From the South Quay of Antwerp to the safety of Laytown in WWI
MANY tokens of sympathy and welcome were extended to the 35 Belgian refugees who arrived in Laytown by the 11,45am train on Tuesday.
The station was covered in bunting, flags and mottoes in Flemish.
Practically every resident of Laytown and Bettystown was on the platform.
Amongst them was Rev Fr Norris, St Mary’s and Fr Shaw from Stamullen.
They were tired from their trip from London but in good spirits. They were mainly from Antwerp, but others from Alost, Brussels and Tournai. They were taken to Mrs Creaser’s houses which had been prepared for them. but the general opinion was, “The Germans won’t take Antwerp” But whether Le Chimenant concurred with the general opinion, is doubtful. At any rate, acting on his wife’s advice, he left Antwerp by boat on Wednesday morning, preparing the way for his charges, whom he had left in safe hands. His boat was the last to leave Antwerp.
He got to London and read the papers, amazed to see one family eating raw turnips in Holland - his own!
She had left with the rest of the family on the Wednesday morning and they slept in the open. They finally made it across the channel and met up with her husband.
She told of the stories from home. ‘Upstairs in my home lived a woman named Kopenatin. Her sister lived outside Antwerp with her husband and four children. The Germans burst in her door and bayonetted her husband. They made her drink her husband’s blood and then left with two of the girls. The woman walked to our house and told us what happened,’ she stated.
They expressed their gratitude to their present benefactors, and above all to Mrs Creaser , whose time is fully occupied with her charges.
Jules Alisef, or Alisef Jules,, as he described himself, told me that. when the Germans took Ostend the inhabitants had to chalk on their doors the name of. each male inhabitant, between 18 and 15; those were forced to work for the Germans and in some cases against their own kith and kin. Jules is a happy man, because he.met 100 young men coming from Ghent and. sent them on the right road to France.
Here there was also Mons C Bruymeels, who for 18 years was a store keeper on the Red Star steamer “Finland.” He also is from Antwerp, and after a night in a cellar with his wife and four children they emerged the next morning to find the streets strewn with dead.