And wishing all those displaced by war across the globe more peaceful times.
In the picture below, civilians in La Gleize are among the lucky survivors of the Battle of the Bulge. They pensively look into the camera after American forces halted the merciless Waffen SS force of Kampfgruppe Peiper in a battle that razed most of their village to the ground. Despite being a fairly thinly populated rural area, an estimated three thousand civilians lost their lives in the Ardennes. Many of them were taken by surprise in December 1944 and failed to escape on time. Just as many others simply refused to flee because they were small farmers who preferred to protect homestead and cattle against the second Nazi German aggression in five years. Their stories have often remained untold, which is why, some years ago, I decided to write the history of the harrowing fate of the Belgian and Luxembourg civilians in my book ‘The Unknown Dead.’ The book has been published by The University Press of Kentucky and is available on Amazon. (Dutch translation by Manteau.)
