#Story

The final, tense night before liberation

Laag Zuthem was liberated by Canadian forces on 13 April 1945. The night before, German troops withdrew from the village, blowing up the bridge over the Wetering in an attempt to delay the Canadian advance. They also abandoned the Red Cross post they had set up at the De Horst farm, owned by the Kloosterziel family.

Eyewitness Willy van de Pol described the tense final night from his hiding place at the farm:

“There was machine-gun fire, and rifle shots rang out. From behind the small windows of the barn, we kept an eye on the situation. We could vaguely see soldiers sneaking past the farm. Along the Wetering, platoons of very young German soldiers slowly pulled back in the direction of Zwolle.

In the morning, it turned out all the soldiers had vanished without a sound, but no one dared go outside just yet. Around nine o’clock, that changed. Two military vehicles arrived and came to a stop at the railway crossing. What strange-looking vehicles they were—sloping oddly toward the rear—and the uniforms of the soldiers were an unusual, ugly color. Someone among us compared it to the droppings of our cows...”

The vehicles turned out to be Allied jeeps. In no time, the entire neighbourhood gathered around, and for the first time in years, the Dutch flag once again flew in public.

Laag Zuthem was free!

Zuthemerweg Zwolle, Overijssel, the Netherlands

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