TO FREEDOM
Airborne Division’s Easy Company – the famed Band of Brothers – literally dropped in. He’s welcomed visitors in search of liberation stories ever since.
Further along the route is Groesbeek and perched where the Americans of the 82nd Airborne landed is the National Liberation Museum. Exhibits aren’t limited to the airborne operation but cover the wider war with even a branded box of Nazi chief Hermann Goering’s cigars.
They were “liberated” by two Dutch art experts tasked with retrieving treasures he’d plundered. The box is half-empty as they smoked a cheroot each time they found new loot.
Arnhem, location of the famous “Bridge Too Far”, is the Operation Market Garden objective most familiar to people in the UK, as this was the destination of British and often overlooked Polish airborne troops.
Come during the September commemorations and you’ll find ceremonies such as the wreath-laying in Airborne Square, intertwined with events like the Bridge to Liberation Experience’s diverse music and drama on the river.
Bagpipes are constantly in evidence, given a number of Scottish connections to the battle.
They rang out over Ginkel Heath as a mass parachute drop created a flashback to the mission. This year a veteran of a Scots regiment had the honour of placing a wreath in memory of fallen comrades, who lie in the troops’ cemetery in Oosterbeek.
The Airborne Museum there is not standing still in time. A new “walk-through” exhibit places you in the boots of a British paratrooper.
I’d not heard of Camp Vught, established by the Nazis as the Netherlands’ concentration camp. My afternoon spent behind its barbed-wire fences was a stark reminder of what the Allied troops were fighting against.
The Dutch people I met were passionate about keeping history alive to prevent such hateful ideas