The Zoo That Was Turned Into A POW Camp
Keeping the enemy caged — literally
On September 4th, 1944, Allied armies rolled into the Belgian city of Antwerp and forced the Germans out into the marshy estuary surrounding the city. The Germans had enjoyed four years of sipping Belgian coffee and nibbling on Belgian chocolate, but now they were gone. Belgium had been subjected to two German invasions in the course of twenty six years. The constant friction between Belgium and Germany had created strife between the Belgian and German peoples. Belgian resistance fighters immediately began torching houses of known collaborators and rounding up surrendering Germans in the city.
At this point in the war, the Allied supply lines were stretched to their breaking point. Supplies had been building up for months on the beaches of Normandy, but the front lines had rushed forward far faster than many military planners had expected. Antwerp was not expected to be liberated until midway through 1945. This caused a supply backlog that snaked from Normandy through Paris to the Low Countries. Many units at the front did not have the necessary supplies they needed, and that included trucks for holding and shipping prisoners of war from the frontlines to POW camps in the rear.
As a result, the buoyant Allied armies and the joyful people of Antwerp had nowhere to put…
