russia invaded Poland. I understood that Hitler had invaded Norway and Denmark, but my father had said Belgium was neutral. We were a peace-loving nation. Hitler here, in Brussels, was incomprehensible. All I knew was that I had to escape this monstrous intrusion.
When I reached the street, I saw buses at a standstill and people rushing down alleys. Office workers ran out of the buildings and looked up into the sky. It was as if a mythical and terrible dragon had descended on the city, breathing fire; the harbinger of destruction – the Dragon of the Second World War. Smoke filled the square with a thick, acrid fog and as I ran through the street it squeezed my lungs. I coughed, choked, and saw flames catch hold of buildings and fields – fire so bright it was almost blinding. Brussels was burning.
I remembered my father talking of Blitzkrieg. Lightning war. Now it made sense. The planes had come from nowhere, rolling over the horizon like storm clouds on a summer’s evening; black, relentless, powerful, unyielding. Tanks rolled over open fields and hedgerows. Elite squads of soldiers with parachutes dropped from the sky, striking the ground like bolts from above.
I must get back to the house, I thought. Papa said to stay in the house!
When I reached my front door, I struggled to unlock it. I dug into my pocket for the key. My hand shook. I dropped the key. It bounced on the pavement. People ran back and forth. A woman with a sack of potatoes nearly knocked me over. A man with a cane waved me aside as he rushed through the crowd. I was desperate to find that key. The planes were still coming. Danger was approaching. I imagined I could feel the heat of the engines on my neck. I remember looking down and seeing the high-heeled shoes of well-dressed women, the plain black shoes of a priest. The butcher, the postman, a woman from my church, people I recognized, all hurried away. I felt like a twig caught in a tornado, twirling in the chaos. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
‘Mademoiselle Simone!’
I heard my name as if coming from a tunnel.
‘Mademoiselle Simone! Here! Here!’
I turned towards the voice. Standing in the middle of the whirling crowd was little Nicole. She held her hand up in the air, and in her hand was my key.
‘I have it here. Your key!’ She waved her arm back and forth. My little saviour.
Nicole ran to me, dodging men with suitcases and women with bags of vegetables and bread. ‘Here’s your key!’
When the girl reached out her hand, I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the way of a large man pushing a cart filled with furniture. I pressed Nicole’s small head against my chest as I held her, trying to protect her, trying to protect myself, trying to protect all of Belgium.
I heard explosions in the distance as planes thundered overhead. Suddenly, as we huddled on the front stoop, a deafening crash like a giant tree falling to the earth erupted from the sky. A bomb struck a nearby apartment building, bursting it open like a nutcracker, sending flaming bricks and shards of glass careening into the streets. The entire front wall toppled over, cries of terror rose from within, and as an air-raid siren wailed, the fire consumed the building. Black smoke rose into the air like a victorious dragon.
Madame Johnson appeared at her door.
‘Nicole!’ she shouted. ‘Come inside! Quick! Come inside now! Simone, are you okay?’ I nodded as I released Nicole, who was crying now and desperate to run into her mother’s arms.
‘Go home!’ Sergeant De Waden’s voice echoed in my head. Then the voice became my father’s. ‘Stay inside the house, Simone. Stay in the house!’
‘I’m okay.’ I cleared my throat and waved to Madame Johnson. ‘I just need to get into the house.’
Madame Johnson nodded, blew me a kiss, and hurried through her front door.