History
Understanding what these photographs document: the Liberation of Belgium and the Battle of the Bulge.
This page gathers the facts that give context to the images in the gallery. It will grow alongside the documentary research carried out in parallel with the photography, and, in time, a section devoted to the First World War on Belgian and French soil.
Invasion and occupation (1940-1944)
On 10 May 1940, Germany invaded Belgium despite its neutrality. After eighteen days of fighting, the Belgian army surrendered on 28 May. The country remained occupied for more than four years, under German military administration. More than 25,000 Jews living in Belgium were deported to extermination camps from the Dossin barracks in Mechelen; around a thousand of them survived. Some Belgian soldiers and civilians reached England to form the Free Belgian Forces, alongside the Belgian government in exile.
The Liberation (September 1944)
On 2 September 1944, the first American troops, the 2nd Infantry Division, crossed the Belgian border near Chimay, in Hainaut. The following day, 3 September, Brussels was liberated by the British 2nd Army, alongside the Belgian Piron Brigade. Antwerp was liberated on 4 September by the British 11th Armoured Division, with the help of local resistance fighters, who prevented the destruction of the port infrastructure. Within two weeks, almost the entire Belgian territory was liberated.
The port of Antwerp, though liberated, remained unusable to the Allies until the Scheldt estuary was cleared of German forces. The Battle of the Scheldt, fought mainly by the First Canadian Army from October 1944, reopened the port to Allied shipping by late November — a major logistical stake for the rest of the campaign.
The Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 - January 1945)
On 16 December 1944, the German army launched a major counter-offensive through the wooded Ardennes region, in Belgium and Luxembourg — its last major effort in the West. The objective was to break through the Allied lines and retake the port of Antwerp. It is the largest land battle ever fought by the United States Army.
The town of Bastogne, a strategic road junction, was surrounded by German forces in late December. The American 101st Airborne Division, defending the town, refused to surrender, one of the best-known episodes of the battle. Fighting continued in extreme winter conditions until late January 1945, when German lines were pushed back to their starting positions. More than 19,000 American soldiers lost their lives.
Why this memory endures
Every year, ceremonies in Bastogne bring together the last living veterans, their families, official Belgian and American delegations, and the living history associations that bring this period back to life in the field. This living memory, less the accounts themselves than the way they continue to be passed on physically, on the very ground where the fighting took place, is the central subject of this photographic work.